A Paean to the Pasticheurs

If, at the next annual BSI dinner, an enterprising soul were to set up a booth where, for a small charge, a Sherlockian could hurl thin-skinned tomatoes at the head of the man who wrote Sherlock Holmes in Dallas, that person could make the beginning of their fortune. Should this author not be available, there is a host of other pastiche writers that would suffice: the villain who wrote The Last Sherlock Holmes Story, the author of The Case of the Philosopher's Ring, and there are those who might even like to get in a pitch or two at Nicholas Meyer, author the best-selling The Seven-Per-Cent Solution. Pastiche writing is definitely a good way to become notorious in the Sherlockian world. Few pastiches are liked by all Sherlockians, yet practically everyone has to try their hand at writing them. Talent is no prerequisite for attempting to follow in the footsteps of John Watson, as proven by a good number of gloriously horrid failures. Oftimes this negative side of "extending the Canon," is the one that catches our attention, for Sherlockians love to tear apart anything which is not up to the caliber of the Sacred Writings. But then, what truly could be?

There is a positive side to pastichery, however, that is so often overlooked by its critics. We live in a far different age than that in which the Canon was written. Writing styles have changed. The English language has changed. Whether these change are for better or worse is a matter of opinion. Time has brought them, and we must accept the world as it is, not as it was. As it is, a young person is less and less comfortable in picking up HOUN and enjoying it upon first reading. The way Watson wrote in the 1890's is just too different from the way words flow together in the mind of today's youngster. A bridge is needed -- something to prepare young minds (and even many adult minds) Watson's wondrous prose.

That bridge is the pastiche. In attempting to mimic Watson," the average pasticheur tries valiantly to get the phrases and tones of Victorian England flowing from his pen. He tries with all the mimicry he can muster, but in the end he usually fails. The word rhythms he was brought up on are too much a part of him. They creep through his defenses and become a part of his story as well. The resulting blend of the modern with the Victorian, while often criticized as failed pastichery, is just what a young man needs to prepare him for the true thing. If reading HOUN is uncomfortable for him at first, reading Hellbirds or Enter the Lion can familiarize him with enough of the Victorian style that he can truly enjoy HOUN on his next attempt.

But can even the best pastiche draw tomorrow's Sherlockians out of generations weaned on Star Wars, MTV, and the Cabbage Patch gnome? The vision of fewer and fewer young people learning to like Holmes from simple contact with the original books is a discouragingly easy one to imagine. One look at the mystery shelves of most bookstores will show fewer and fewer stocking all nine books of the Holmes Canon. Amidst such grim omens, however, there is at least one ray of hope for the Sherlockian future: recent attempts to translate Holmes to a visual medium.

To assist in bringing more adults back to the original Holmes stories, there is the new TV series coming soon to PBS's Mystery!. And even more promising, especially for today's youth, is word that Steven Spielberg has lined up some top talent to write and direct his new movie Young Sherlock Holmes. If this does anything like Spielberg's recent endeavors, a Sherlock Holmes fad unlike anything seen since the excitement over the original stories could be in the offing.

High-minded Sherlockians are liable to treat such a phenomenon much as they would a pastiche of the lowest sort. "Holmes would never do such things as he did in that film," they might say, turning up their noses at the games and dolls springing up in toy stores and bearing the movie's likeness of young Holmes. But new times demand new tactics, and if takes a cinematic pastiche to turn the video-crazed heads of the young to the works of Watson, then so be it. Eventually they will find their way from the movie theatre to STUD, and from there . . . who knows? Reading all the stories, joining a scion society, writing Sherlockian articles -- those with new tastes for Sherlock Holmes will grow and develop. New Sherlockians will read all sixty stories, as those who came before them did, and cry out for more. Where will they turn? Back once more to the pastiche.

Live long, you writers of that which strives to be but is not Watson. You are the future for all of us.

(Printed in Plugs & Dottles, February 1985)