A Case of Identity

I watched another Sherlock Holmes program last night, a rerun of the popular Jeremy Brett series. To me, he's the perfect Holmes though I'm also fond of Basil Rathbone. But Brett looks and acts just like the Holmes of my imagination so what more can I say? There have been more TV and film versions of Conan Doyle's Holmes than any other character in literature plus countless spin-offs by other authors. Laurie King invented a mate for Holmes called Mary Russell. Her series takes place after World War I. Apparently, Conan Doyle continued to write stories about Holmes after the war, but he set them in the pre-war era because the cozy Victorian world Holmes inhabited had disappeared by the time the war ended. King continues where Conan Doyle left off, featuring Mary Russell as her main character rather than Holmes, or so she claims. Personally, I don't approve of borrowing another author's creation for your fiction, but there are some notable exceptions. One highly original and unconventional use of Holmes is in Michael Dibdin's book, The Last Sherlock Holmes Story. I can't tell you more about the story without revealing the plot, but I highly recommend it. Oh, and I did like the latest "Sherlock Holmes" flick starring Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock and Jude Law as Watson even though it was a terrible movie. It only works if you perceive the Holmes/Watson relationship purely as a buddy thing. Think Jackie Chan/Owen Wilson and you'll be all right.