What Was Doyle Thinking?

Hanging around on the electronic moors ofthe Internet, one can't help but notice certain patterns in the howling of the Hounds that live there.

(This is, of course, just my visual metaphor for the Hounds of the Internet, that massive Sherlockian society of the computer literate. We computer folk love to use evocative metaphors like "web surfing" and "cyberspace" to describe the glorified telegraph system that connects our computers. It makes us feel like we’re doing something other than sitting and staring at a screen for hours on end.)

The Hounds of the Internet is perhaps the most chaotic of Sherlockian societies. Its discourse rambles from cooked eel to professional wrestling during any given week, all spawned from some Sherlockian connection or another. The subject matter seems almost random at times, but there are also patterns, as I've mentioned. Certain topics ... or certain styles of topics ...show up again and again. One of these is the ever-popular:

"What was Conan Doyle thinking when he wrote...."

Sometimes this speculation gets taken to extreme measures, as when someone starts wondering if Conan Doyle had ever spoken with Nigel Bruce and told him that was how he should play Watson. Other times it has resulted in a heated debate between scholars who have spent a good deal of time studying the intricacies of the author's life.

It's a fascinating thing to watch, one human being trying to decipher the thoughts of another. Even if the person who is the object of study is alive and well, the answers aren't always clear cut. And it never seems to turn out as well as Sherlock Holmes's well-known success at reading Watson's thoughts in “The Adventure of the Cardboard Box."

Yet, being the curious (some would say "nosy") sorts that we are, there is that tendency to speculate.

Personally, I like to think Conan Doyle's thoughts when writing the Canon ran rather like this:

"If that [CENSORED] Watson doesn't slow down and write more clearly. I'm going to kick his [CENSORED] fat {CENSORED} down those [CENSORED} seventeen steps and to some (CENSORED] typing lessons. If he thinks I'm (CENSORED] well going to keep (CENSORED] copying his [CENSORED] scribbles, he can [CENSORED] [CENSORED] [CENSORED] himself!!"

Now, there arc those who would slap my typing fingers and remonstrate for my portraying a.) Watson as the true writer of the Canon, and b.) Doyle as anything but the perfect gentleman he was. They will not, however, be able to tell you what he was thinking about when he was writing along.

He could have been thinking "Hey, when I get this story done, I'll head for Whitechapel and slash another prostitute!" for all anyone can prove. Who knows what evil lurks in (fee hearts, of men? Well, if you believe Sherlock Holmes is fictitious, then the mind-reading abilities of the Shadow are really far out.

But, having posed that gruesome possibility, I feel it is now my responsibility to demonstrate that Conan Doyle wasn't Jack the Ripper, just so we can all sleep tonight.

What was he thinking when he wrote the Sherlock Hohnes stories, if indeed, it was he and not Watson that wrote them?

Well. let's look at a typical passage from the Canon:

"A stone-flagged passage, with the kitchens branching away from it, led by a wooden staircase directly to the first floor of the house. It came out upon the landing opposite to a second more ornamental stair which came up from the front hall."

Now this is a tough one. The plain stair leading to the fancier one. The stone passage leading to the room of plenty, the kitchen. The front hall as opposed to the back hall. What complex chain of mental gymnastics could possibly have led to this miniature of literary production?

Well, I'll let you in on a little writer's secret, boys and girls. You want to know EXACTLY what Doyle was thinking when he wrote those words? I'll tell you:

"A stone-flagged passage, with the kitchens branching away from it, led by a wooden staircase directly to the first floor of the house. It came out upon the landing opposite to a second more ornamental stair which came up from the front hall."

That’s all.

A writer may ponder a plot. A writer may think about an image or two. But if you're going to write as much as Conan Doyle did in his lifetime, the words have to pump straight out of your brain, thoughts conveyed to paper. You may polish later. You may rewrite. But those are still more thoughts being moved to paper.

Where do the thoughts come from?

Well, if you can figure out exactly where thought comes from, you'd better drop this column and get out and win a Nobel Peace Prize. Until then, take it from me, we know what Doyle was thinking when he wrote the Canon:

The Canon.

(Printed in Plugs & Dottles, March 1997)