Genderbent Sherlock Holmes Adaptations, Part II

(Missed Part I? It’s here.)

Would this still be my blog if I didn’t ramble on about Sherlock Holmes adaptations? Probably not. As in the previous entry, I’m reading a bunch of Sherlock Holmes adaptations/re-imaginings/subversions that change the gender of the Holmes/detective character.

Here are my thoughts on the second round.

The Enola Holmes Mysteries (Nancy Springer, 2007 and continuing)

This MG series follows the (mis)adventures of Sherlock and Mycroft’s equally intelligent younger sister, Enola. I wanted to check out the novel precisely because I didn’t like the Netflix movie version. It felt too hand-holdy with each clue, and I also found the characterizations of Enola’s mother and brothers to be clichéd and uninteresting.

By the time I was a few pages into the first chapter of the first volume, I liked the books a lot better: Enola’s relationship with her mother is much more fraught and makes both their actions feel more psychologically plausible to me. Sherlock is as condescendingly sexist as he is in Conan Doyle’s canon, limited in his view by exactly the same logical approach he brings to everything else, and Mycroft isn’t a fussy old priss but instead is retiring and hands-off and genuinely thinks he’s doing the right thing by his mother and sister because, according to society and the law, he is. I liked to see Enola struggling with how she loves her brothers and wants them to like her but also can’t live with the way they treat her and their mother (and women in general).

Although technically Enola isn’t the “Sherlock” here since that’s still, you know, Sherlock, who also exists, she is the “Sherlock” figure: the brilliant detective who solves the case. She doesn’t feel quite as brilliant as Sherlock, but that’s at least in part because we get to see her thought processes–there is no Watson equivalent–and the author does a good job of showing that she’s young and still teaching herself how solve cases. It’s clear that Enola’s raw intelligence is equal to that of her brothers, but she’s in the process of learning how to apply it (and under what circumstances it’s wisest to do so).

I also liked how carefully this author explains certain elements of Enola’s social environment that the movie kind of glosses over, like how very much more one hundred pounds is worth in Victorian times than it is now. Overall, I’m excited for the rest of the series. (I’m up to book 4, but now I have to wait for my library hold to come in… :'( )

The Daughter of Sherlock Holmes (Leonard Goldberg, 2017)

One of the things I’ve enjoyed noticing about these adaptations is what changing Holmes’s gender means to each author.* Sometimes, it’s about critiquing gender roles or positivist/empiricist views of conventionally feminine interests. Sometimes, it’s about exploring what happens when a supremely competent character like Holmes is viewed differently by society. Sometimes, it’s about subverting the gender binary altogether.

Aaand sometimes the author just wants manly man Watson to be able to marry his Holmes Very Heterosexually.

I did not like this adaptation.

This female Holmes (his totally sekrit daughter, Joanna Blalock) is basically “what if the smart person solving the mystery was a pretty woman who also wasn’t as mean and abrasive as most Sherlock Holmes characters are.” (“Also, what if she didn’t really resemble Holmes physically because that would make her a super uggo!”)(“But her son does, so you know the genetics are there!”)(Also, what if genetics and heritage from one of your parents literally dictate your entire personality and life choices, because everybody from Holmes to Lestrade to frickin’ Toby the dog is a mini-me of their canon-character parent.)

Most of these elements I can forgive–I swear, I can handle cliché and silliness and unconsidered rom-com tropes–but the three things that made this book difficult for me to finish are:

1. The romance between Watson Jr. and Joanna had about as much chemistry as the romance between a Ken doll and a Barbie getting their faces whacked together by a small child.

2. This universe’s version of Holmes apparently needed a long consultation with an expert to understand how to solve a simple substitution cipher. Nobody in this novel sees. Nobody observes. The clues that Joanna points out are, like… super obvious. Like, “sometimes people with glasses can’t see clearly without them!” and her logical deductions are occasionally extremely improbable but somehow end up being correct.

3. Blalock encounters one or two instances of token sexism, such as police officers doubting her abilities because she is a lady, but they are quickly Solved by her male companions explaining that she may be a lady, but she is actually very smart. Tah dah! Sexism is over, everyone!

I still finished it, but I can’t recommend it, and I will actively avoid the rest of the series.

A Study in Charlotte (Brittany Cavallaro, 2016)

On the other hand, I loved this first book in the Charlotte Holmes series and can’t wait to read the rest. It’s also about Holmes and Watson’s descendants, Charlotte and Jamie, contemporary teenagers who attend a fancy boarding school. They do fall into roles similar to those of their famous ancestors, but the character development is sort of about that: how each has been raised with certain expectations, whether external (Charlotte’s family trains its members in deduction and detective work from childhood) or internal (Jamie has daydreamed about adventures with his Holmes counterpart since childhood and has built a shaky fantasy-self around that possibility).

Charlotte is extremely competent, emotionally complex, and just vulnerable enough to make the stakes high. She is implied to be neurodivergent and possibly under the asexual umbrella in a thoughtful way that acknowledges that asexual =/= aromantic or completely opposed to sex always all the time. At the end, if you think about the main mystery from the perspective of the revealed antagonist, the plot doesn’t entirely make sense, but it’s such a joy to watch Charlotte’s combination of meticulousness and intelligence in action that it’s difficult to begrudge the author moments of wiggled logic to make the plot worthy of the protagonist’s skill.

However, what makes or breaks a Holmes-Watson partnership story is whether Watson is an interesting character on their own, and James definitely is. As I explain why, I’m going to mention an early-story vague spoiler, so stop reading here if that bothers you.

Also, content warning: the spoiler involves sexual assault.

I particularly like Jamie and his narration because he shows how masculinity can challenge toxic masculinity and sexist tropes. He’s both flawed and skilled in conventionally masculine ways: he’s good at punching people but also has a short temper. He’s attracted to and considerate toward girls and women but also recognizes that he treats them interchangeably and tends to fall for the idea of a girlfriend rather than a particular person. But I’m especially intrigued by the way the story includes his feelings (he is, after all, the narrator) but centres those of others when appropriate.

In particular, relatively early in the story, James learns that a female character he cares about survived rape. The narrative gives him space to be devastated by this information without prioritising his feelings over those of the survivor. He is angry that someone could do this to another person and upset that the character he cares about was hurt in this way and distraught that there’s no way he can undo the pain the experience caused her… but, the narrative makes clear, these are his feelings, for him to deal with. It’s his own job to cope with them, not the job of the survivor to help him do so. When he’s with her, his job is to support her feelings in whatever way she tells him to, which he does. For example, he would feel better if they talked together about what happened, but when he asks the survivor if she wants to, she says no. So he supports her by talking about other things, the way she wants, and works through his feelings on his own or with other characters.

I mentioned above that many stories that change Holmes’s gender subvert or comment on gender assumptions and conventions. I like how this story does the same with its Watson’s retained maleness as well, and I love how its two main characters interact and negotiate trust, mutual support, and intimacy.

* To be clear, I’m not saying that only adaptations that change Holmes’s gender have something to say about gender. Choosing to keep Holmes’s conventional canonical gender is also a choice and also communicates something, even if unintentionally.