I don’t think it’s a coincidence that
Chabon titled his book The Final Solution
and that the last Sherlock Holmes story written by Conan Doyle is titled The Final Problem. Within the novel,
‘the final solution’ is the fact that the mystery of the missing parrot is most
likely the old man’s last case that he will solve. But outside the novel, ‘the
final solution’ Chabon is offering is the solution to the death of Sherlock
Holmes. Although the old man is never given a name, I think that he is supposed
to be the legendary detective that supposedly died falling off a cliff.
Chabon writes Sherlock back to life and has him living out his old age in a
cottage in the English countryside. The old man has the same skills Sherlock
does. He uses deductive reasoning and is able to infer theories from obscure
details he manages to pick up. Also, throughout the novel there are references
to the old man’s past as a famous detective.
I always like
when other authors take an existing story and extend it, making it their own in
a way. Even though Sherlock is Doyle’s character, Chabon crafts an 'epilogue' of
sorts for the Sherlock Holmes series. It’s fascinating to me how a story
written so long ago can still be told today in so many different ways. For
instance, there are multiple TV shows and movies about Sherlock Holmes. I like
that these characters never really die and that multiple people can give the stories
their own twist.
I love the idea that characters can be revived and reused by other authors, so that they never truly "die". I do wonder what the limits on this is, though. At what point does Holmes stop being the same Holmes of Doyle's stories, and becomes a whole new character under Chabon? Even if an author tries their hardest to emulate the character in the same style as the original, there are limits to how close it came come to being authentic.
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