In the short story The Final Problem by Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes falls to his death from a precipice into the rapids below, fighting his arch enemy, the evil Professor Moriarty. Thus, the author tried to end the saga of Sherlock Holmes, one of the most famous detectives of all time in fiction. The purpose, apparently, was that Conan Doyle wanted to explore other genres of writing and his popular detective was taking up all his time. Hence Holmes was done away with. However, Conan Doyle had not reckoned with the love and attachment of the readers for his creation. They were having none of it. They cancelled their subscriptions in thousands to the Strand magazine, where the Holmes stories were being serialised. They wrote to the beleaguered author, expressing their anguish and anger. This, in the 1890s, was genuine public outrage, more than a century before social media made it so easy and superficial.
Conan Doyle was finally forced to relent and in a subsequent short story, Holmes was resurrected. For the interested, the details of the resurrection are in the story The Adventure of the Empty House. At the time when I first heard this anecdote, my reading world revolved around Enid Blyton. My uncle, who told me the story, was probably hoping to broaden my reading horizon. I recollect that what fascinated me then were the details of how Holmes was convincingly brought back to life, after being pronounced dead earlier. However, today, after many decades, what fascinates me is the readers’ total identification with the fictional sleuth and his adventures, to the extent that they refused to accept his untimely death and insisted that the author retract.
On thinking it over, it seems obvious that this level of identification is essential for a work of fiction to be successful. The poet Coleridge first used the expression “willing suspension of disbelief” to describe the state that enables the reader to immerse himself in the poet’s world and enjoy it. This is implicit in the appreciation of any creative endeavour and becomes readily obvious in the case of novels, movies and such. However, the level of suspended disbelief that allows us to immerse ourselves in the make-believe world and enjoy it also has its flip side sometimes.
One consequence is the bittersweet feeling we are left with after reading a good novel. We finished the book, we enjoyed it, maybe we even returned it to whoever lent it to us, but we are not able to simply move on. The characters have also started living in us, for all that we know that it is a work of fiction.
Sometimes the only way to move on is to start reading another good book. Another consequence, mostly intended by the author, is when the plot does not go as you anticipate. You have been following it closely but you still learn with a sudden jolt somewhere towards the end that the murderer is actually the person you liked the most so far. The author had laid all the clues before you, but you missed them. With grudging admiration for her brilliance, you move on. Sometimes towards the end, you learn that X has decided to marry Y and not Z, unlike what you might have guessed.
You appreciate a new facet of human nature, albeit from a work of fiction, and move on. The tricky one is when sometimes one is not able to accept the conclusion. As a reader, you feel that there is no closure, or that, like the contrived death of Holmes in the above anecdote, the closure is not acceptable. Of course, these are very subjective experiences, but quite often they are sentiments shared by many readers. Like the fans above, we can request the author if possible. Else, we are on our own in dealing with the sense of unfinished business or messiness it leaves us with, in our minds.
Each gripping narrative is a powerful experience and it sometimes feels like we need to be explicitly weaned away every time from this world of suspended disbelief in which we willingly immersed ourselves in the first place.
remanantha@yahoo.com
