A Study In Scarred Lit.
John Watson regales us with yet another adventurous yarn.
There is a wonderful moment in John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces in which the eccentric protagonist is so incensed by what he sees on a movie screen that he cannot help shouting out his indignation. "Oh, good heavens!" bellows Ignatius J. Reilly to the annoyance and unease of fellow patrons. "What degenerate produced this abortion?"
Although I'm a passionate proponent of politeness in movie theaters, I can empathize with Reilly's plight. There is a point where one's artistic sensibility can become so offended that it is impossible to remain silent. That's why I'll be staying away from screenings of one of this holiday season's anticipated blockbusters, Sherlock Holmes. I wouldn't want to involuntarily proclaim my outrage aloud and thus violate my own standards for audience etiquette.
I enjoy the canonical Sherlock Holmes, which is to say that I prefer the novels and stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I'm not a snob about it, though - if a later author produces a story that is true to the spirit, logic, and language of the canon, I'm all for it. The original stories are so beautifully crafted that I find many adaptations enjoyable but nevertheless diluted. I'll take a good verbatim reading of a classic Holmes story over the best dramatization any day.
From the looks of the Guy Ritchie-directed Sherlock Holmes (if trailers and other advance publicity are any indication), this latest effort appears to be not so much an adaptation as an outright bastardization.
Guess What Today Is!
I consider myself an Anglophile. I have an inherent fascination with English life, from its customs to its colloquialisms. I like listening to BBC Radio. My pop culture preferences warmly embrace The Beatles, ELP, Pink Floyd, and all things Python. I'm charmed by E.F. Benson's Lucia novels and captivated by Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. I have ancestral ties to Cornwall (my maternal grandfather was born and raised in Truro). Nothing would please me more than to spend a lengthy sabbatical exploring Britain. Yet for all my natural interest in England, I cannot muster so much as a dollop of enthusiasm for today's royal wedding.
Apparently that puts me in good standing with two-thirds of the British population, the demographic block identified by pollsters as those who will not be watching the ceremony. According to CBS News, half of the United Kingdom claims to be "actively uninterested" in the whole affair, and I share their passionate apathy. The relentless news coverage is bad enough here; I can only imagine how unavoidable it must be in England.