In the first Holmes story, Dr. Watson compares Holmes
to C. Auguste Dupin, Edgar Allan Poe's fictional detective, who used a similar
methodology. To this Holmes replies: "In
my opinion, Dupin was a very inferior fellow... he had some analytical genius,
no doubt; but he was by no means such a phenomenon as Poe appears to
imagine". Alluding to an episode in "The Murders in the Rue
Morgue", where Dupin deduces what his friend is thinking
despite their having walked together in silence for a quarter of an hour,
Holmes remarks: "That trick of his breaking
in on his friend's thoughts with an apropos remark... is really very showy and
superficial.” Nevertheless, Holmes later performs the same 'trick'
on Watson in "The Adventure of the Cardboard Box". Even though
Sherlock seems to be unhuman and to always be right, Conan Doyle gives him more
paints Holmes as fallible.
The first thing that most people think when they hear
Sherlock Holmes’ name is the famous sentence: ”Elementary, My Dear Watson”.
Well, let me ruin this for you real quick; he never actually said that in any
of the original 56 short stories or 4 novels starring his character. The
closest he comes is in, “The Adventure of the Crooked Man.”
“I have the advantage of knowing your habits, my dear
Watson,” said he. “When your round is a short one you walk, and when it is a long one
you use a hansom. As I perceive that your boots, although used, are by no means
dirty, I cannot doubt that you are at present busy enough to justify the
hansom.
“Excellent!” I cried.
“Elementary,” said he.
Beyond that, there are only 7 other instances of the
word “elementary” being pronounced in the official Sherlock Holmes works,
though he does say “my dear Watson” numerous times. It’s noted by Sherlockian.net, one of the most popular
websites about anything that has to do with Sherlock Holmes, that although
Holmes never uses the often misquoted phrase, “elementary, my dear Watson“, he does use the phrase, “exactly, my dear
Watson” in 3 different stories. So, the question is: where did the
phrase “Elementary, my dear Watson”
come from? Well, the first known, or at least recorded use of the phrase was in
the 1915 novel, Psmith, Journalist written by P.G. Wodehouse. We
should point out that the book does not star Sherlock Holmes and as a matter of
fact, the Sherlock Holmes stories were still being published at the time. We
should also point out that, though Psmith,
Journalist was published as a novel in 1915, it was a serial before that,
the date of the first known usage of the phrase as 1909. The exact first known
instance of the “Elementary, my dear Watson”, which appears in that work, is as
follows:
“I fancy,” said Psmith, “that this is one of
those moments when it is necessary for me to unlimber my Sherlock Holmes
system. As thus. If the rent collector had been there, it is certain, I think,
that Comrade Spaghetti, or whatever you said his name was, wouldn’t have been.
That is to say, if the rent collector had called and found no money waiting for
him, surely Comrade Spaghetti would have been out in the cold night instead of
under his own roof-tree. Do you follow
me, Comrade Maloney?”
“That’s right,” said Billy Windsor. “Of course.”
“Elementary, my dear Watson, elementary,” murmured Psmith.
Irene Adler Norton is a character featured in "A Scandal in Bohemia", published
in July 1891. She is one of the most notable female characters in the Sherlock
Holmes stories, despite appearing in only one tale. Irene Adler is the only woman that Sherlock Holmes
shows an unbounded admiration for. For example, when the King of Bohemia says, "Would she not
have made an admirable queen? Is it not a pity that she was not on my
level?" Holmes replies that Miss Adler is indeed on a much
different level than the King, by which he means higher.
The beginning of "A Scandal in Bohemia"
describes the high regard in which Holmes held Adler:
To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom
heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and
predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to
love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent
to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it, the most
perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but as a lover
he would have placed himself in a false position. He never spoke of the softer
passions, save with a gibe and a sneer. They were admirable things for the observer--excellent
for drawing the veil from men's motives and actions. But for the trained
reasoner to admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely adjusted
temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which might throw a doubt
upon all his mental results. Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one
of his own high-power lenses, would not be more disturbing than a strong
emotion in a nature such as his. And yet there was but one woman to him, and
that woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory.
This "memory"
is kept alive by a photograph of Irene, which had been left for the King
when she and her new husband took flight with the photograph of Irene and the
King. Holmes asked for and received this photo of Irene as his payment for his
part in the case. This photograph is one of his most prized possessions.
However, despite all this, Holmes did not feel anything more than respect and
possibly admiration for her.
Article by Azzurra Furnari
Commenti
Posta un commento