The Michigan Daily-Sunday,
Page 8-Sunday, November 19, 1978-The Michigan Daily
ROOK
New
Holmes: 'Take precautions'
'Because he has stripped the consulting detective of all his endearing qualities, and
turned him into a petty, arrogant, intellectual snob, Dibdin must rely on his plot to
maintain the reader's interest. Here again, sadly, he fails.'
THE LAST
SHERLOCK HOLMES STORY
By Michael Dibdin
PantheonY
192 pp. $7.95
RECENTLY, there have been a
bevy of Sir Arthur Conan'Doyle
imitators - from Billy Wilder's The
Private Life of Sherlock Holmes to
Nicholas Meyer's Seven Per Cent
Solution. The latest imposter is Michael
Dibdin, who seems bent on finishing off
our hero once and for all as evidenced
by the arrogant title of his book: The
Last Sherlock Holmes Story.
He will certainly fail in this endeavor,
for as long as we admire unerring logic
and quick wits, so will writers attempt
to recapture the essence of the quin-
tessential detective. Dibdin's presum-
pruousness could be forgiven, however,
were his mimicry of high quality-it is
not.
What made Conan Doyle's stories
immortal were not the plots-these
were interesting but not spec-
tacular-but rather the charac-
terization of the eccentric master
sleuth. Were Holmes alive today, he
would likely sue Dibdin for defamation
of character.
Dibdin has turned the omniscient
detective into a pathetic, insecure
creature who needs to lord his in-
telligence over anyone who challenges
him. Inspector Lestrade has always
been a buffoon, and Watson has never
been known for his brilliant criminal
analysis, but Doyle's Holmes laughed
off their obvious inadequacies. He
would, of course, tease Lestrade mer-
cilously, but the barbs were subtle and
jovial, and usually escaped Lestrade's
understanding. Not so with Dibdin's
Holmes. From the outset he is more
cynical and sarcastic, and his tongue
has been given an uncharacteristic
acerbity. He seems intent on mocking
Lestrade and sometimes even Watson
to the point of humiliation. He is por-
trayed as an intellectual tyrant,
exhibiting none of the compassion for
mental inferiors that we have come to
expect. Conan Doyle's Holmes was
generally amused 'by his comrades'
errors. He certainly would never have
stooped to using his own intellect to
demean and insult his friends.
DIBDIN has also stifled one of
Holmes' greatest traits-his
ability to detach himself emotionally
from a case. To Holmes it is all an in-
tellectual exercise. He takes only cases
that tax his mettle, and he has no par-
ticular interest in public notoriety.
When Lestrade gets the credit for
solving a case, Holmes simply
chuckles, and takes a long puff on his
ubiquitous pipe. Dibdin has not so much
contradicted this countenance as failed
to capture it. This side of the shamus is
simply never seen. His abusive treat-
ment of Lestrade, however, seems
Ken Parsigian is a Daily man-
aging editor.r
sationalistic attempt by Dibdin to spice
up his story. He succeeds only in
By K en Parsigian epulsing the reader with his super-
fluous vulgarity.
FTER A FEW killings, Holmes
blithely informs us that Jack
the Ripper is none other than the
motivated not only by a need to exert for the Conan Doyle impersonators, who dread Moriarty. Surprise!
'uperiority, but also to have his usually begin their books by explaining In the preface Dibdin, in the guise of
abilities recognized by Lestrade and that what follows is the true story that Watson, tells us to be patient with him
Watson. This establishes a concern for Watson was not able to tell originally because unlike Conan Doyle, he is not a
acknowledgement that is atypical of for fear it might embarrass persons good writer. These remarks are only
Holmes. who were living at the time. Dibdin's too prophetic. The book establishes no
Because he has stripped the con- book follows suit, but adds a new twist. mood, and exhibits no feeling for the
sulting detective of all his endearing He explains that Conan Doyle wrote the millieu in which Holmes
qualities, and turned him into a petty, original Holmes stories from notes lived-England during the 1890s. Dib-
arrogant, intellectual snob, Dibdin given him by Watson. The preface fur- din simply conceived a story, and told it
must rely on his plot to maintain the ther says that Conan Doyle frequently with the bare facts and awkward tran-
sitions. He even went so far as to
plagiarize lines from Conan Doyle's
"The Final Problem." In describing
ctne d Moriarty to Watson, Dibdin writes:
H: "You have probably never heard of
Professor Moriarty?"
W: "Never."
H: "Aye, there's the genius and the
wonder of the thing," he laughed bit-
terly. "The man pervades London, and
no one has ever heard of him. That's
what puts him on a pinnacle in the
records of crime."
T HE DEVIATIONS from the
Conan Doyle original are minis-
cule. Conan Doyle spells "Aye" with-
out the 'e,' writes "he cried" instead of
"he laughed bitterly," and omits the
word "ever" from the next-to-last sen-
tence.
This is not to imply that Dibdin
~~~~ plagiarized the lines in an attempt to
present Conan Doyle's writing as his
--- own. Certainly Dibdin is aware that
-most Sherlockians are fanatics who
would instantly recognize Conan
Doyle's wording. What Dibdin's actions
do show us is that he is not confident of
his own writing ability. His lack of con-
fidence is most justified.
The game is now afoot, and Holmes is
- stalking Moriarty who is stalking
- -'Holmes. There is, of course, a surprise
ending in which we learn the identity of
Moriarty. I would not spoil it for those
- ~ masochistic enough to read the book,
but suffice it to say there is a
psychological twist to the whole affair
which is, again, lacking in originality.
reader's interest. Here again, sadly, he embellished these stories to make them Triteness, , however, is not the
fails. more readable. Watson, however, did primary flaw with the surprise ending
As have nearly all such stories writ- not tell Conan Doyle the truth about to the mystery. The most significant
ten after Conan Doyle's death, The Last Holmes' death in 1891. He kept this problem is that this "ending" comes 72
Sherlock Holmes Story proclaims to be story a secret, wrote it himself, put it in pages before the actual completion of
the actual explanation of Holmes' a vault, and left instructions in his will the story.
three-year disappearance from 1891 to that the vault should not be opened until The final 72 pages are spent
1894. ConanDoyle, in "The Final 1978. Not exactly an original concept, maneuvering Holmes and Watson into
Problem," relieved himself of the bur- but functional nonetheless. It justifies the proper places near a cliff so that
den of churning out Holmes stories by writing a Holmes story in 1978, which Holmes and Moriarty may die as Conan
having the great detective fall off a cliff was its only purpose. Doyle has told us they did. It is a clum-
during a struggle with his arch enemy The story, unfortunately, is even sy attempt to rectify this preposterous
Professor Moriarty. Both men were more banal. Holmes is out to capture tale with the original Conan Doyle, and
killed, and Conan Doyle retired from the most vile of English it is certainly not worth 72 pages of a
writing. The public outcry for more criminals-Jack the Ripper. His only 190-page story
stories, however, was so great that clues are cryptic notes Jack leaves the In short, if Dibdin's haughty title has
Conan Doyle was finally persuaded to police after each of his brutal killings. any effect on authors who are con-
revive his-sleuth in 1894, and invent a The notes are particularly graphic, as sidering writing a Sherlock Holmes
sto for his three-year absence. are the descrip1tions of the mutilations. novel we can only hope it will act as a
Xiy ry b e'p ?e) ' ts' 3ika m/iore ta:,n. r.W - self deterrenL '.
Urban ites head for quiet t
go on to college, and computer math
and film appreciation courses are
offered along with the FFA club
(Future Farmers of America) and the
auto shop. But some small-town
attitudes remain. To many of the
students here, a car is still proof of
masculinity, and the higher the back
wheels are jacked, the shinier the paint
job done in a family garage, and the
faster it goes on the back roads on
Saturday nights, the more of a man you
are. Every five years or or so someone
drinks a little too much or goes a little
too fast around a curve with his arm
around his girl and wraps the car
arounda tree. The high school students
are excused from classes for the
afternoon to walk to Hosemer's Funeral
Home.
Ten miles up I-94 is Chelsea, the
largest of these villages, with 4,000
inhabitants. Chelsea /alone has
remained relatively free from a large
influx of "outsiders," although there
are plans for building a subdivision to
ease some of the demand for housing.
But for now it is a community of mostly
older homes built during the late 1880's
in the then-fashionable New England
style. As a result, many of the homes wood a
have widow's walks, which look yards
strangely out of place in this landlocked presic
village. Lincol
Orig
T HERE IS ONE SMALL section hill, Cl
of newer homes north of the la
the village, and many of the there
farms have subdivided their once rise ar
spacious acreage to take advantage of the tof
the rapidly increasing land prices. The churcl
result: next to a pasture of fat-bellied door
cows, a starkly modern house stands in Buildi
a grove of trees. But the majority of door
houses are modest turn-of-the-century blocks
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