One of my favorite professors, the late Ian Watt, taught that there were four great myths of modern individualism: Faust, Don Juan, Don Quixote and Robinson Crusoe. This always got me wondering which, if any, pop-culture heroes might endure in the same way. James Bond? Luke Skywalker? The Avengers? C’mon. In fact, there’s only one who I feel sure will last — Sherlock Holmes.
In the 125 years since Arthur Conan Doyle created the world’s greatest detective, 75 different actors have played him in the movies, and scads more on TV, not to mention the countless knockoffs like The Mentalist or Mr. Spock, who once claimed Holmes as his ancestor.
We’ve had him as a teen in Young Sherlock Holmes, as a wise-cracking action star played by Robert Downey Jr., and as a retired beekeeper in Michael Chabon’s terrific little novel The Final Solution, where he encounters the crime of the century — The Holocaust. Now he’s been updated as a present-day Londoner in Sherlock, the British TV series that offers the best version of Holmes and Dr. Watson I’ve ever seen.
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