The Immersion Library

“You can file it in our archives, Watson. Some day the true story may be told.”

Sherlock Holmes; the master deductionist, one who looks as well as observes, one who dazzles the masses with illusory magic tricks of detection – cursed with a unique mind that spawns oblivious conceit.

Dr. John Watson; a capable soldier with endearing loyalty, a distinguished biographer, and, in my opinion, mis-cast as an ignorant Sancho Panza in early film adaptations – a companion.

One might imagine them as a married couple at the turn of the 20th century. A distinguished man with a thankless wife behind him.

The relation between us in those latter days were peculiar. He was a man of habits, narrow and concentrated habits, and I had become one of them. As an institution I was like the violin, the shag tobacco, the old black pipe, the index books, and others perhaps less excusable. When it was a case of active work and a comrade was needed upon whose nerve he could place some reliance, my role was obvious. But apart from this I had uses. I was a whetstone for his mind. I stiumulated him. He liked to think aloud in my presence. His remarks could hardly be said to be made to me – many of them would have been as appropriately addressed to his bedstead – but none the less, having formed the habit, it had become in some way helpful that I should register and interject. If I irritated him by a certain methodical slowness in my mentality, that irritation served only to make his own flame-like intuitions and impressions flash up the more vividly and swiftly. Such was my humble role in our alliance.

Rather than focusing on the formulaic yet mind-boggling exploits of Holmes’ deductive reasoning, I dwell more on the characterizations of and relationship between Holmes and Watson. I believe therein lies the literary prowess of Doyle. The formula hooks the reader, the characters reel them in.

Readers immediately note how their impressions of Sherlock Holmes comes second-hand from Dr. Watson as he narrates each story. If a third-person omniscient narrator dictates Holmes’ exploits, the reader could enjoy them and put them down without additional thoughts. But a second-person narration from Holmes’ partner sparks questions like, “Wait, could this have actually happened?” I don’t think Doyle wanted people to think Holmes’ existed, but perhaps he did want them to ask the question. It makes the stories more potent. What if Robin wrote Batman’s stories?

I was nearer him than anyone else, and yet I was always conscious of the gap between.

As Watson and Holmes continue their crime fighting exploits, their relationship solidifies and grows. We begin caring about them just as much as we do the outcome of the case or the nifty secrets that Holmes reveals at a story’s end. We care about their friendship, but also about them individually. They contrast each other in profound and easily relatable ways. As a literary device, surely Watson’s learning from Holmes and his need for explanation helps the reader understand the cases as well as about Holmes’ genius. So without Watson, Holmes is simply a birthday party magician. As their contrast preserves their individuality, it also prevents them from having a truly common bond. They form an interdependence which the reader begins to cherish, but it’s built on shared experiences rather than common traits. This “gap” seems nearly tragic, or at least sad with a sense of futility. But there is beauty in loyalty and cultivation in spite of it.

And here it is that I miss my Watson. By cunning questions and ejaculations of wonder he could elevate my simple art, which is but systemized common sense, into a prodigy.

Holmes’ self-deprication manifests itself as arrogance because neither Watson nor the reader can relate to his mental supremacy. If one can look beyond the offense, they might find a hidden anguish in Holmes, a lonliness and inability to fully connect to his closest and most loyal companion in the same way as others do theirs. And yet, Watson outperforms the dearest friend you or I likely have. Does this make him a gullable goofball with no self-respect? I hardly think this assessment fitting for a veteran with a medical practice. I think this dedication reflects Watson’s strength and, where Holmes’ mental capacities distinguish him from others, Watson’s emotional capacties distinguish him.

“What is the meaning of it, Watson?” said Holmes solemnly as he laid down the paper. “What object is served by this circle of misery and violence and fear? It must tend to some end, or else our universe is ruled by chance, which is unthinkable. But what end? There is the great standing perennial problem to which human reason is as far from an answer as ever.”

We learn to love Holmes and Watson for the dimension they create of each other over the course of a career in solving crimes. Yet is there more dimension to Holmes’ abilities? Even with his intellect, and what others see as arrogance, he admits that he cannot solve the problem of mankind’s baser instincts and darker side. I imagine Holmes’ life as a car on an endless road while his person remains immobile and trapped between opposing magnetic poles. The rule of purpose and cause form his identity as a logical brain. And yet he cannot find an answer to the answer he chases by fighting crime and studying the criminal: What is the point of evil? His brain tells him that every puzzle has a solution. After all, just look at what he has solved! His trust in his mental faculties encourages him to attack what no one else has been able to answer. But why does he chase this answer? Surely because he like the pomp and adulation of solving unsolvable crimes? But, in fact, he does not. He continuously shuns credit (which might also flame the question of Holmes’ real existence). So why dedicate himself to answering the question of evil and crime? I think one must admit to Holmes’ commonality; the humanity we all share. The stuff that fills the “gap”. The great mind spun by the unsolvable problem. The human heart buried under faith in reason alone.