Sherlock Holmes' Humble Abode

I was gallivanting about London when I stumbled upon Baker Street, and I wondered why I recognized the name.  Suddenly, I realized that Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson dwelled at 221B Baker Street.  In college, I took a literature class called Detective Fiction where I first discovered the sleuth in A Study in Scarlet.  It has been a few years since I’ve read the books and viewed the first Robert Downey, Jr. film adaptation.  I found the Sherlock Holmes Museum situated where the fictitious apartment would be.

I strolled around the cramped gift shop, bumping into tourists and perusing the pipes and deerstalker caps.  There was a bathroom in the basement with old-fashioned decorations and modern plumbing.  Outside the loo there was a doorway that revealed a library.  The door was locked, but I could stick my head inside a tiny window.  The off-limits room was slightly eerie in the silence underneath a tourist hub, and I could almost imagine Sherlock stumbling into my view any second.

I proceeded upstairs once more and aimed to discover the trap door that led into the museum because so far all I could find was the gift shop and the toilet.  Despite all of the detective fiction I’ve read, it took me quite a while to piece together a mess of clues.  Finally I realized that a scattering of distracted people was actually a queue, so I hooked onto the tail and waited to buy my ticket. 

As I neared the front of the line, I heard the cashier, a British man, ask the patrons which language they preferred for their pamphlet which offered descriptions of the museum’s rooms.  Many people in line were speaking German, French, Russian, and Mandarin.  For some foreigners who conversed with their comrades in a different tongue, it was apparent they would not choose English.  But some spoke English to the cashier, and still he asked which language they’d prefer for their museum guides. 

As I told the cashier I’d like one ticket, I was looking forward to the question, “Which language?” But he did not ask me.  I nearly asked him why he immediately handed me an English guide.  Perhaps he judged by my accent that I was American, and perhaps he assumed that Americans only spoke English.  What if I had learned English as a second language and masked my lack of a grand vocabulary with an authentic accent? 

I should have been flattered by his confidence in my linguistic abilities, yet my mind still itched with questions.  To his query (had he asked me), I wanted to reply, “Which languages do you have?” as though I were asking a waiter which sides I could get with my entrée.  Unfortunately, I was not granted this opportunity to slow down the line to appease a mere curiosity. 

The fictional residence of the famous detective is very tiny, so the museum staff only allows so many visitors to enter at a time.  While I waited in line, I read my English pamphlet, which described the layout of the museum.  The pamphlet asked why I was here.  Was it because...

A. I don’t know much about Sherlock Holmes.  Maybe I know Benedict Cumberbatch plays the lead role in the BBC series, but other than that I know little else, so I am curious.

B. I’ve read a few of Arthur Conan Doyle’s mysteries, and I’ve seen a few film adaptations.  I’ve become an avid fan. 

C. I’ve read all the novels and short stories, and I’ve viewed all the films and TV shows.  I’m a diehard Sherlockian, and I can recite entire chapters to you if you’d care to listen.

Before I came to England, I read a short non-fiction piece titled “The Pippiest Place on Earth,” which described the writer’s experience as a literary tourist at Dicken’s World, as in Charles Dickens.  The piece, which can be found in The Best American Travel Writing of 2013, details the allure of literary tourism.  The aim is to make fictitious environments real.  Landscapes that previously existed purely in the imagination are now tangible and photographable.  I suppose the pleasure lies in exploring the realms of a writer’s mind.  Or there may be a giddy thrill to visit a place previously unvisited, yet you can say to yourself, “This feels so familiar.”  The feeling must be tantamount to confidently navigating around coffee tables and couches in a pitch black living room without having to grope the furniture.  

Literary tourism comes in two forms.  For example, you could visit Hemingway’s haunts in Paris to try to see what he saw and feel what he felt.  In this case, tourists try to capture a supernatural essence by retracing the steps of a remarkable talent.  The places only have meaning insofar as they were frequented by a meaningful person, as though meaning were shed like loose hairs.

The second form of literary tourism takes the shape of museums and amusement parks designed to emulate a fictional world.  The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios would be an example.  Just as you can imagine Harry riding the Hogwarts Express or shopping for textbooks in Diagon Alley, now you can explore these spaces in a physical reality.  Similarly, I set out to explore Sherlock’s apartment, which really only exists in the pages of a book.  Although the apartment is real, technically it is a copy.  The original exists in the forms sentences transformed into mental images; the house was built with a type-writer, not wood and bricks.      

There was a man before the door, and he wore a bowler cap and a Scotland Yard uniform.  If you so chose, you could have your picture taken with him, and you could even sport a deerstalker.  For sanitary reasons, a pipe was not offered.  I passed on the photo opportunity with the stranger.  Finally, it was time to enter the apartment.

The stairs are very narrow and creaky.  On the first floor, there is a study equipped with armchairs and a fireplace.  On the shelves, there are medical books, chemistry equipment, alcohol, and drug paraphernalia. The exhibit stated that Holmes has been criticized for his cocaine habit, but in his day the drug’s effects weren’t truly understood until Sigmund Freud tested his patients with coke to see what would happen to their brains.  Apparently, lots of artists and writers did cocaine back then to stimulate the imagination.

Watson had some letters strewn around his room, which you could read.  You could also read the medical book on his nightstand.  The landlady’s room was also included, but was not as captivating as the other bedrooms.  The upstairs was devoted to wax figures of prominent criminals and victims.  The wax figures were surprisingly real, which is desirable for purposes of verisimilitude but undesirable if you are creeped out by Moriarty looming over your shoulder.

Overall, I was fairly disappointed with the Sherlock Holmes Museum.  I was too distracted to really transport myself into Doyle’s imagination.  Other tourists were taking pictures of other tourists taking pictures.  This German girl kept fondling the wax figures while her boyfriend snapped photos.

In the end, the museum was just an old house full of carefully researched props, but the place was otherwise empty.  The problem is that Sherlock and Watson weren’t there, and they give life to the stories.  Granted, I did not want some aspiring actor to wear a gaudy costume and pretend that he’s a private detective living in the 1880s.  If this museum were in America, undoubtedly some unfortunate cad would parade around in a Sherlock suit and wave to children.  There would probably be a mystery involved, too, in the style of Where’s Waldo?  Maybe a visitor would receive a prize if you solved a riddle or counted the number of stuffed birds in the entire apartment.  

The more real these characters are in life, the less interesting they become.  They lived like average people in modest accommodations.  The duo’s superior skills seem reduced when they are viewed merely as humble neighbors.  I was more excited to turn the page rather than to open another door in the fictional-turned-real apartment.  When it comes to literary tourism, it is better to travel in your mind rather than on foot.

The Queen Next Door

On a whim, I decided to visit the Kensington Palace, the former residence of Queen Victoria.  

Even though I know very little about British history, I figured I’d take a peek inside.  I usually associate British aristocracy with haughty etiquette, puffy clothes, and numbing boredom.  But this exhibit illuminated the human qualities of the kings and queens. 

George I spent a lot of time in Hanover in the German territories, so when he became king of England he wasn’t very well versed in the English language.  Given these circumstances, his coronation seems very far-fetched to me.  Personally, I would’ve thought him under-qualified for the job.  How can you rule the people if you have difficulty understanding them?  I could not imagine voting for a president with a deficiency in the local tongue.  I would worry that he would sign documents he could not confidently decipher. 

But, of course, the English citizens didn’t elect their leaders back then.  If your superior died and you were next in line, you got the job.  Apparently, a lot of these kings and queens of European nations were related or were at least good chums.  That doesn’t seem fair.  I bet the poor and middle-class citizens had very little say in how their countries were run.  I understand now why certain Europeans settled in America while the rest tried to behead their rulers. 

When George I came over from Germany, he thought the Kensington Palace was drab, so he hired artists to create this marvelous staircase with portraits of himself and his friends having a jolly time.  Aside from this narcissistic contribution, the rest of George’s efforts did not interest me.

However, I found the exhibit on Queen Victoria to be very enlightening.  When she was a child, she had very few friends, and often her toys were her only company.  One room of the palace was devoted to her old playthings.  There was an old trunk filled with trains and basic amusements.  Whenever Victoria met Albert, who would later become king, she blossomed and found meaning in her life.  Her diary entries were written everywhere in the palace-turned-museum:  on the walls, on the mirrors, on the carpets.  She wrote that she hadn’t intended on marrying at such a young age, but she changed her mind after she met Albert.  Victoria struck me as a clingy, yet appreciative woman.  She didn’t have many close companions growing up, so she held on tightly to those she loved.

She had many children with her husband.  When I think of queens, I think of them as the mothers of their countries.  Monarchs have such a demanding job of maintaining the nation’s sovereignty that I suspect they rely on nannies to raise the kids.  But Victoria did her best to perform both jobs.  She said that to be a mother to her children, a loving wife to her husband, and the queen of a nation took all the strength one could muster.

When her husband Albert passed away, Victoria isolated herself.  She grieved for a very long time, but she was criticized for stepping out of the public eye.  To have a private life, for her, was impossible.  

I didn’t really care to see the lavish ballrooms and the gigantic closets filled with whale-boned dresses.  Those are the kinds of dresses in which women must turn sideways to fit through doorways.  I guess British aristocrats had to guess at a woman’s figure should he desire a mate at a royal ball. Those displays of wealth are off-putting.  Instead, I was intrigued by the human elements of the Kensington Palace.  The exhibit offered intimate glimpses into royal personalities.  The prim-and-proper façade dissolved.  Kings and queens became ordinary people.