Everybody Wants to be Sherlock Holmes ~or~ Tales of Wrykyn and Elsewhere*

 We live in interesting times.  In the past few years, it feels as though my childhood has reappeared on television, although seen through some sort of odd looking-glass.  Both Dallas and Hawaii 5-O have been remade, it sounds as though one of those Aaron Spelling productions from the 90’s enjoyed a renaissance, Twin Peaks will soon be repopulated, and even Agents Mulder and Scully will be back on the case.  It really should not surprise me then that there are no fewer than two interpretations of Sherlock Holmes on our screens, and these on the heels of Guy Ritchie’s cinematic interpretations starring Robert Downey Jr.  Everything that is old is new again** and nothing is as classic as watching the residents of 221B Baker Street solve crimes.

While Edgar Allen Poe and his lot may have invented the detective story, I don’t think that anyone can dispute that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle popularized the format.  His influence is felt not only in the retelling of his stories, but in every crime procedural I’ve ever watched, and believe me, they are legion.  As I’ve mentioned before, even Wodehouse fell under Conan Doyle’s influence while creating one of her most popular characters.  In her book Wooster Proposes, Jeeves Disposes, Kristin Thompson draws a parallel between Jeeves’ thinking process and Holmes’. 

However, it is not Jeeves that drew my attention while reading this collection of early school stories.  Two stories featured a very Holmes-like character called Burdock Rose, who unravels crimes associated with a public school.  I suspect that, like most of the school tales, these were written early on in Wodehouse’s career.  It is easy to tell why it looks as though only two were written.***  They almost have the feeling of some editor desperately wanting his own Holmes spin-off and sticking our Pelham with the job.  The stories themselves are a little peculiar; they have a feel of farce, but they do not go quite all the way.  It is almost as though Wodehouse was working against his own natural instinct to have fun with a form that was probably already growing a bit stale. 

The good thing about the stories though is the lasting inspiration they seem to have given him to have one remarkable, all-knowing figure who can propel a story or act as a deus ex machina.  No matter how he came to write these stories, I’m glad he did, because otherwise we might never have been introduced to Jeeves, hands-down one of the best literary creations of the 20^th century. 

*Read January 2015.

**This is a very appropriate theme for this time of year.  Finally, the snow banks are retreating, uncovering bits of the landscape unseen since January.

***This may not be the case.  In my copious free time, I really need to look at the Wodehouse Society’s excellent website to confirm this.  They are an extremely keen group who have done us all a favor by unearthing some of Plum’s forgotten works.