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I feel like I want to talk about Sherlock Holmes now.

Sherlock Holmes was one of those stories I was into before I really knew what fandom was (which in my case means before I turned 11 and read "The World of Star Trek", so Holmes must have been around age nine. A very good year, nine.) I found some kids' paraphrase paperbacks in a library, and read them all, not realizing that they were actually paraphrase until I ran out of kids' paperbacks and turned to Mom's big hardcover anthology with the tissue-thin paper and six-point type in columns, and stumbled upon Holmes shooting up.

...that was also the first time I ever felt betrayed by a fandom.

Anyway I got over it pretty quick and read the whole anthology in one go, and have read it through several times since, and come back to favorite stories. I'm not the sort of fan who can tell you details of things that happened in CREE, but I know the classic stories pretty well.

And I've never been much for reading the fic, published or otherwise, but Holmes/Watson is one of those pairings (like Doctor/Master) that's just always *been* there for me: I can't recall a time when I didn't know about it, and know the stories and meta would be there for me when I looked for them. ...I have finally started seriously looking.

So I'm very much a bookverse girl, and generally Watsonian in outlook. (I've really been enjoying the fic I've found that extrapolates the published stories as a deliberate caricature of Holmes and really play with the "three-point characterization" idea - ignoring everything Watson tells us in exposition and rebuilding a Holmes based on what he does (and giving him believably extrapolated backstories as everything from sex-toy builder to professional violinist to rent-boy). But I've never been that interested in any of the filmed versions I've met in passing; they tend to be insufficiently cracky and melodramatic compared to the books, and Watson is not awesome enough. (On those grounds I suspect I will quite like the new movie.)

Anyway, all of that was building up to the fact that I've been reading Mary Russell fic, in hopes of being able to contribute to

flourish's Mary Russell & Mary Marston & Madelyn Mack & Harriet Vane & Irene Adler & Nora Noraker & Miss Climpson's SUSSEX DOWNS LADIES’ SEWING CIRCLE, DETECTION DISCUSSION GROUP AND TERRORIST SOCIETY. I have two things to say about Mary Russell, now that I have at last been exposed to her beyond the barest of descriptions:

1. Okay, let me get this right: she has very little family and a mysterious past that would make any Mary Sue proud, and she has a preternatural ability to get 'round Holmes as if she's known him for years. Meanwhile, Watson's role is minimized, to the extent he even shows up at all. And Mary Russell has a *scar* on her shoulder and arm from an old injury and an intermittent limp. ...are we sure it isn't just that Watson got tired of waiting for Holmes to notice him and found a convenient genderswap-ex-machina? :D

2. I really don't like Holmes/Russell as a pairing. I like the idea of Russell and Holmes, I just really wish that / weren't in there (which is why I've never been that tempted to read the books.) I would have told you, before I started reading fic about the two of them, that it was because I have plenty of canon pairings for Holmes. Or it was because I'm really bothered by the "older man meets young girl in vulnerable circumstances, mentors her, as soon as she's just old enough to not be utterly squicky they get hitched." Don't get me wrong, if it's done well enough I can enjoy it - and there's a certain het teacher/student vibe that I gobble up like candy - but it's not that one. That one bothers me partly because of the power issues, partly because it's just so ubiquitous in certain genres, and partly because of the implication-through-repetition that a man and a woman can't have that sort of relationship without it turning romantic.

But I've realized, upon actually reading some Holmes/Russell that was set in such a way that I could ignore their backstory, that no, it is much simpler than all that. It is simply that a core pillar of my Holmes characterization is that he is completely uninterested in having sex with women - so while I'll happily buy Holmes, Demon-slayer or Holmes, Porn-star; in order to read Holmes the happy heterosexual I have to imagine him as being a completely different Holmes who is from an entirely different universe than Conan Doyle's Holmes. I am okay with Holmes the totally asexual, Holmes the celibate gay man, Holmes the gay man who goes out to "special clubs", Holmes the gay man in a committed relationship, Holmes the asexual in an epic platonic romance with The Woman, Holmes who shares Watson with Mary, even Holmes who got badly burned in relationships as an adolescent and has walled off that part of himself so firmly he's forgotten where he left the key (which seems to be Doyle's opinion). I would probably even be able to buy "Holmes meets a woman who is so awesome he is forced into a crisis of sexuality by way of her teaching him that bodies aren't important but they're still fun" but I don't get the impression that's how Holmes/Russell was done. (and if it is, given that Russell was forty years his junior when they met, eewww.) I'm usually fairly flexible on 'shipping, but I think I found Holmes at a point in my life where I *really* needed a story with non-heteronormativity at the forefront, and Holmes did that for me admirably.

So anyway. Yes. I continue to wish that the Mary Russell books were gen, in which case I would probably adore them beyond reason, and meanwhile, I will have to console myself by reading

flourish's gen fic about Madelyn Mack (my evil plan, it is working), because Madelyn is who Mary might have been if *she* were immune to men.

All of which is by way of saying that "Silver Buttons" commentary is indefinitely postponed due to my realizing that I could say most of what I wanted to say in it by instead just writing the prequel story in which Holmes washes up on Madelyn's doorstep, mid-"His Last Bow", at the end of his tether, and there is a certain Jersey Girl contralto on the phonograph and a borrowed Stradivarius violin. :D

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I am okay with Holmes the totally asexual, Holmes the celibate gay man, Holmes the gay man who goes out to "special clubs", Holmes the gay man in a committed relationship, Holmes the asexual in an epic platonic romance with The Woman, Holmes who shares Watson with Mary, even Holmes who got badly burned in relationships as an adolescent and has walled off that part of himself so firmly he's forgotten where he left the key (which seems to be Doyle's opinion). I would probably even be able to buy "Holmes meets a woman who is so awesome he is forced into a crisis of sexuality by way of her teaching him that bodies aren't important but they're still fun"

YES THIS. *pastes gold stars on*

I've always read book-Holmes as asexual and book-Watson as utterly frustratedly in love with him and fucking women because that's the acceptable alternative. Which is not at all movie-Holmes, in the current iteration, and also not Holmes in the Mary Russell stories, who's never worked for me for reasons much like yours (though my mother is a big fan and keeps trying to fob them off on me).

Have you read Michael Chabon's Holmes novel?

Yes! I can either read it as asexual Holmes and pining Watson, or pining Holmes and a Watson who pretends he's asexual so he can be in denial about the pining. Or both. (Or a Holmes/Watson where Watson writes Holmes as asexual in order to deflect suspicion, which is what a lot of the fic does.)

And no, I haven't read any Chabon, but people keep telling me I should, an I think I agree with them.

(Actually, the only published Holmes fic I've read, afaik, are "A Study in Emerald" and A Night in the Lonesome October, in both of which he is utter win. Not that I have some kind of sick fascination for Holmes vs. Cthulhu crossovers or anything.)

I've just been reading all the bits of Chabon I hadn't got to...I'm trying to think now of what order I'd rec them in. Hmm.

Provisionally...Gentlemen of the Road, Kavalier and Clay, The Final Solution, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, Summerland, and then the early novels and/or short stories. But those are fairly well representative of the statement I think he's spent the last decade or so trying to make, which is about being Jewish and American and commenting on the literary canon of American youth from an explicitly Jewish perspective.

I read Lonesome October before I read most of the stuff it was spoofing, because I was a HUGE Zelazny fan as a young person.

Kavalier and Clay would be an excellent ~~gateway drug~~ first book, as it's so much about American comics, and he so gets it.

I like The Seven Per Cent Solution too.

Kavalier and Clay would be an excellent ~~gateway drug~~ first book, as it's so much about American comics, and he so gets it.

THIS TIMES A MILLION.

I quite liked the Mary Russel novels that I've read, but after they were married I kept peering at them and going "But don't you two ever have sex? Seriously?" since their marriage appears to be basically asexual.

Maybe I stopped reading too soon, though.

I haven't read any of the books; I was just reading some fic to see if it was worth looking for the books, and kept running up against "I like everything about this story except *that's not Sherlock Holmes*".

If their marriage in canon actually is some non-sexual arrangement of convenience to keep Mary from getting flak about the proprieties, though, that I might actually go for, hmmm.

Eh, in canon we are led to believe there's some sexual element (and Holmes is slightly O.o over the fact) but once they're married, they never seem to actually sleep together. Mary comments at one point (after they're married) that to keep from going squirrelly between cases Holmes needs "vigorous physical activity" so he... goes for long walks.

You know, you're almost making me like the pairing. (though I'm not sure what that says about Russell, if her POV doesn't realize this is unusual...)

I myself was highly suspicious of the pairing when I read Beekeeper's Apprentice and a friend said "Oh, and they get married." I just couldn't see it happening at all. And yet somehow in the space of the next book, King totally sold me. Basically, Holmes and Russell are in this weird Vulcan mind-meld, so much so that it's just kind of inevitable that they get married. (ETA: In the actual books, Holmes is described as asexual, except for Irene Adler and Mary Russell.)

What it says about Russell is that she's a hugely unreliable narrator. Reading that section, you never know if she actually means he goes for long walks, or if she's just a woman of her period and is gracefully eliding the fact that they go upstairs and fuck like bunnies. That's one of the most fun parts of the books--she's perceptive, but not self-aware (at one point she says, "My only extraordinary skill is a good throwing arm") and for much of what I read, she's a teenaged/young-twentysomething genius, and occasionally acts like a poorly-socialized brat. Sometimes you really have to backtrack and see where her described perceptions are carefully demonstrated to be wrong as the narrative progresses.

Edited 2010-01-06 18:33 (UTC)

So is she as unreliable a narrator as Bertie Wooster, then?

Not having read Woodehouse, I don't know.

"I like everything about this story except *that's not Sherlock Holmes*".

That pretty much describes my reaction to them. That, and a continual low grade sense of "where the @$%* is Watson?!"

Alas, their marriage isn't a non-sexual marriage of convenience, though that would actually have been interesting to read.

Also, I tried to read one of the later ones in the series, and, in addition to their marriage not being non-sexual (nothing was onscreen, but you could tell), Mary goes undercover as a young man and the text never mentions what she does about the piecing holes in her earlobes. Granted, no "woman goes undercover as a guy" story ever seems to, but when Sherlock Holmes is involved, I expect little details like that to be addressed. Mind you, I was already looking for things to be irritated about because Holmes was sleeping with a woman who wasn't Irene Adler.

What's your feeling about Holmes the libertine bisexual?

(Which is the direction all my fic-ly thoughts have gone in recently...)

If you are referring to movie!verse (and I somehow suspect you are) I'm reserving judgement 'till I see it; I really don't know. (I am pretty sure I can buy Holmes/Adler a lot more easily than any other Holmes het tho, because, y'know, Adler. I can accept Holmes as gay or asexual but with one exception for her; that's pretty much canon too.)

And I think I could buy Holmes as a merry pansexual in the vein of Harkness/Stark/Methos, because there's a sense where pansexual and asexual aren't really all that different; either way the biological mechanisms that are supposed to make some bodies attractive and some not just aren't there, and then it's just a matter of what you choose to do with that fact. *g*

And a Holmes who's actively gay but still flirts with women a lot is a perfectly reasonable interpretation of book!canon.

I have to say in terms of book cannon, I'm leaning towards either Holmes the Merry Pansexual (very Harkness!) or Holmes the Merry Asexual who Flirts A Lot but Can't Quite Seem to Get It On with Someone Not Quite As Smart As He. (That was a LOT of Significant Capitalization... ;) )

Movie-wise, I'd say I could see him in a Watson/Adler sandwich, but otherwise can't conceive that he'd be attracted to anyone...

Then again, I harbor a secret suspicion that he really just wants to Give It Good and Hard to Professor Moriarity, and if they'd just Get It On Already, maybe we could have avoided a lot of perfectly good murder. ;) (OTOH, I haven't read the books since I was wee, so I may be distorting that perception.)

I'd say that in book-canon, "The Final Problem" is much more about the great and timeless love of Watson for Holmes than it is Holmes/Moriarity.

Oooh, I would definitely buy "Holmes who flirts a lot but won't get it on with anybody who isn't as smart as he is". That's pretty much my read on Doctor Who, too - and yes, does lead directly to Holmes/Moriarty and/or Holmes/Adler. :D

And no, you are definitely not the only one who saw the UST in the Moriarty storyline. I haven't re-read it much because I find it kind of OTT and tacked-on, but I have totally 'shipped them at least as long as I have 'shipped Master/Doctor. (I also kind of suspect they had a correspondence going on for some time before the letter we see in canon.)

Yeah. I'd definitely call it that in Dr. Who (even though I had a secret love for Ten/Rose, and everyone tells me I should just shut up about it, but she actually maybe almost sort of WAS the closest thing to him he'll ever find in the universe again that isn't directly evil...)

I don't know. I just see Holmes as being one of those people who needs a stimulating conversation of some sort to make it to sexy time, and he's just not getting that from your average London street girl/rent boy, ya know?

In the movie, Watson refers to Adler as Holmes' muse, which I actually thought was a rather good way of putting it.

Yes, I liked that line a lot too; it fit in nicely with my own interpretation of the Holmes/Adler relationship in the movie.

Oh, that's excellent.

The only reason I buy Holmes/Adler is because it leads to the hypothesis that Nero Wolfe is the son of Holmes and Adler, and that makes so much sense that it has to be true.

Bwah! This.

in order to read Holmes the happy heterosexual I have to imagine him as being a completely different Holmes who is from an entirely different universe than Conan Doyle's Holmes

This. My desire to like the Mary Russel because in basic concept the character sounded interesting founded on the shoals of "Holmes does not like women (except Irene, and that's the exception that proves the rule)" combined with "why is there no Watson in these books, damnit!" Plus the fact that mentor/student relationships are not generally my kink unless Charlotte Bronte's writing them (so, basically: Vilette. It's good in Vilette. And maybe when it's Dr. Strange and Clea).

I see Holmes as mostly asexual but leaning towards men in inclination, with exceptions to his general lack of interest in sex/romance made for Watson (the obvious love of his life) and possibly Irene (brilliant + completely unattainable = the perfect woman! He's free to crush on her without the uncomfortable prospect of actual intimacy, which is just awkward and terrifying when it involves people other than Watson).

Yes, there is a point at which my disinclination to read Mary Russell may come down to "But why would you make up a Holmes Sue when you could be writing about Irene Adler instead??"

And also, needs moar Watson.

I really, really like teacher/student relationships of the form: girl has crush on teacher, who says no because he has ethics - girl graduates, goes off, gets experience and becomes awesome - girl comes back woman, teacher is beaten over the head by her newfound awesome, OTP. But the "goes off and gets experience on her own" part is very important there.

And as much as I ship them, I'm pretty sure a large part of Adler's attraction for Holmes in canon is her promise that she will never set foot in Britain again. :D

Edited 2010-01-06 21:56 (UTC)

But why would you make up a Holmes Sue when you could be writing about Irene Adler instead??"

Caroline Nelson Douglas has an entertaining mystery series that's entirely about Irene Adler and her globe-hopping adventures with her lawyer husband and a vaguely-Watsonian female friend. I think the first one is called Good Morning, Irene, (as a play on "Goodnight, Mr. Holmes").

Thanks for mentioning it. The first book in the Irene Adler series is called Good Night, Mr. Holmes (and was a New York Times Notable Book of Year and won two mystery awards). Good Morning, Irene (retitled The Adventuress) is the sequel. Holmes, particularly, and Watson weave in and out of the eight-book series as secondary characters. Irene is first seen as a young aspiring opera singer moonlighting as a private inquiry agent, but loses her freedom to perform because of the King of Bohemia's pursuit, so becomes all detective. The relationship between her and Holmes is a mutually respecting rivalry with interesting undertones. In fact, Irene's friend Nell might make a better Watson for Holmes than Watson. There's a Jack the Ripper after Whitechapel duology (Chapel Noir and Castle Rouge) within the series and elements of Canon stories weave in and out of totally new cases. The entire series titles are listed on my web site. I wrote the series as a corrective to the Irene Adler as Victorian bimbo pattern most male-written Holmes spin-off books presented. Carole Nelson Douglas www.carolenelsondouglas.com

Oh, that sounds like fun. I'll have to check it out.

Oooh, I've been kind of wanting to read the Irene Adler books since I first heard of them: I might have to bump them up my list soon. It's good to hear that Holmes & Watson have a place in them, and of *course* Irene is not a Victorian bimbo!

Thank you for dropping by. :D

Mom's big hardcover anthology with the tissue-thin paper and six-point type in columns, and stumbled upon Holmes shooting up

OMG, do we have the same edition? I nicked mine from my parents too!

Also, I think you will like the new movie on multiple levels, based on this post.

I really like the fannish interpretation that Watson deliberately changed things around, up to and including his own personality and their relationship. And, though I have every intention of reading at least the first few Mary Russell books, it's the minimization of Watson that bothers me the most, I think. ;_;

I think I completely agree with you about the plausbility of Holmes/Russell. I was just talking with

meganbmoore about Mary Sues, and this is a really interesting case where my sympathies are directly in conflict with each other. I am usually all for the concept of Mary Sues, since I think the impulse to put women into (these) stories is laudable, particularly awesome women (note: I am not advocating purple eyes and all the worst Mary Sue traits), but since it's Holmes, my heart says "noooo!"

Edited 2010-01-06 21:19 (UTC)

Maybe! this is my edition (tho' it lost its jacket before I was born; the cover underneath is dark beige & has the Holmes profile on it.)

Mom & I have been stealing it back and forth for years now. :D

And yeah, Watson is necessary for Holmes. The lack of Watson bothers me too. (And of *course* Watson changed things around! The only question is how much. Have you read Katie Forsythe's Holmes POV version of "the Speckled Band"? It's amazing. (I love in general her Holmes's insistence that Watson far undervalues himself in his own stories.)

Edit to reply to your edit: I like the idea of putting awesome women in, even purple eyes and all! but in general, I wish putting awesome women in didn't mean pairing them up with the men. (Hence my joy over Madelyn! :D) If Holmes/Russell were Holmes&Russell I suspect I would love it a lot.

Edited 2010-01-06 21:21 (UTC)

omg, yes, Katie Forsythe. I haven't read that one yet, but I've been jumping around through her stuff and it's awesome.

OMG we do have the same edition! Well, I think my dust jacket might be a different color, but my parakeet chewed it half off years ago and I don't remember which exactly it is, but definitely the same book.

Yeah. There's a thin line here between Mary Sues are awesome and Mary Sues intrude on my fannish preferences. Like, I don't think there's any principle that ought to say there's nothing wrong with a Mary Sue becoming part of a pairing with a (the) main canon character. But definitely I too would be way more into the Russell premise if it were Holmes&Russell all through.

Haha. Amusingly, I have always read Holmes & Russell's relationship as DEEPLY genderqueer. There is, in fact, a line in one of the books where Russell comments that she thinks she 'solved a problem' for him, because he met her first as a boy, and (she seems to think) he continues to think of her as such. I've always read his uncertainties at her "growing up" to do with his freaked-outedness at being attracted to a woman.

Um, maybe what needs to happen is I need to write some Holmes/Russell that is deeply genderqueer? It might not convince you of the pairing, but perhaps lead you to accept it as an alternate universe. ;)

That reminds me of the line in one of the Vorkosigan novels where Cordelia says the same thing in reference to Aral (..it would not surprise me if one was influencing the other.) It always kind of bothered me in Vorkosigan, too, but I'm had trouble putting into words why, especially because usually I'm really down with the genderqueer.

And the one Mary Russell fic that I really liked included Holmes saying that he had no more objection to boys in frocks than to girls in trousers, so, hmm, I don't know, except that yes, you totally should write some genderqueer fic! (Everybody should, heh.) And I like the idea of Holmes being freaked out that he's actually attracted to a woman (there's some of that with Holmes/Adler in canon, and a *lot* of it in the movie.)

I adore the Russell books. However, this is because a) I'm not really familiar with the source material and my attempts to read it have failed miserably and b) I discovered them in my mid teens along with a lot of other Mary Sue fiction that should I read it now, I would probably dislike. But nostalgia and early by-pass of the bullshit filter has a wonderful effect.

I think I would love them if I didn't already have a very solid idea of what Holmes meant to me. (They sound really Sue-ish, but not necessarily the bad sort of Sue; except in the way they twist canon to make a space for Mary.)

I was skimming through your journal after reading those recent posts about slash fandom being mostly queer, and ooh, hey, Sherlock Holmes! That is totally relevant to my interests right now. :D So I'm adding you. :)

I haven't read any of the original books yet, much less any related books (except the Chabon one, which I am ashamed to say I didn't even realise was Sherlock Holmes-related until long after I read it! But he never mentions Holmes by name and I wasn't familiar enough with the series to get the hints), but I plan to read a bunch soon.

Anyway! I like the idea of playing around with Watson as unreliable narrator. My first fanfic fandom was Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles and there was a lot of that going on there, too. For one thing, if you didn't assume someone was unreliable somewhere, there was no way to account for the many inconsistencies in the books. But also it made a good way to get around Anne's weirdness when she started getting all religious and trying to het up her previously queer characters and stuff like that. XD

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Irene Adler series

Re: Irene Adler series

Re: Irene Adler series

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