Elementary
My book group is reading a bit of Sherlock Holmes this week. We could use something light after Othello. While perusing "The Speckled Band," something hit me that was so obvious I was embarrassed I hadn't noticed before.
This is why the TV show House is so popular--the title character, Dr. Gregory House, is a modern Sherlock Holmes. They're both bachelors. They're both hooked on drugs. They both have no talent or use for normal social intercourse. And only one thing truly animates them--the chance to solve puzzles, in one case the solution to crimes, in the other, the cure for diseases.
What really made me smack my foreheard was when the writers' clue sank in. His name. "Gregory House" and "Sherlock Holmes" share a lot of vowels, but that's not it. "House" is practically a synonym for "Holmes."
posted by LAGuy @ 12:32 AM
3 Comments:
Holmes was based on a doctor, Joseph Bell, who taught Arthur Conan Doyle (who was a doctor).
I haven't seen it recently, but that Vincent D'onofrio edition of Law and Order is another Sherlock Holmes knock-off.
I haven't seen that show either, though, perhaps, since it's Law And Order the Holmes tribute is not so hidden.
A lot of the appeal of the Holmes stories are not just the deduction, but the mysterious, somewhat forbidding character of Holmes himself. I haven't really read much mystery literature, but from what little I know I get the feeling it's now common to give mystery solvers odd quirks that make them hard to live in normal society. On TV, I guess Monk (a show I actually haven't watched, but apparently features a detective with OCD) is the latest and farthest out in this line.
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