by Josef Steiff
One’s Moral Code Is a Decisive Witness to Who He Is
Now let’s examine the exact same scene from “The Blue Carbuncle,” but with Sherlock Holmes reinterpreted—Oh, let’s go ahead and say it—recreated by Jeremy Brett. The disgusted dismissal of the actual thief of a priceless blue jewel shows Sherlock sitting in profile, left hand held up to his temple. The scene provides us with yet another example of how we know the man is deeply in touch with a certain emotion, but we’re not allowed to know exactly what that emotion is. Not yet, anyway.
And then Dr. Watson confesses to being more than a little surprised at the shocking turn of events in which Sherlock Holmes—up to now just an unofficial arm of the prevailing Victorian ideology to punish transgressors of some moral rules codified into statutory law—actually breaks the law by letting a man he knows is guilty of the most famous crime of the moment get away scot-free. Sherlock Holmes does what Nietzsche tells us must be done in order to be an Overman: he has moved beyond good and evil.
The almost violent response about police deficiencies as interpreted by Jeremy Brett includes a raised voice, braying sneer, cocked eyebrow and, finally, a momentary glare at Watson that passes by so quickly it’s easy to overlook. Contained within that outburst and especially within that barely perceptible glare resides an acknowledgment that he has moved beyond the concept of good and evil along with recognition that Watson remains a prisoner of the mass culture that accepts a moral code as intrinsically good without questioning where that code came from. There is a word for the kind of Sherlock Holmes that Jeremy Brett reinvented for audiences grown bored with the calculating machines.
Style.
This, more than anything else, has been the addition by Brett to the Sherlock Holmes mythos that Conan Doyle feared so much would weaken the effect of his brilliant calculating automaton. The evolution of Sherlock Holmes in the capable hands of Jeremy Brett bestows upon modern audiences a man who meets, word for word, Friedrich Nietzsche’s description of what the Overman—the next step in the evolution of man—must do:
. . . give style to one’s character—that is a grand and rare art. He who surveys all that his nature presents in its strength and in its weakness, then fashions it into an artistic plan, until everything appears as art and reason, and even the weaknesses enchant the eye—he exercises that admirable art.
The art that Nietzsche considers grand and rare is nothing less than the creation of a way to peer into the abyss of a world without meaning, a world without absolute truths, a world in which God has been declared dead . . . and not only still find meaning, but “attain satisfaction with himself.” There exists a specific term used to describe the admirable art of fashioning all one surveys into an artistic plan that creates a reason for being rather than acting out against the dread and sublime angst of a world lacking any intrinsic meaning.
Sublimation.
This Fellow Rings True Every Time
With his pronouncement that God was dead, Friedrich Nietzsche unleashed the floodgates of nihilism and existentialism. If a perfect God was a myth created by man then by definition that means that all morality is an invention of imperfect man. Absent the presence of a superior being sitting in judgment of our ability to conform to His morality and the subsequent knowledge that all those moral laws can be traced back to a very fallible culture of men, well, why should it be taken seriously at all?
Nietzsche puts it elegantly: “A morality, a mode of living tried and proved by long experience and testing, at length enters consciousness as a law, as dominating.” He goes on to suggest that the origin of any morality is eventually forgotten, but the morality itself becomes holy and unassailable. It dominates the culture; dominates the members of the herd.
The suggestion that the predominant moral codes of the Judeo-Christian society that came to dominate much of the world is actually the work of man eventually, inconsolably, leads to the reality that if there’s no such thing as God then that must mean that there’s no such thing as absolute morality. Even worse, it means no reward for doing the right thing. Of course, it also means no eternal punishment for doing the wrong thing, but there’s a certain inescapable hollow quality to that upside of a life that ends forever at the moment of death on this planet.
Coming face to face with this knowledge initially creates a sense of fear, confusion and nausea, but ultimately the situation calls for some kind of response. If Nietzsche were alive today he would probably refer to those who respond to the nausea and despair by tying their self-esteem to a sports team, and those who define their falsely rebellious non-conformity to the social norm by painting their skin and piercing selected body parts, and those who put their faith in any organized religion, and those who respond to the lack of any absolute morality by declaring that there is no morality at all as “the herd.” Sticks and stones may break Holmes’s bones, but words will never herd him; at least, not Jeremy Brett’s Sherlock.
I Cannot Agree with Those that Rank Modesty among the Virtues
Rather than latching onto naturalized social conventions or escaping into nihilist rejection that any kind of truth exists or escaping into the temporary good feelings supplied by recreational use of narcotics or becoming a literal warrior laying waste to humanity in support of a herd mentality political ideology, Nietzsche suggested there was another way to overcome the sickness experienced when you gain the knowledge that you are alone and the morality you’ve clung to through even the most boring sermon is nothing but a cultural tool. There exists a better way.
Jeremy Brett’s seemingly apathetic and drugged-up Holmes describes it even more stylishly than Nietzsche. “My mind rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram, or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave mental exultation. That is why I have chosen my own profession, or rather created it, for I am the only one in the world . . . the only unofficial consulting detective . . . . I claim no credit in such cases. The work itself, the pleasure of finding a field for my peculiar powers, is my highest reward.” Only it turns out that Holmes hadn’t been partaking of his seven-percent solution of cocaine as Dr. Watson feared.
Two significant differences exist between this exchange as it exists in Arthur Conan Doyle’s original literary version and how it exists in the television episode starring Brett. The first change is that it is to be found in the Holmes novel The Sign of the Four whereas it appears at the beginning of the television episode “A Scandal in Bohemia.” Some might argue that’s a pretty important difference, but the second stain on literal adherence to Doyle’s written word is far more significant. In fact, the second difference is absolutely vital toward understanding how it is specifically Jeremy Brett’s interpretation of Sherlock Holmes that brings the character into the domain of the Overman rather than the character himself.
In the book, Sherlock does speak the words while under the influence of cocaine. They are the words of a human machine looking only for the chance to exercise logic. The significance here is that Brett’s Sherlock has been giving a performance all along for an audience of one: Dr. Watson. The drug-induced lethargy that stimulates Holmes to pointedly encapsulate Nietzsche’s notion of sublimation as the correct response to despair is all part of a very complex game that is, at all times in Brett’s refashioning of this calculating machine, very much afoot.
Whereas the Sherlock Holmes of a Nicholas Rowe or a Peter Cushing are avatars of Doyle’s inhuman calculating machine who dutifully play out their role as the brilliant detective called in to solve a crime, enact justice and restore proper moral balance to London, Jeremy Brett’s Holmes is not in the game to bring justice or even safety to the “great and observant public” who don’t “care about the finer shades of analysis and deduction.” The manner in which Jeremy Brett delivers this line in its entirety is of deep and profound disgust for those whom he is supposedly try
ing to protect. No, Brett carries these words with a deeper emotion than disgust for the public: revulsion. You never saw Basil Rathbone sneer at the very people he had put himself in charge of protecting when the police were not up to the job.
His Work Is Its Own Reward
“That is why I have chosen my own profession, or rather created it, for I am the only one in the world.” Even Nietzsche—perhaps the most accessible of all great philosophers in terms of how he uses common language to express profound and often profane ideas—could not have put words into the mouth of Sherlock Holmes that concretizes his concept of using sublimation and the application of style to one’s character any better. In Conan Doyle’s original literary version of the scene in which this elementally Nietzschean line is delivered, Sherlock, while under the influence of cocaine, leans his elbows on the arms of his chair in a situation that Watson describes as “like one who has a relish for conversation.” Under the influence, Sherlock is just being gabby.
The screenwriter of “A Scandal in Bohemia” rewrites the scene so that Sherlock sits almost serenely in the throes of a drug-induced state of relaxation that belies the fact that he’s so restless he’s bored as a cat. As written, this scene from the TV series is almost as flat as Doyle’s original. As played, however, the scene is anything but banal.
The Sherlock Holmes that is recreated in the Granada series is a collective effort between the various screenwriters and directors and actor, but because Brett adds so much to his portrayal that may or may not have been someone else’s idea, we must consider Jeremy Brett’s performance the key indicator of the realization of the Nietzschean Overman.
Especially at the moment of truth when Jeremy Brett chooses not to draw the veil down over Sherlock’s emotions, but to wonderfully—dramatically, perhaps some might even say melodramatically—and subtly give the very first indication in the entire canon of cinematic interpretations of Sherlock Holmes that this alleged calculating machine is far closer to an Overman than an automaton. Nietzsche says that what is needed is “that a human being attain satisfaction with himself.” It lies well outside the realm of possibility for Jeremy Brett’s Sherlock Holmes to exude satisfaction with himself any more than he does in this scene.
And yet if your knowledge of Sherlock Holmes has come only through the movies featuring Basil Rathbone or the television series featuring Ronald Howard or any of a number of other cinematic representations, you might well find yourself nodding in agreement with Watson. It is almost as if actors are rigidly insistent upon Conan Doyle’s contention that Holmes must be played only in the register of logically deductive genius searching for truth, justice, and the Victorian Way. Any portrayal of Holmes that contains the dreaded “light or shade” would appear to be in violation of the central tenet of the character of Sherlock Holmes: he solves crimes to bring bad guys to justice.
But what if that weren’t the case? What if Sherlock Holmes solves crimes not because his compassion makes him care about things like justice, truth and morality? What if the drive behind Sherlock’s need to solve cases was about “striving for excellence . . . striving to overwhelm one’s neighbor, even if only very indirectly or only in one’s own feelings?” Can we imagine a portrayal of Sherlock Holmes in which he’s not a coldly calculating automaton who solves crimes as a path toward reestablishing the order of justice in polite Victorian society? For this Sherlock the solving of the crime becomes his own private and personal little melodrama and the subject of that melodrama is proving his superority over everyone.
Superiority—with the caveat that this proof of his superiority impacts directly or indirectly on those with whom he comes into contact so that he changes their lives for the better. Jeremy Brett’s Sherlock overwhelms all those with whom he comes in contact such as when he despairingly closes his eyes and, using his highpitched exultation voice, says “Please, tell me the facts,” with just the slightest quivering of his voice on the word “me.” Is that quiver the suggestion of superiority? I think it is.
Brett also overwhelms in the delightful scene near the end of “The Norwood Builder” when he is using fire to locate the bad guy. He tells the three bobbies, Inspector Lestrade and Dr. Watson to yell fire and when they do so only half-heartedly, Brett immediately and comically says, “Gentlemen, we can do better than that.” It’s a brilliantly timed moment of comedy, but within the rush to exhort the men to yell louder there is that superiority that is expressed not just in the voice, but in the way Brett nods his head his head and raises his arm. In the hands of a less capable actor, Sherlock would merely be logically encouraging a more robust announcement of fire. The look in Brett’s eye when he quietly suggests that the men can do better than that carries with it a much different emotion. It is the look of someone who is tired of asking himself a very contemporary question.
Brett was the very first Sherlock to take the standard scene of Holmes deducing everything about a person when they walk into his room and turn it into a tour de force exhibition of Holmes’s absolute and total superiority over those who see, but do not observe. Without Jeremy Brett’s invention of a theatrically overwhelming Sherlock Holmes who isn’t just a calculating machine, you would not have the twenty-first century Sherlock Holmes of Benedict Cumberbatch or Robert Downey, Jr. (Well, we shouldn’t blame Brett entirely for the latter, I suppose; he knew not the extent of his influence.)
The best example of Brett’s performance being central to the elevation of Sherlock Holmes from inhuman machine to Nietzschean Overman is most perfectly displayed in a scene from Granada’s “The Abbey Grange” that differs considerably from the original as written by Conan Doyle. That version merely describes Holmes asking Lady Brackenstall to tell him the truth. The scene is rewritten to take place outside in the Brett version. With the lightness and dexterity of the dancer he was, Brett positively skips down a row of steps, walks to a spot across from where Lady Brackenstall is sitting, keeping his back to her, digging at the ground with a shoe and dramatically pivoting around on one heel almost military style to finally face the woman. It is theater crafted upon a foundation of pure style.
Chapter 3
Is Holmes Really Just Lucky?
J. Solomon Johnson
“When I hear you give your reasons,” I remarked, “the thing always appears to me to be so ridiculously simple that I could easily do it myself, though at each successive instance of your reasoning I am baffled until you explain your process. And yet I believe that my eyes are as good as yours.”
—Dr. Watson in “A Scandal in Bohemia”
Sherlock Holmes always knows the answer. This is part of his mystique. However, we readers are often left more closely identifying with Dr. Watson. It seems obvious how and why Holmes reaches his conclusions (once his reasons are spelled out), but until this happens any conclusions that we draw are merely guesses. It’s only when Holmes confirms our suspicions that we truly come to know the answer.
The more curious (and dare we say Holmesian) reader might then ask what exactly is so special about Holmes? What allows him to arrive at the truth when the rest of us are just guessing? Or, perhaps the even more compelling question: could Holmes himself be merely guessing? While it doesn’t seem like Holmes merely “believes” the correct answer, explaining how he knows is tougher than you might think.
The distinction between beliefs and knowledge is central to the difference between Holmes and the layman. Clearly there is a difference between believing that someone is guilty and knowing that someone is guilty. But what exactly is this difference?
For over two thousand years, there was one dominant theory of knowledge: the “Justified True Belief ” (JTB) theory. The JTB theory required three things for knowledge: belief, justification, and truth. Let this be our starting point, our first examination of data that will help us solve this mystery of luck. Let us examine what a belief is. Then why knowing something means it has to be true. And why justification is so important.
It was easier to know it
than to explain why I know it.
The real core of any knowledge is belief. Here “belief ” just means anything that you think is true. Beliefs range from an inkling that something bad might happen to the virtual certainty that you are reading this book right now. There might be a difference in how certain you are in these two sorts of cases, but they are the same sort of thing.
But there’s more to belief. In fact, everything you know is also something you believe. The philosopher G.E. Moore showed this through examples like the following: Suppose that Watson notices some bit of evidence and says: “I know your old nemesis Moriarty must be behind this, but I do not believe it!” Assuming this isn’t just hyperbole (an expression of utter incredulity) and is said in total sincerity, Watson’s statement here is nonsense. Try to think of a time where you knew something, but did not believe it. There are plenty of cases where we do not want to believe something, but that is a different matter. Knowing something requires that you believe it. If you’re still unconvinced try to think of a case where someone simultaneously knows something but doesn’t believe it.
Any truth is better than indefinite doubt.
Now let’s examine the second part of the JTB theory: truth. For anyone to really know something, it has to be true. For example, in the story “A Scandal in Bohemia,” Holmes explains to Watson that he knows where Irene Adler has hidden a photograph; this fact is central to the case. Later we learn that by the time he relates his tale to Watson, Ms. Adler had already moved the picture. Thus, when Holmes says that he knows where the photo is, he is thinking of the wrong place. Most of us would then say that Holmes didn’t really know where it was. We might say that Holmes “thought he knew” or “believed that it was true” but not that he really knew. However, had the picture remained where he thought it was, he would have known. This illustrates an important part of the relationship between beliefs and knowledge: a true belief might become knowledge, but an untrue belief never will.