Welcome to Street Prophets Thursday Coffee Hour cleverly located at the intersection of religion and politics. This is an open topic thread so grab some of the goodies and sit a spell and let us know what is on your mind. I had to laugh when my grandnephew asked me if I knew who Moriarity was? I am currently rereading all of the Sherlock Holmes stories. As I read the stories I am struck again at how important Watson is to the stories themselves.
I rarely watch any of the Sherlock Holmes movies. The only ones I watched faithfully were the PBS ones with the late Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes. Those adaptations did not try to make a buffoon out of Watson. I think that the stories themselves would have been boring if we did not have the character of Watson. Sherlock Holmes himself was really irritating as a character. He was almost a caricature rather then a character. With out the humanizing presence of Watson the stories would be unreadable. In the couple of stories where Watson did not appear the stories lack the spark of humanity.
I think the genius that is Watson is the fact that he wasn’t perfect. He made mistakes. He was a man who often led with his heart rather then his head. He really seemed to care about the people who asked for help. Holmes was not someone you could warm up to. He was a computer in an age before computers were even thought of. You put data in and he spewed results out.
Watson was a man who could fall head over heels in love with a client. He was a man who stopped what he was doing to be a doctor and care for a patient. He was a man with flaws who admitted them and went on with his life. He was a man who would never descend to taking cocaine because he was bored and needed artificial stimulation.
So yes I was able to answer my grandnephew about who Moriarity was. I know who Sherlock Holmes is. I know that without Dr. Watson, Sherlock Holmes would never be the success he was.