When is a House a Holmes?
"How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?" -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1890)
"Sherlock Holmes is a great man, and some day, if we're very very lucky, he might even be a good one." -- Inspector Lestrade, in the BBC TV show, Sherlock (2010)
The great detective, Sherlock Holmes, is a bit of a cultural zeitgeist right now, popping up in myriad iterations throughout the culture: the excellent BBC series Sherlock, where the story's recast in 21st century London, although remarkably faithful to the original Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stories; the rollicking fun Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock Holmes movie and its forthcoming sequels, which are cast in the period but which differ wildly from the source material; a new comic book which I've not read, and of course the medical drama House, M.D., which re-envisions Holmes as a specialized medical diagnostician. All of them have their value, and even the film, the creators of which felt the need to make the lead more of an action hero and to introduce supernatural elements into the story, have something to say about the core mythos. And central to all of this is the idea of the thinker as hero: an outsider in many ways, with many acquaintances but few friends, for whom most human interactions are a distraction and who is, in most ways, not particularly likable. A man who goes to almost superhuman lengths to simply not be bored, which would be intolerable, in many ways, if it weren't for the fact that his pursuit of distraction didn't have an upside for society. (In this, he's actually pretty close to the BBC TV hero, The Doctor, from Doctor Who, and indeed, both are characters who are basically alien in their thinking to most of the people they come in contact with.)
Of course, there have been new iterations of Sherlock Holmes with some degree of regularity for 120 years. Basil Rathbone famously played him in 1939, cementing the look we most associate with the character. He's popped up in comics from Batman to Planetary to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, he was one of the protagonists in Roger Zelazny's A Night at the Lonesome October (one of my favorite novels) and so on, and so on, and so on.
It would seem, in many ways, that no one owns Holmes. And, legally speaking, this is the truth. Sherlock Holmes is in the public domain at this point. Anyone can use him, and indeed, he seems to lend himself easily to adaptation, which is probably a consequence of his adventures being originally serialized. (Whereas Shakespeare only wrote one Hamlet.) There is almost a license to continue his adventures. If anyone owns Holmes, its the ghost of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself, who seems to hover over each new incarnation, forcing the readers or viewers to ask themselves, "Is this really Sherlock Holmes?" It's a good question. Robert Downey Jr.'s version is much fun, as is Hugh Laurie's Gregory House, but have they traveled so far from the source material that they are now, entirely, something else? I'll leave that question for others, but the right of authorship is a thing that's constantly in question, whether it be whether there should be an incarnation of Buffy the Vampire Slayer without creator Joss Whedon's involvement (and indeed, when he turned it down), or the ongoing legal battle over the characters Jack Kirby created for Marvel Comics, which include the likes of Spider-Man and the X-Men.
The legal right to a character seems to come into conflict with rights that seem to be imparted by the works' creators, with courts and audiences (which are, also, a sort of court) weighing the validity of who gets to tell a story. And if a story is indeed legally allowed to be told, as the myriad Sherlock Holmes stories are, then another question entirely is posed. Is the story valid? Does it contribute something to the greater myth? At what point is a Sherlock Holmes story no longer a Sherlock Holmes story?
"Sherlock Holmes is a great man, and some day, if we're very very lucky, he might even be a good one." -- Inspector Lestrade, in the BBC TV show, Sherlock (2010)
The great detective, Sherlock Holmes, is a bit of a cultural zeitgeist right now, popping up in myriad iterations throughout the culture: the excellent BBC series Sherlock, where the story's recast in 21st century London, although remarkably faithful to the original Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stories; the rollicking fun Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock Holmes movie and its forthcoming sequels, which are cast in the period but which differ wildly from the source material; a new comic book which I've not read, and of course the medical drama House, M.D., which re-envisions Holmes as a specialized medical diagnostician. All of them have their value, and even the film, the creators of which felt the need to make the lead more of an action hero and to introduce supernatural elements into the story, have something to say about the core mythos. And central to all of this is the idea of the thinker as hero: an outsider in many ways, with many acquaintances but few friends, for whom most human interactions are a distraction and who is, in most ways, not particularly likable. A man who goes to almost superhuman lengths to simply not be bored, which would be intolerable, in many ways, if it weren't for the fact that his pursuit of distraction didn't have an upside for society. (In this, he's actually pretty close to the BBC TV hero, The Doctor, from Doctor Who, and indeed, both are characters who are basically alien in their thinking to most of the people they come in contact with.)
Of course, there have been new iterations of Sherlock Holmes with some degree of regularity for 120 years. Basil Rathbone famously played him in 1939, cementing the look we most associate with the character. He's popped up in comics from Batman to Planetary to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, he was one of the protagonists in Roger Zelazny's A Night at the Lonesome October (one of my favorite novels) and so on, and so on, and so on.
It would seem, in many ways, that no one owns Holmes. And, legally speaking, this is the truth. Sherlock Holmes is in the public domain at this point. Anyone can use him, and indeed, he seems to lend himself easily to adaptation, which is probably a consequence of his adventures being originally serialized. (Whereas Shakespeare only wrote one Hamlet.) There is almost a license to continue his adventures. If anyone owns Holmes, its the ghost of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself, who seems to hover over each new incarnation, forcing the readers or viewers to ask themselves, "Is this really Sherlock Holmes?" It's a good question. Robert Downey Jr.'s version is much fun, as is Hugh Laurie's Gregory House, but have they traveled so far from the source material that they are now, entirely, something else? I'll leave that question for others, but the right of authorship is a thing that's constantly in question, whether it be whether there should be an incarnation of Buffy the Vampire Slayer without creator Joss Whedon's involvement (and indeed, when he turned it down), or the ongoing legal battle over the characters Jack Kirby created for Marvel Comics, which include the likes of Spider-Man and the X-Men.
The legal right to a character seems to come into conflict with rights that seem to be imparted by the works' creators, with courts and audiences (which are, also, a sort of court) weighing the validity of who gets to tell a story. And if a story is indeed legally allowed to be told, as the myriad Sherlock Holmes stories are, then another question entirely is posed. Is the story valid? Does it contribute something to the greater myth? At what point is a Sherlock Holmes story no longer a Sherlock Holmes story?
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