Watching The Detectives

[poliphilo]

I know a lot of people out there are fond of Lord Peter Wimsey, but here's what I think.

A fictional detective shouldn't be lovable, or cute or (God help us) sexy.

A fictional detective stands for Justice. And justice is cold and harsh and no respecter of persons.

Which is why Sherlock Holmes is the business.

You want warmly human? You want touchy-feely? Then give your detective a Watson. A Watson can be as cuddly as a cuddly thing with fluff all over it.

But your detective must be cold, hard, inhuman. (An odd glint of buried fires- a tenderness for some unattainable, long lost love- an Irene Adler- is permissible- but let it be only a glint.)

And let him/her be weird. The weirder the better!

Agatha Christie loved Miss Marple but came to hate Poirot.

Horrid, prissy little man!

Which is why I find Miss Marple tiresome, but can never get enough of David Suchet's Poirot.

Comments

[pickwick.livejournal.com]

Oh, I love Lord Peter :) I think it helps that he has Bunter to be the stiff-upper-lip, cold, inhuman half of the partnership. And the police guy, too. You couldn't have three of them, that'd be overkill!

I agree with you in that I don't think a regular police procedural or private investigator thing works as well with a cuddly protagonist, but part of the point of Wimsey is that he's not a proper investigator and just sort of wibbles around being interested. Like Miss Marple, I guess.

And I love Suchet's Poirot - I can't deal with Finney's or even Ustinov's at all, cos he just *looks wrong*.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's a long time since I read any Sayers. I like my detective fiction "pure" and the later novels (with Harriet Vane to the fore) struck me as over-long and overblown.

But I realise this is a minority position.

Suchet is terrific. Ustinov looked quite wrong; Poirot isn't a bear of a man. And Finney was grotesquely mannered.

[ex-kalymura481.livejournal.com]

> But your detective must be cold, hard, inhuman.

> A fictional detective shouldn't be lovable, or cute or (God help us) sexy.

Yes, I adore Poirot, & am a Holmes fan of the Jeremy Brett sort (which has led me to the books in both cases). However, those cold, hard & inhuman traits ARE sexy, in my humble opinion (though, it might take an essay for me to explain why). Nonetheless, the detective came first, then the attraction.

On the other hand, I was pleasantly surprised by how well the one-off "Lewis" episode worked, now Morse has left us. I didn't have high hopes for it originally, due to the previous cuddly-Watson effect that you mention.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Jeremy Brett was amazing- the definitive Holmes in my opinion.

OK- Holmes IS sexy. But the thing is he's not trying to be. He's not trying to endear himself in the least. The sexiness is a bye-product, unintended. His remoteness, his self-possession give him that unattainable vibe which is hugely attractive.

[sovay]

I disagree with you entirely on Peter Wimsey, but I am with you all the way on David Suchet's Poirot (and Sherlock Holmes, if played by Jeremy Brett). I was lucky enough to see David Suchet as Salieri in Peter Shaffer's Amadeus the first time I was ever in London, and I've been addicted to him ever since.

[sovay]

(I should point out, however, that my liking for Peter Wimsey is not founded on the warm and fuzzy aspects of his character so much as on the intelligent and weird. It's a deeply attractive combination.)

[ibid.livejournal.com]

Joan Hickson's Miss Marple is far from touchy feely, she's a brittle old thing.

[methodius.livejournal.com]

And then there are the more recent ones:

Morse & Lewis
Wexford & Burden
Lynley & Havers

I wouldn't describe any of them as cute and cuddly.

[boxmint.livejournal.com]

Holmes--whom I love to DEATH--doesn't strike me as inhuman justice at all. He's a terrible, terrible showoff. Vanity is his passion. Remember that bit where he compares himself to Cleopatra? "I trust that age doth not wither nor custom stale my infinite variety."

Where d'you stand on Josephine Tey's Alan Grant? (Who never gets married--because his daily life is so full of people that a barren room is a source of spiritual refreshment?)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I take your point.

I love Holmes too- and have done since I was a small boy.

"Inhuman" is the wrong word. Perhaps "other" would be better. Doyle produced something very rare in fiction- a convincing fictional portrait of genius.

I'm afraid I don't know Alan Grant, but I like that thing about the "barren room".