Otto Penzler knows his sleuths. Recently published, The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories is the twelfth anthology he has edited for Vintage Crime/Black Lizard (Random House).
For those without a scorecard, Penzler has also won two Edgars, a Raven, and an Ellery Queen Award; served fourteen years on the Mystery Writers of America board; and is proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop in Tribeca. He will appear June 14 on an MWA-NY panel, Sherlock Holmes: 125 Years of Perfection in Detection, marking the 1891 publication of Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Scandal in Bohemia. The event at the Mid-Manhattan Library (details below) includes fellow experts Lyndsay Faye and SJ Rozan plus moderator Susan Rice of the Baker Street Irregulars. It seemed a logical occasion to sit down with Mr. Penzler and talk Holmes, which we did earlier this month in the clubby basement office of his legendary bookshop. — Tom Straw
TS: Hemingway said, “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.” Would you say for mystery literature it springs from Sherlock Holmes, or would Doyle be in a jump ball with Poe?
OP: Well, Poe obviously created the character, created the form, created most of the tropes that we know of the detective story and did it in a single short story, which is borderline miraculous. Now the three real mystery stories that he wrote were not all that successful. He didn’t create anything major. There was no desire for other people to start writing mystery fiction. So while he was innovative, he was not transformative of a form of literature. There were other mysteries written also generally with very, very little success. Various elements of mystery used perhaps not as fully as we’ve come to know the detective story. But generally without much success until Sherlock Holmes.
Everything changed with Sherlock Holmes. But even then it didn’t happen with the two novels. Study in Scarlet in 1887 and The Sign of Four in 1890, where we look back now and say, “This is where it all came from.” But what transformed the genre was the beginning of a series of short stories in The Strand Magazine in 1891, and they became so incredibly successful that publishers started looking for more stories. Writers tried to emulate it — emulate the style, the form, the structure — and obviously the most important figure in the history of the success of the detective story. However, I think Poe still has to get credit as the most important person because he invented it.
TS: As I hear you talk, there really is a higher level of intellect happening with these stories than just “whodunnit,” isn’t there?
OP: Of course. Every time someone writes a first-rate, truly outstanding detective novel or short story it is generally described or too frequently described as transcending the genre. Everything really good transcends its genre. To try to say, “Oh, this is so much better than just a mere detective story,” doesn’t understand the notion that there are many brilliant writers who have tried their hand at detective fiction. And in a more general sense, a broader sense, at mystery fiction which includes crime and suspense and other subgenres of mystery. Everybody who does it brilliantly transcends its genre.
It’s true of most great mystery fiction. They’re novels first. They’re about characters. They’re about passion. They’re about stylistic prose of the author. They’re about all those things and, oh yeah, they happen to involve a murder and detecting a murder. But somebody like Dashiell Hammett, for example, who’s writing books about the social era in which he was working, they have an ambience and a character of their time that is more true than most of the so-called general novels of the same time. So does it transcend the genre? No, it’s just a great example of the genre.
TS: Let’s talk about The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories. Which it is. Damn, it’s big.
OP: It lives up to its name.
TS: What was your mission as the editor?
OP: My mission, and this sounds just a trifle arrogant, but I’m comfortable with that, was to put together the greatest anthology of Sherlock Holmes ever. And, in all humility, I succeeded. It’s the biggest and the best, ever. Now there have been many good Sherlock Holmes anthologies. And I read just about every story in every one of them because I wanted to make sure that I had all the best. So there are certain other anthologies from which I used three stories, or four stories. I picked the best of the stories from those anthologies as well as collections of stories by other authors, magazines, etcetera, to pull all this together. But yes, it was a very simple mission. I wanted to do the best ever. The ultimate.
TS: I can’t help but think that the job of selection is tough. Were there any choices that were really hard to make?
OP: You’re getting to the heart of what it’s like to be an anthologist. And it’s never easy. It’s easier when the book is big because you have to make fewer hard cuts. Random House has been so generous to me. They let me do whatever. Whatever I deliver, that’s what they publish. They don’t say, “Oh, well, keep it under 600 pages; keep it under 30 stories.” They don’t do that. This book is 83 stories—83. And it’s 800 and something pages. But it’s more than that because it’s oversized, big. It’s eight by ten, and it’s double column. It’s like ten books, you know.
And so I didn’t have to leave out anything that I really wanted to use, which is really a blessing as an editor of an anthology to be able to do that. I included (and I had the freedom to do this) several bad stories because they had some historical significance. If it were a small book you wouldn’t see the four or five bad stories, weak stories, silly parodies that really weren’t all that original, but they had their time, or they were by somebody very major. I mean, I think the story by AA Milne, for example, is a really awful story. It’s just awful. And I say that in my introduction. It’s mercifully short, it’s one page, mercifully short. But how do you leave out a story by AA Milne, a Sherlock Holmes story? So because it’s only one page and because I have the freedom to have so many pages, I could include a few bad stories.
I read, somewhere… I lost track… somewhere between 400 and 500 stories to cull, to get down to the best that I could do, and I’m very proud of the book. I love my book.
TS: What’s your favorite in there?
OP: You know, it really is hard because it might even change according to my mood at the moment. But probably the one that I am happiest about having in the book is the one written by Davis Grubb. Not a very well-known writer, but he wrote a very well-known book and movie called The Night of the Hunter, which is a very noir movie with Robert Mitchum, one of the darkest movies ever done. And he wrote a Sherlock Holmes pastiche that is utterly brilliant. And it’s not over-printed. People haven’t seen it in many anthologies and I was thrilled to discover this and it really is first rate.
TS: Are you confident that people will continue to write Sherlock Holmes stories?
OP: Yes, definitely. The Sherlock Holmes, you know, it never goes away. It ebbs and flows a little bit. Sometimes it’s more. There’s more of it usually because of either a successful film or television series or even a book. Like when Nicholas Meyer wrote The Seven Percent Solution, there was a deluge of Sherlockian stories and books that followed on its heels. And then it waned a little bit, you know, but now here we are again with Elementary and with the Sherlock series with Cumberbatch. So it’s at a peak now. It’ll probably wane again a little bit, but it never goes away. Even at its lowest ebb there’s still tremendous interest. And, you know, things like the Baker Street Irregulars and the Sherlock Holmes Society of London and the many scion societies, they all continue. You know, they don’t lose their enthusiasm for it. And I’m happy about that.
TS: Let’s play a game. We’re going to play Knee Jerk on portrayals. Rathbone or Brett?
OP: Rathbone.
TS: Brett or Cumberbatch?
OP: Brett.
TS: Downey, Jr. or Cumberbatch?
OP: Cumberbatch.
TS: Jonny Lee Miller or Nicole Williamson?
OP: I like Nicole Williamson, but I’ve never seen Elementary… Now, the best Sherlock Holmes—you didn’t ask me the best, you just asked me to compare.
TS: OK… Who was the best Holmes?
OP: George C. Scott in They Might Be Giants. I thought the first half of that movie was among the great films of all time. It fell apart and became just totally silly but Scott was absolutely perfect as Holmes.
TS: And Joanne Woodward was…
OP: Dr. Watson.
TS: Yes, the psychologist helping him out.
OP: I loved it. When he deduced that the reason you’re not saying anything is you have nothing to say… And just his attitude, the arrogance, the overwhelming intelligence that is so evident there. I just, I loved it.
TS: Let’s go back to stories by Doyle. This upcoming panel is celebrating A Scandal in Bohemia, which became A Scandal in Belgravia in the Cumberbatch series. It kicked off the first of 56 short stories. Is there one you can think of that really grabs you?
OP: The Red-Headed League, perhaps because it was the first that I read. I was probably 10 years old, and we had library in school. We had an hour twice a week where you would leave your classroom and go to the school library and the librarian would talk to you about books and how to properly care for books and that sort of thing. And for the second half hour you were allowed to read anything you wanted in the room. You could take it off the shelf and read it. And I pulled an anthology off, and it was the adventure of The Red-Headed League. Sounded really interesting. And I started reading it and I was about halfway through — two-thirds through — and the bell rang. And I couldn’t stand not knowing what happened.
And it didn’t make me a Sherlockian right away or a mystery fan right away, but that story stuck in my memory so vividly. I could not wait to get back to that room and finish that story. I loved to read from the time I was a little boy. And years later, when I’d been an English major at Michigan and reading the things that English majors read — things that you wouldn’t read for fun on your own — one of the first things that I wanted to do after was to start reading [again]… but read for fun and not hurt my brain any more the way that James Joyce does, for example. And I picked up The Complete Sherlock Holmes, and I just loved every . . . the worst stories in the book were great. And the great ones remain memorable.
TS: I’m stating the obvious here, but your passion is coming through on this.
OP: Oh, yeah. There’s no question.
TS: This has been in you all your life, hasn’t it?
OP: Yeah. Perhaps because of that short story but also perhaps because of the Doubleday two-volume Christopher Morley introduction that Doubleday published in 1930. I loved that, and in those days I had more time. I had a regular job — not like now when I work seven days a week, 12-hour days. But I could read anything I wanted. And I probably read the canon three, four, or five times within three, four, five years.
TS: Anyone who has read a lot of Holmes is bound to bump into all sorts of pastiches, rip offs, and fan fiction. Now, there is a positive side. I cite two people who are going to be on the panel with you on this June 14th event we’re having: Lyndsay Faye, who wrote Dust and Shadows, which is an exceptional pastiche; and S.J. Rozan, who did the critically-acclaimed short story “The Men with the Twisted Lips.” What do you think makes for a really good adaptation of a Holmes story?
OP: Well, first you need the same thing that would make a good any-kind-of-story: you need a good plot. You already have a good character, so you’re halfway home. You need a good plot, and you need to be able to write well. I mean that’s immutable. That’s true for any piece of fiction. So the better the story, the better the plot, and the better you are as a writer, as a stylist, the better story you’re going to get.
TS: Let’s get to the juicy part then. Where do people go wrong? How do you know it’s a stinker?
OP: In a more general sense, it’s because they have a lousy story. Their story is boring. Or trite. I think the biggest mistake, assuming that they can write. I mean, when you talk about fan fiction, everybody and his uncle thinks that they can write a short story. And mostly they think they can write a Sherlock Holmes parody or pastiche because it’s so recognizable that you feel, “Oh, I can do that. I just have to use the character.” But let’s say at the minimal level you’re a good writer, a decent writer — I think the biggest mistake that people make when they’re writing pastiches is to try to get it all in. They want Moriarty, they want Mycroft, they want Mrs. Hudson, they want Watson, of course. They want the cocaine use. They want him on the violin. They want to use some of the same usages like, “The game is afoot.” Or, “Elementary, my dear fellow.” That sort of thing. And you try to get it all into a short story, say, and you become a parody even though you haven’t tried to write a parody. And I think that’s one of the weaknesses that I found most frequently when I was reading pastiches.
You know, you don’t have to fit it all in. We know the character, we know it’s 221b Baker Street. You don’t have to describe the room. You don’t have use the same language that Holmes used over 60 stories. You don’t have to use it all in one book. Yes, he repeated several phrases more than once, more than twice. But, you know, he didn’t repeat them in every single story. He didn’t say, “The game is afoot” in every single story. Whereas, in half the pastiches that I’ve read, that line comes out.
TS: Would you say then… keep it elementary?
OP: Keep it elementary. Lighten up.
You can ask your own questions and hear more from Otto Penzler and expert panelists Lyndsay Faye and S.J. Rozan by coming to the MWA-NY event: Sherlock Holmes: 125 Year of Perfection in Detection, a lively discussion of the staying power of this iconic figure.
Scene of the June 14th MWA-NY
Sherlock Holmes Panel
WHEN & WHERE
June 14, 2016
6:30 – 8p.m.
Fifth Avenue at 40th Street
Free and Open to All
Tom Straw is an Emmy and Writers Guild of America nominee for his TV writing and producing. He joined the Mystery Writers of America in 2007 on publication of his first book, The Trigger Episode. Subsequently, under a pseudonym, he has authored seven New York Times Bestsellers. He currently serves as a board member of the MWA-NY chapter.