Happy Birthday!

...To Sherlock Holmes, that is. Apparently Sir Arthur Conan Doyle decreed that on this day in 1854, one of the world's most brilliant deductive minds was born. That would make him...154 years old today. And he's still going strong, with two new movies in the works and a world of fans following his every crime-solving move. Not bad for a sesquicentenarian.

So, we have today's quotes, all from the elusive detective himself with a little help from the Quote of the Day emails. I finished reading the first part of the Holmes canon over my stay at my Aunt's house (which was wonderful, thank you for asking) and am happy that it was not so overwhelming to read Doyle that I do not remember some of these quotes.

A man should keep his little brain attic stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to need, and the rest he can put away in the lumber room of his library, where he can get it if he wants it.
- Arthur Conan Doyle, 1858 - 1930

It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
- Arthur Conan Doyle, 1858 - 1930

You will remember, Watson, how the dreadful business of the Abernetty family was first brought to my notice by the depth which the parsley had sunk into the butter upon a hot day.
- Arthur Conan Doyle, 1858 - 1930

The most winning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little children for their insurance-money, and the most repellent man of my acquaintance is a philanthropist who has spent nearly a quarter of a million upon the London poor.
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1859 - 1930, Character of Sherlock Holmes

Yes, I have a turn both for observation and for deduction. The theories which I have expressed there, and which appear to you to be so chimerical are really extremely practical - so practical that I depend upon them for my bread and cheese.
Today's quotes are from the character Sherlock Holmes,
created by Arthur Conan Doyle, 1859 - 1930

Sherlock Holmes is a fascinating and endearing character, but equally fascinating and endearing is his sidekick, Dr. John Watson, a man who at the beginning of the series has just come home from Afghanistan and has need of a roommate. He finds one in Sherlock Holmes, and after that, the two become nearly inseparable. Reading "Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories (Vol. One)" over break gave me a new appreciation for these characters and for the spin offs they've spawned.

As I was reading the introduction to the particular compendium I'd chosen, one thing dawned on me -- "Watson is exactly like Wilson!" (James Wilson, Best Friend of Greg House on House MD) Then I remember that Watson is Wilson, and House is Holmes, the first bumbling, inexact, unlucky in love, several times married, and inept beside his brilliant partner while the second is brilliant, capable, removed from the world, elitist, and disdainful of the rest of the human population. But somehow we come to like Holmes and House, and as Loren D. Estleman posits in his introduction to my volume, it's because Watson's ineptitude humanizes Holmes. As his only constant friend (even Holmes' brother Mycroft doesn't get the same treatment or share the same bond) and the narrator to a great majority of his adventures, Holmes isn't quite as bad as all his characterizing adjectives would normally make him seem. (Also, having Watson narrate the chase of crime as it's happening is MUCH easier to read than Holmes recounting it afterwards, as Doyle writes in several stories. Watson's a much better story teller, anyway.)

And Watson has another function besides that of narrator and friend-- to make Holmes look better. By being there to observe a crime scene and make his own observations first, Watson makes Holmes' ridiculously detailed theories seem all the more amazing. If Watson notices that the carpet's been tred on, Holmes will note by how many men, what kind of tobacco they smoked and what size shoes they all wear. Oh, and that one of them recently suffered a wound overseas, probably in India.

I made several wallpapers over break, and one of them was of Doctor Wilson. When I had it as my background, my mother asked me, in an exasperated tone, why I liked Doctor Wilson so much. I replied, before she could give the rest of her customary argument on this one (it is an argument we have had several times -- the perils of letting your mother get hooked on the same TV show) that I liked Wilson because he is the more human of the pair, and easier to like, and becuase he is all of the things I have described him to be, bumbling, inept, specialized in only one thing while House can recite laundry lists of obscure diseases, and because, by his special influence, he makes House look better and helps House solve his cases by letting him talk the whole thing over and making some pithy remark that makes House realize something he didn't think of before. "And yes, Mom, I know that he's a terrible oncologist, but that doesn't take away from his being a fun and interesting character," I finished. My mother works with cancer statistics and patient records in Oncology, so she would know all about great oncologists, and she sort of gave me this fed-up little frown and dropped the subject.

It's a debate we've had several times, and a debate we'll probably have again, but it doesn't change my views on the subject -- Without Watson, there is no one to record Holmes' brilliant exploits and chat with him at the end of a long day chasing criminals. Without Wilson, House is just another crabby doctor pushing around his little gang of Baker Street Irregulars and bullying his patients into telling him what he needs to know. Sidekicks they may be, but important peices of the narrative quilt and necessary additions to the story.

(If you'd like to view one of my House wallpapers, you can do so at my DeviantArt Page, at the link to the side.)