'Lost Without My Boswell' - Holmes & Watson
Without Watson, Holmes as we know him would not exist. As Fr Ronald Knox put it, 'Watson provides what the Holmes drama needs – a Chorus'. We see Holmes through his companion's eyes; the stories are presented as the personal reminiscences of a close friend. The two narrated by Holmes himself - Sherlock Holmes: Adventure of the Blanched Soldier and The Adventure of the Lion's Mane - and the two related in the third person - The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone and His Last Bow - bear witness in their relative unpopularity to the supreme importance of seeing Holmes from a Watson-eye view.
But in the course of his narratives Watson also presents himself to our view, and we get to know a fair bit about him: he's just two years older than his friend, in his early thirties when they first meet; he has been a soldier, invalided out of the Army following an injury sustained at the Battle of Maiwand; he is not lacking in courage, and often carries firearms in order to protect Holmes, who carries none; he's handsome, attractive to women; and he is totally and utterly devoted to Holmes. He agonises over his friend's mental and physical health; he's ready at a moment's notice to follow him anywhere, even when it means leaving his wife and marital home; he's devastated by his supposed death at the Reichenbach Falls and so overcome by his unexpected re-appearance three years later that he faints, and has to be revived by brandy. Is it any wonder that the nature of such a friendship has been the subject of speculation?
Look at Sidney Paget's original depictions of Watson, published in 'Lippincotts' and 'The Strand'. This handsome young man with the slightly foppish demeanour could hardly be further from the geriatric buffoon portrayed by Nigel Bruce in the 1930s movies starring Basil Rathbone. This is the man who lives on intimate terms with Sherlock Holmes for seven years prior to his marriage, and returns to him with alacrity as soon as he is widowed. And that marriage is interesting in itself – a rushed, unconvincing affair in which Mrs Watson so obviously takes second place to Holmes in her husband's list of priorities that as far as the stories are concerned she might as well not exist. So why marry Watson at all? One wonders whether Doyle did, after all, consider the implications of such a close relationship between two good-looking men in their thirties, and felt impelled to try and diffuse speculation. He was not above reacting to public sensitivities – consider how in the later stories, some of which were written after the passing of the Dangerous Drugs Act of 1920, he plays down Holmes' drug use, hinting instead at a manic-depressive streak in his nature.
It's within these later stories that Doyle finally allows Watson to wonder whether his devotion is in any way reciprocated by Holmes.
'The relations between us in those latter days were peculiar', writes Watson inSherlock Holmes: Adventure of the Creeping Man. '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 to his mind. I stimulated 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 nonetheless, having formed the habit, it had become in some way helpful that I should register and interject.'
It seems a rather sad state of affairs; but the following famous passage from The Adventure of the Three Garridebs, set in the same year (1902), suggests that this bitter view is exaggerated:
'"You're not hurt, Watson? For God's sake, say that you are not hurt!" It was worth a wound – it was worth many wounds – to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time, I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain. All my years of humble but single-minded service culminated in that moment of revelation.'
It has been rightly urged that the Sherlock Holmes Canon is pre-Freudian, and that Doyle would not, in the climate of his day, have deliberately implied a homoerotic relationship between the two men. Just before the first stories were published, the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1886 had laid down a penalty of up to two years' imprisonment with hard labour for any sexual act between men, whether committed in public or in private. It was under Section 11 of this law that Oscar Wilde was tried and condemned in 1895, and passages from The Picture of Dorian Gray were quoted at his trial. Doyle later defended 'Dorian Gray' in writing, and also made it clear that he viewed Wilde's homosexuality as a medical rather than a criminal matter – a liberated view for its time, but he would hardly have deliberately saddled one of his own heroes with such a dangerous tendency. Nevertheless, there's an inner dynamic to the stories, and to the development of the Holmes/Watson relationship, which is all the more potent for not having been deliberately manufactured. It grows out of the creative tension between the two fictional characters themselves, and from a post-Freudian viewpoint that tension is definitely homoerotic. It lights the spark which enlivens the stories from the reader's point of view; by its development we can trace the growth of intimacy between Holmes and Watson, and the post-Freudian reader has the advantage when it comes to observation and deduction in these sphere. Consider how frequently Holmes touches, grasps and pinches Watson - 'His cold fingers closed around my wrist'; 'He drew me back into the shadows … the fingers which clutched me were quivering' – as well as the numerous references to Holmes' physical appearance, his long nervous fingers, pale face and penetrating gaze. Watson's intimate knowledge of his friend is stressed: he alone, he assures us, knows the fierce energy that slumbers beneath the languid exterior.
So to answer the question asked of me all those years ago when My Dearest Holmes caused such outrage amongst the Sherlock Holmes Society and such concern to the Conan Doyle Estate: yes, I do think I had a right to present Holmes and Watson as potential lovers. Charlie Raven, original author of A Case of Domestic Pilfering, obviously felt the same but employed a little more subtlety, which I've preserved in the recently published version: Holmes and Watson are clearly assumed by their young admirers, Max and Guy, to be an item but their relationship (unlike Max and Guy's) is never made explicit.
And no, I don't think Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, if he were alive today, would mind one bit. In my next blog, I'll take a look at Doyle's own attitude to his most famous literary creation, and at the ways in which the character of Sherlock Holmes has been altered and adapted to suit the changing fashions, morals and expectations of the reading public...
But in the course of his narratives Watson also presents himself to our view, and we get to know a fair bit about him: he's just two years older than his friend, in his early thirties when they first meet; he has been a soldier, invalided out of the Army following an injury sustained at the Battle of Maiwand; he is not lacking in courage, and often carries firearms in order to protect Holmes, who carries none; he's handsome, attractive to women; and he is totally and utterly devoted to Holmes. He agonises over his friend's mental and physical health; he's ready at a moment's notice to follow him anywhere, even when it means leaving his wife and marital home; he's devastated by his supposed death at the Reichenbach Falls and so overcome by his unexpected re-appearance three years later that he faints, and has to be revived by brandy. Is it any wonder that the nature of such a friendship has been the subject of speculation?
Look at Sidney Paget's original depictions of Watson, published in 'Lippincotts' and 'The Strand'. This handsome young man with the slightly foppish demeanour could hardly be further from the geriatric buffoon portrayed by Nigel Bruce in the 1930s movies starring Basil Rathbone. This is the man who lives on intimate terms with Sherlock Holmes for seven years prior to his marriage, and returns to him with alacrity as soon as he is widowed. And that marriage is interesting in itself – a rushed, unconvincing affair in which Mrs Watson so obviously takes second place to Holmes in her husband's list of priorities that as far as the stories are concerned she might as well not exist. So why marry Watson at all? One wonders whether Doyle did, after all, consider the implications of such a close relationship between two good-looking men in their thirties, and felt impelled to try and diffuse speculation. He was not above reacting to public sensitivities – consider how in the later stories, some of which were written after the passing of the Dangerous Drugs Act of 1920, he plays down Holmes' drug use, hinting instead at a manic-depressive streak in his nature.
It's within these later stories that Doyle finally allows Watson to wonder whether his devotion is in any way reciprocated by Holmes.
'The relations between us in those latter days were peculiar', writes Watson inSherlock Holmes: Adventure of the Creeping Man. '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 to his mind. I stimulated 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 nonetheless, having formed the habit, it had become in some way helpful that I should register and interject.'
It seems a rather sad state of affairs; but the following famous passage from The Adventure of the Three Garridebs, set in the same year (1902), suggests that this bitter view is exaggerated:
'"You're not hurt, Watson? For God's sake, say that you are not hurt!" It was worth a wound – it was worth many wounds – to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time, I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain. All my years of humble but single-minded service culminated in that moment of revelation.'
It has been rightly urged that the Sherlock Holmes Canon is pre-Freudian, and that Doyle would not, in the climate of his day, have deliberately implied a homoerotic relationship between the two men. Just before the first stories were published, the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1886 had laid down a penalty of up to two years' imprisonment with hard labour for any sexual act between men, whether committed in public or in private. It was under Section 11 of this law that Oscar Wilde was tried and condemned in 1895, and passages from The Picture of Dorian Gray were quoted at his trial. Doyle later defended 'Dorian Gray' in writing, and also made it clear that he viewed Wilde's homosexuality as a medical rather than a criminal matter – a liberated view for its time, but he would hardly have deliberately saddled one of his own heroes with such a dangerous tendency. Nevertheless, there's an inner dynamic to the stories, and to the development of the Holmes/Watson relationship, which is all the more potent for not having been deliberately manufactured. It grows out of the creative tension between the two fictional characters themselves, and from a post-Freudian viewpoint that tension is definitely homoerotic. It lights the spark which enlivens the stories from the reader's point of view; by its development we can trace the growth of intimacy between Holmes and Watson, and the post-Freudian reader has the advantage when it comes to observation and deduction in these sphere. Consider how frequently Holmes touches, grasps and pinches Watson - 'His cold fingers closed around my wrist'; 'He drew me back into the shadows … the fingers which clutched me were quivering' – as well as the numerous references to Holmes' physical appearance, his long nervous fingers, pale face and penetrating gaze. Watson's intimate knowledge of his friend is stressed: he alone, he assures us, knows the fierce energy that slumbers beneath the languid exterior.
So to answer the question asked of me all those years ago when My Dearest Holmes caused such outrage amongst the Sherlock Holmes Society and such concern to the Conan Doyle Estate: yes, I do think I had a right to present Holmes and Watson as potential lovers. Charlie Raven, original author of A Case of Domestic Pilfering, obviously felt the same but employed a little more subtlety, which I've preserved in the recently published version: Holmes and Watson are clearly assumed by their young admirers, Max and Guy, to be an item but their relationship (unlike Max and Guy's) is never made explicit.
And no, I don't think Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, if he were alive today, would mind one bit. In my next blog, I'll take a look at Doyle's own attitude to his most famous literary creation, and at the ways in which the character of Sherlock Holmes has been altered and adapted to suit the changing fashions, morals and expectations of the reading public...
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Charlie
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Jul 13, 2017 02:01AM
Fascinating read. Thanks!
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