>Are you implying that
>Holmes wasn't an addict? Because Scudder
>unquestionably is.
Were we perhaps being asked to cut this particular discussion
short?
All that I meant is that both were sometime addicts to
substances which were not themselves illegal at the time;
that to get twitchy about Holmes's cocaine is no more
reasonable in a historical context than to be shocked by
Scudder's alcohol. Neither of these is a law-breaker because
of his habit; the habit and his reactions to it are important
to the characterisation. I did find parallels between them,
related to the question whether Holmes is hb.
(As for us, we're having a cannabis festival down the road
tomorrow.)
For all that he is surprisingly boilish, though, I think this
is more interesting to a consideration of Holmes as a
character than to the development of the tradition of
(really, American) hb lit. For that, I agree entirely with
those who've pointed out the joint influence of Hemingway's
language and the Western's mythology. Conan Doyle's
influences seem to me to have been a kind of mixture of
Stevenson (and other 19th century British adventure story
writers) and Wilkie Collins; the invention of the tortured,
ethical intellectual, Holmes, is something special which he
brought in to that mix. All right, now jump on me....
MM
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