Toast: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Enduring Characters
Toast: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Enduring Characters is an article written by Clifford S. Goldfarb published in the A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (Vol. 5, 1994).
Toast: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Enduring Characters
Jack Tracy and Christopher Roden find they have a few things to discuss at the end of Saturday evening's Dinner.
WHO ARE ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE'S enduring characters? I have made an editorial decision to equate 'enduring' with 'serial' and 'memorable'. In other words, a memorable character who appears in more than one story, therefore excluding from consideration memorable characters who appear in only one short story or novel. Let me deal with the eligible parties, in no particular order:
Professor Challenger, the bombastic hero of The Lost World, The Poison Belt, The Land of Mist, 'The Disintegration Machine' and 'When the World Screamed', also starring Challenger's rival, Professor Summerlee; the aristocratic Lord John Roxton; and the athletic Irishman, Edward Malone. The special effects by Willis O'Brien in the 1925 film version of The Lost World, which was remade in 1960 with participation by the same Willis O'Brien, served as an inspiration for the Spielberg/Crichton blockbuster, Jurassic Park. Challenger, the only memorable character in the stories, was likely modelled on William Rutherford, a Professor of Anatomy of Doyle's at Edinburgh, with overtones of several other scientific and medical acquaintances, including possibly Conan Doyle's early associate in medical practice, George Turnavine Budd. His character was an archetype for an overbearing scientific iconoclast and is likely, next to Holmes, Watson and Moriarty, the best-known of Conan Doyle's characters.
Sir Nigel Loring of The White Company and Sir Nigel, a 14th century knight-errant who embodied Sir Arthur's romantic ideas of chivalry and honour, and was the result of a devoted study of mediaeval sources. Sir Nigel is considerably less well-known today than in the early years of this century, when children were raised on tales of King Arthur and Sir Lancelot, rather than Archie Comics and Indiana Jones.
Brigadier Gerard — I have a special affection for the Gerard tales and I'm going to spend more time on this character than any of the others. The most under-rated writing Conan Doyle ever did was the Gerard stories, collected in The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard and Adventures of Gerard. The first of these eighteen stories was written in 1895-when Sherlock Holmes was 'dead' and Conan Doyle had to have another serial character for The Strand-and the last was written in 1910. Each shows meticulous attention to detail the product of Conan Doyle's prodigious reading of English and French history books and military memoirs of the Napoleonic era.
Gerard, a garrulous old Gascon, tells the tales of his youth as he sits in the café each evening with his old friends. He is patterned, at least in part, on Baron Antoine de Marbot, whose memoirs were popular in England in the early 1890s. We know that there is some of Conan Doyle in Holmes and Watson, and apparently also in Professor Challenger. There is obviously nothing of Conan Doyle in Gerard, except for a strong sense of honour and chivalry. Conan Doyle had a personal fascination with the character of Napoleon and the Napoleonic Wars, particularly the Battle of Waterloo. Napoleon himself might be considered to be another of Conan Doyle's enduring characters, since Conan Doyle elected to portray him as an irascible but affectionate and decent father of his nation. Interestingly, Conan Doyle's fictional portrayal of Napoleon is much more gentle than his personal opinion of Napoleon, expressed in Through the Magic Door, as a reincarnated Borgia amoral and opportunistic.
Gerard was no intellectual and the humour of the stories is based on the fact that he is virtually oblivious to the impression he creates in others. Gerard's opinion of himself may be best summarised in this typical passage, as he lay bound by Spanish guerrillas, awaiting his execution by torture:
- I lay there thinking of the various girls who would mourn for me, and of my dear old mother, and of the deplorable loss which I should be, both to my regiment and to the Emperor, and I am not ashamed to confess to you that I shed tears as I thought of the general consternation which my premature end would give rise to.
He explains his success with women in the following classic passage:
- Ah! my friends, I was no ordinary-looking man when I was in my thirtieth year. In the whole light cavalry it would have been hard to find a finer pair of whiskers. ... And then I had a manner. Some women are to be approached in one way and some in another. ... But the man who can mix daring with timidity, who can be outrageous with an air of humility, and presumptuous with a tone of deference, that is the man whom mothers have to fear.
Gerard talks about his 'good taste and breeding' in his appreciation of art:
- I remember, for example, that when Lefebvre was selling the plunder after the fall of Danzig, I bought a very fine picture, called 'Nymphs Surprised in a Wood,' and carried it with me through two campaigns, until my charger had the misfortune to put his hoof through it.
- I only tell you this, however, to show you that I was never a mere rough soldier like Rapp or Ney.
Another example of his self-appreciation:
- 'Colonel Etienne Gerard,' said [Massena], 'I have always heard that you are a very gallant and enterprising officer.'
- It was not for me to confirm such a report, and yet it would be folly to deny it, so I clinked my spurs and saluted.
- 'You are also an excellent rider.'
- I admitted it.
- 'And the best swordsman in the six brigades of light cavalry.' Massena was famous for the accuracy of his information.
Napoleon's affection for the Brigadier is best expressed in this closing line from 'How the Brigadier won his medal':
- 'You will see,' said [Napoleon], turning to the Duke of Tarentum, 'that Brigadier Gerard has the special medal of honour, for I believe that if he has the thickest head he also has the stoutest heart in my army.'
This only tells part of the appeal of the Gerard stories-Gerard also succeeds in several impossible missions, due to his courage and resourcefulness, which is part of the reason he can be allowed his boastfulness. There are many serious passages in the Gerard stories, as well, which leads me to repeat that, in my opinion and in that of many others, these are collectively the very best writing that Arthur Conan Doyle ever did.
Captain John Sharkey, pirate scourge of the North American coast in the 1720s, is almost unknown today, even among Doyleans, except of course for those who have read Chris Roden's article in the latest issue of ACD. Still, I hesitate to call him 'enduring'. Of all Conan Doyle's characters, Sharkey, who appeared in three short stories in 1897 and one more ten years later, bears the closest resemblance to Professor Moriarty, with a similar physical description and an even more evil, vicious and bloodthirsty character. Sharkey's forte lies in amazing last-minute escapes from the jaws of authority. In the last of the stories, he is apparently killed by one of his own rivals, giving him yet another parallel with Moriarty. (I say 'apparently killed' because there is just barely enough ambiguity in the description of his death to leave open the possibility of a miraculous escape, just in case Conan Doyle should decide to bring him back for another story).
Of course we must close this discussion with Sherlock Holmes and Doctor John Watson, characters who have become part of the world's cultural heritage. As unique as Holmes is, he is nothing without Watson. There are so many theories about what created their popular appeal in the first instance and has maintained it for over a century, that there is no clear answer. Of course, the Holmes stories also had many other enduring, if less well-known, characters, including the redoubtable Mrs Hudson; the omniscient ones, Mycroft and Moriarty, one good, the other evil; the menacing Moran and the prototypical foil, Lestrade (I feel too much affection for the literate and dependable Watson to call him a mere 'foil'). It would, of course, be remiss of me not to mention Irene Adler, who appears in only one story, but dominates the Canon as 'The Woman'.
It is ironic that the main reason the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle are now finally becoming a legitimate topic of study for scholars is that the insatiable demand for Sherlock Holmes has kept the memory of the real 'Master' — Arthur Conan Doyle — alive. If the popularity of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has endured until today, it is the enduring characters of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson who must be credited for keeping his memory green.
I will now ask you to charge your glasses-you remember, I hope, that this is a toast and not a dissertation-and join me in drinking to THE ENDURING CHARACTERS OF SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE.
- Article courtesy Christopher Roden, founder of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (1989-2003).
