Review:To Keep the Memory Green/Kathryn White
This review of the BBC radio show "To Keep the Memory Green" (2 episodes) was written by Kathryn White and published in the A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (Vol. 1, No. 3) in september 1990.
Review
- To Keep the Memory Green
- BBC Radio Four — 6 and 9 july, 1990
Reviewed by Kathryn White
The very first voice heard in a programme about the Arthur Conan Doyle Society was that of fiction's best known biographer, Dr. John Watson. It was, I Suppose, inevitable that we did not hear the voice of Conan Doyle himself, or a reading from one of his non-Sherlockian works.
Other programmes in the current series were devoted to authors who may be considered members of the "secondary" Literary rank, such as John Buchan, Jerome K. Jerome, and E. F. Benson: a worthy exercise from the BBC but, regretfully, one which struck a less than positive note for Conan Doyle.
The fact that the programme was produced at all is encouraging for the Society — wider recognition for, and a desire to discover more about, Conan Doyle's other achievements will surely be the result. However, I felt that both the programme and Conan Doyle himself were the victims of two powers beyond their control, the first being the influence of the Literary Establishment.
As Anthony Burgess has pointed out. and as Kelvin Jones, interviewed in To Keep the Memory Green, reiterated, the academic canon, as revered in University English departments, does not generally admit writers who merit the term "popular". Entrance into those rarefied reading lists quite often demands that the writer be either "dull" or "difficult" in order to satisfy the critic's sense of hierarchy. We may, perhaps, agree that Conan Doyle did not write Great Literature, but his work should not be dismissed without fair trial; something which has happened frequently in the past.
By implication then, under current prejudice, a Society which studies an author like Arthur Conan Doyle, cannot be defined as a literary society. Humphrey Carpenter's opening remarks did little to help redress the balance. His association of Conan Doyle with a Sherlock Holmes phase, which most of us go through in adolescence and which some people never come out of, was somewhat unfortunate. Here is further evidence that Conan Doyle is the victim of a powerful phenomenon: his most successful creation — Sherlock Holmes.
Recorded at the Society's launch. Chris Roden pointed out that the Holmes stories are nearly always the gateway to Conan Doyle's other work, and to the study of his life: Holmes clearly cannot be ignored. Yet the talent which penned the best Holmes adventures is fully evident in the historical novels, the tales of terror, and elsewhere. Mr. Carpenter referred to the Holmes stories as being merely the "tip of a considerable Doylean iceberg", suggesting undiscovered depths.
Admittedly, the twenty-five minutes allocated to the programme gave little time to explore this vast range of Conan Doyle's work, but I felt that a disproportionate amount of time was given over to discussion of Holmes. What Conan Doyle gained from what Mr. Carpenter described as the "exciting nucleus for a literary society", he lost in the lack of concrete illustrations of his talent. Titles of novels were listed enticingly. but where were the examples of Conan Doyle's humour; his gift of narrative: his pursuit of justice; the Suspense and darker imaginings from which the listener could form his own judgements? A short reading or two would have spoken volumes.
The impressive nucleus of contributors added interest to the programme. Dame Jean Conan Doyle spoke of her father's moral courage and personal qualities, his presidency of the Divorce Reform Society, and his crusading Spirit; Owen Dudley Edwards described Conan Doyle as "a mass of simplicities whose juxtapositions become very complex indeed": Julian Symons described himself as "a patron of lost causes". However, the tenor of Humphrey Carpenter's presentation laboured under the continual burden of recognised literary opinion. His questions, coloured by the current patronising attitude to non-Literature, prompted a series of understandably defensive replies from those who were interviewed.
Being present at the launch of the Society over a year ago was a splendid coup, providing excellent publicity, but perhaps the very youth of the Society contributed to the impression given in the programme that members lacked a focus or were uncertain why Conan Doyle should be studied at all! At that point of genesis in the Society's life, its strengths were not, perhaps, as evident: there had been no official meetings, the excellent journals were yet to be published, and membership had not reached its current healthy level.
I did not hear the other broadcasts in the series so my criticisms of one programme in isolation are most certainly unjust. Like most people with a love of Conan Doyle's work, I was thrilled to hear the Arthur Conan Doyle Society's arrival in the literary world recorded and broadcast on national radio. It is a pity. therefore, that a greater sense of enthusiasm and stimulating lines of thought were not communicated to the listener. The programme was enjoyable but, somehow, failed to catch the imagination. With this feeling in mind, then, it is all the more essential to continue the pursuit of one of the Society's primary aims: to promote the study of, and to encourage the return to print of, Conan Doyle's lesser known works.
- Article courtesy Christopher Roden, founder of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (1989-2003).
