Sherlock Holmes & I

We go ways back. Really. I grew up reading Sherlock Holmes.

I love detective stories. Not sure why though. I don't think I can provide a satisfactory answer as to why I love detective stories; I just do.

Since I was a little kid, I loved reading books. Still do although nowadays gaming takes up most of my free time but ever so often I find a book that I just have to gorge down, to plough through at breakneck speed. In any case, my first detective series was Feluda, arguably the best Bengali detective series. Yes, I will argue that point. & from there I became interested in Sherlock Holmes because Holmes was Feluda's idol (despite being fictional) as a detective.

Anyways, soon after, I was gifted a Bengali version of The Return of Sherlock Holmes. Yeah, that's the funny part. I read about SH surviving his 'death' before reading about the actual 'dying' part XD

I enjoyed those books immensely & seeing that, my mother dug out of old books, a full collection book of Sherlock Holmes (in Bengali of course). I read through all of it & became a full on SH fanboy :P
[Yes, I'm aware of the irony that I read them in Bengali. Give me a break; I was a kid]

I loved the stories & the translation was really really good, much better than the copy of The Return of Sherlock Holmes that I was gifted prior (although that was because the one I had prior was a translation aimed towards kids & the one my mother had, wasn't). I enjoyed all the little stories, the novels, everything. I agree that I didn't like some of the very last stories but other than that, it was an awesome series & made me a complete fan of detective stories :)

Anyways, right now, as of this writing, I have 3 full collections of Sherlock Holmes. My mother's old collection, a different Bengali translation & an unabridged English version (which I haven't gone around reading, just an FYI).

P.S. In case you're curious, my mother & her brother bought the SH collection by saving their lunch money from their college days. The same way they also bought every single Tintin comic (this time in English because the Bengali translation wasn't made until long after).

Anyways, being a full on SH fanboy, I was rather angry when Robert Downey Jr's Sherlock Holmes movie came out in 2009. When I saw the trailer I was disgusted. Utterly disgusted at the adaptation. What is this? Some sort of James Bond movie? WHAT? This isn't Sherlock Holmes? This isn't the man I read stories of as a kid? How dare you rape one of my childhood heroes like that? How dare you?

This mentality lasted for quite a while & the sequel, A Game of Shadows, didn't really help with that.

It wasn't until Bhai told me that he liked the movies (the little part he saw & the trailer) that I started to reconsider my stance. Bhai has read the Sherlock Holmes stories & yet here he was, telling me that he liked the movies & my little fanboy bubble started to pop. I realized that if I consider the movies as only using the names from characters in Sherlock Holmes & is just a completely new story with new people (as in this SH is not the one in the books) I realized that the movie can be quite enjoyable.

Forcing myself to consider that the movie is basically a James Bond film in Victorian Times, I watched Downey's Sherlock Holmes. & to my great surprise, I enjoyed it thoroughly. It was crazy, it was so different, yet I liked it. & right there, my fanboy bubble just dissipated entirely. My snobby atitude was preventing me from enjoying a movie which was very enjoyable on it's own merits & not having any relation with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's books. & I didn't realise that.

This mentality is also what allowed me to enjoy the Spider-Man reboot. I completely considered this a separate film & not being biased by my experience with the first series.

Anyways, just a few days ago, I watched A Game of Shadows & I liked it as well. & that's where things got weird. I was interested in seeing what other adaptations were made of Sherlock Holmes & went on wikipedia. I found 2 that struck me as interesting - Sherlock & Elementary.

Now I had heard of Sherlock previously but for some reason, when I heard it was based in the future, I imagined it to be based in our future not as in the present. So I thought the series was actually a sci-fi futuristic detective series which, let's all be honest here, would be FRIGGIN' AMAZING, but I never really got around seeing it until a few days ago when I found the series again.

I saw the pilot & within about 8 minutes, I was hooked. The episodes are a bit big for my taste but I can't hold that against such an awesome show.

I also saw Elementary. It was a VERY novel premise & I was very glad it was made so good. I enjoyed it thoroughly as well & right now, I'm ploughing through both serieses (serieses needs to be a valid word dammit) & enjoying every moment of them :D

& um, there you are. A little wall-of-text about my adventure with Sherlock Holmes. Now if you'll excuse me, I have 2 TV series to finish watching. Farewell & Have a nice day/night/whatever the time is over there :)