Apocryphal Writing

by Enrico Solito
Translation by Simona Fedeli

I thank the Promoters for inviting me to write an account. I am really honoured yet I don't understand: why me?

As I have previously and many times said I don't have any experience in writing apocryphes: I have never written them nor I know authors writing them. In the introduction of my little book under the name of our Association (thanks again for having let me use this title) I have explained,I hope, the background of that exciting discovery: all the details can easily be checked and the original documents of Watson are at scholars' disposal. Therefore the hint on these documents being not authenticate makes me worried.

So, why me? Why am I asked to write abount something I don't know? The promoters' choice must yet have a sense. Actually due to this discovery I had to face many problems about the Creation of an apocryph. How can one recognize an original from an apocryphal writing? On this subject I studied a lot.

Obviously neither the exam of Watson's hand-writing nor the quality of the paper nor the color of the ink (the typical instruments of Holmes ) are sufficient: these are only the first things to analyse facing a supposed new Watson's essay. As a matter of fact it is not so difficult either to find brands and types of paper similar to that sold in London at the beginning of the century or to write with ink- pen or to imitate Watson's hand-writing. And neither the carbon _14 exam nor a similar one can dissolve any doubt as not enough time has passed from the beginning of the Saga. These methods can save us from the most sensational or vulgar imitations but not from the most refined copies.

Writing an apocryph, I should follow some rules:

1. writing should be in Watson's style with particular attention to the typical interjections, to period or phrase lenght, the commas and the verbs. This work should need a long semantic and syntactic study. Moreover I should pin my attention to the famous idiomatic phrase like "My dear Watson".....

2. The story should never contracdict the Rules but always refer to them, exploring the darkest sides, explaining the internal contracdictions. To state that Moriarty was actually a benefactor or that Watson ran behind a thief like a gazelle are the proofs that we are facing an apocryph.

3. The characters should be consistent. Some late bad stories like "The samba of S.H." in which Watson is a marijuana addicted and, according to me, the whole american tradition according to which Watson is a stupid instead of the clever help of S.H., do really prove the artificiality of the stories.
   We know for sure that the good doctor is the best friend of Holmes, a good team-mate, the inspiring man of many of Holmes' discoveries. They trust and respect each other and this is the main characteristic of the whole Saga. A ridicolous description of Watson by S.H. is, again, a proof of a non-authentic story

4. The characters should moreover be consistent with the Rules' spirit. The apocryph "Solution 7%" is false. I am sure of it. Watson would have never written about private details of his best friend's life, details which are moreover protected by the professional deonthology.It is not a gentleman's behaviour. It could have be done by an american like Meyer not by an english doctor!!!

5. Absolute coherence to the historic reality. This must be true not only for the hints to the daily life, to the use of tools or the daily habits but also for those to the english and international political life, to the historical events and so on: one should need a long historical and enviromental study and it could take a long time obtaining it. Had I had to write the "Calcutta Cup" ( a story not yet published, found in the famousa trunk) I should have had to study the English railways at the end of the nineteenth century and the list of all the railways stations: absurd, don't you agree????

6. The last but not the least : the plot and the thriller coherence. We know that very often Holmes reaches the solution with information not revealed to the reader by Watson - for example the resemblance between Stappleton and the portrait of Hugo of Baskerville. And even reading about the most brilliant enlightenments of Holmes" (i.e. 'you have recently been in Afganistan....'), the reader can't really understand because he doesn't see Watson, doesn't know either his face expression or his behavior This is Watson's revenge: as he can't use the clues as Holmes does (who else could anyway?) he denies them to the reader. The reader is no more in competition with the detective, relaxes himself and abandons himself to the surroundings: to the violin, to the pipe and the moor. The plot coherence is not the suspence, the possibility to solve the case but, according to me, the anyway real and possibile solution, even if not reachable by the reader. It is difficult to accept a story as true if it hasn't a good explanation!!

I will make you an example. I could show you an apocryph on Holmes having been in Prato. Could it have been possible and when? We know (EMPT) that one week after the "waterfall story" Holmes has been in Florence and after, but we do not know when, has gone to the East. This is a good time interval during which he could have been in Prato and could have had time to "solve" something.

The next step would be to find a city map of that period, news on the public transport, the newspapers, the famous citizens, the libraries and firms: all these information can easily be found on a booklet on Prato history. I could have, if I would, obtained the history of Metastasis theatre, with the list of shows, the casts, dates and even the thicket prices: a book on this history is, by chances on my bedside table. Using this book and other information found in the Lazzerini library and in Town Hall documents, I could have created the 'humus', the background of a story on Holmes in Prato and I could surely have used the ability of Prato citizens in working the rags:I couldn't have ignored the hint, in thes waterfall episode, on the pieces of Moriarty jacket being like a kilt piece on which Holmes was investigating. Could he have made a best choice going to the 'Capital' of rags to investigate on these matters? He could certainly have discovered that those rags had been spun in Prato and that they were a link between Moriarty's organization, a bad crime under the Black Friars Bridge in London and a Tuscan political and financial crime organization in Prato. Everything could have happened during the show in November '92 'to the advantage of the ill tenors Guglielmo Bessi (who wasn't ill at all but injured as he helped Holmes to solve the case): Holmes could have organized the show which is remembered in the Metastasio Theatre history, could have played the violin under the name of Sigerson and played the song "To Irene". I could have stated all these data, using real documents and I could have done it, had I not been stopped by our President who didn t want me create a precedent.... And I obey.

Creating a reliable apocryph is not so difficult, yet it may be as cold as a wax statue. The most important thing is that the apocryphal author must really believe in his characters and story: must live inside his characters, must dip himself in the Central Dogma, must become a Sherlock man and, I add, must have a sane phsychic systen as the continuous swinging between reality and fantasy, normality and madness, which is extremely funny for many of us, could be extremely dangerous for many others. Otherwise everything becomes an artificial construction- It must not happen: after having planned his story, the author of apocryphs must let Watson tell it, move his pen. And finally Sherlock HoImes, the real one, will spring from the Story.

This is the real charm of our old Sherlock Holmes; in everybody's heart there are as many different pictures of S.H. as our many different souls. Perhaps in his 'image' there is the echo of our lives, our hopes, ourselves..... My essay wouldn't be complete if I didn't explain you how I see Holmes. I see him as a noble-minded, idealist, magnanimous and a fond_friend man.He is not the neurotic misogynist, disgusted by human being and mania-obsessed man imagined by Doyle: his discretion, his relation with women has always made me think about a sort of gloomy secret, a hidden chase pain. Moreover I have always admired his behaviour with the unmasked guilty men. He is never arrogant, he never mortifies them; he is disgusted only by the worst of them. Very often he forgives them, he understands their 'drama' behind their crimes. That is why I love S.H. I have always asked myself to whom he could resemble. May be the General Gordon, whose portrait was in his sitting room? Or to the six hundred of Balaklava? No, he worked in the darkness, he didn't look for fame. May be in the past.... for sure he is neither Robin of Locksley nor Wilfred of Ivanhoe: both were lonely heroes, 'against the stream' men, rebels. Holmes is a man of the establishment, well living in his society. Again back in the past looking for a resemblance: I think to the king Arthur Saga and the Round Table Knights, the birth of English nation, the magic sword Excalibur. There is no resemblance either between H. and Arthur or Merlin (Mycroft?) or Parsifal or Galahad who found the Graal: they are all too much idealist, perfect yet detached from earth and their mistakes. Holmes is not like them: he lives in the contracdictions and difficulties of his days.

There i.s a man who, according to me, resembles the 8-centuries older detective: Lancilot of Lake. Lancillot, the best, the undefeated, the most loyal. I know what you all are thinking: Lancillotto is the lover of Geneva, the king's wife; he is not so loyal …And what about the famous diffidence of Holmes for women? Where is the resemblance???

Actually the love affair with Geneva, in Arthur Saga, wasn't guilty to Lancillot's eyes: reading carefully this story the very unloyal men are the envious knights who betraied him advising King Arthur. Lancelot rescued the Queen, denied his love and gave her back to the king: the utmost self-sacrifice. To charge Lancelot with unloyalty is as like as to charge H. with drug addiction, not realising that in his times the use of cocaine was considered no more than a bad unhealthy habit, not even immoral (cocaine was sold together with heroin in the chemists' shops like aspirin).

Lancelot has always been extremely gracious and protective with the other damsels refusing their love offers; also Holmes did so and I have always suspected he was hiding a secret : the discovery of the score "to Irene" proves me to be right.

Lancelot devotes his life to his country and his king, in spite of death. He is the best in the war field, and is the symbol of his times. He is loyal with friends, terrifies his enemies, he faces every danger and nothing is particularly dangerous for him. He is a friend of Galeotto and loves his Queen, this is his drama, but he conciliates this secret with his life, his loyalty, his coherence and when he is the strongest knight in the kingdom retires as an hermit. Also Holmes is as scornful of danger as Lancelot, has the same courage: there will never be again a detective so dreadful for criminals. He too loves his king and his country; he also retires at the best of his career; he too considers his friendship with Watson the most important thing of his life; he too considers loyalty and coherence the most important elements of a man's life. He too as Lancelot has a loneliness, a pain in his heart: it isn't love for a woman (may be... perhaps) but the pain for the intolerable grey living, living without ideals and that is the reason for his using cocaine. It is pain, contracdiction, humanity, sin, if you want, to make these two characters alike: so big and so imperfect.

Lancelot and S.Holmes: two great English men who, according to me resemble each other. My S.H. is as loyal and generous as Lancelot and as Lancelot suffers and has a secret anxiety. Let's read together the last part of the Saga about Lancelot's death, described by Chretien de Troyes: these lines are 8 Centuries old.

We do not know if S.H. is alive or dead. But if dead, I am sure, his end wasn't different,and now he lies near J.H.Watson, his old friend; and not very different words are on their tombs.

I thank you all who in a terrible moment of my life have accompanied my dreams and fantasies. Thanks to everybody and especially to Stefano, Eugenio, Francesco.

For the epilogue, let me use again the words of Chretien de Troyes:

Nothing to be added, on my part.