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

[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.)