It is Elementary Stuff

The childhood is spent in unraveling the mysteries around us, and thus a detective story appeals to us most at that age. Famous Five, Secret Seven, Three Investigators, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and so on. As one grows out of these you have Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle, with the legendary characters they created - Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes. Before I read about these gentlemen in the books, thanks to the DoorDarshan, was able to watch the mysteries being solved by them live on television on Sunday afternoons. DD also used to serve Indian detective stories - Karamchand to be followed by Byomkesh Bakshi in Hindi, Ek Shunya Shunya in Marathi, Tuppagirum Sambu in Tamil, and it was all fascinating. So, when I happened to see the complete collection of Sherlock Holmes at a discounted price, I picked it up instantaneously. Little I realized the surprise in store. Reading the mystery stories (both the short one, and the novels) of Sherlock Holmes, I uncovered the following pattern:

• The story would start with Sherlock Holmes making some out-of-the-way comments about either Watson or the client, like "you are from Afghanistan" or "you left your window open". And each time, his friend Watson would be astounded, and Sherlock Holmes will give a detailed account of how he did it
• In between the mystery, Watson and Holmes will be separated, and Watson will make a summary of the mystery so far
• And the most boring part of all, and a fact common to all detective fiction, at the end of it the culprit will give his own long story, and naturally aided by some additional information from Sherlock.

Conan Doyle, through his character Holmes, states that human mind is trained to come to a conclusion using a train of thoughts, however, it is very difficult for the mind to uncover the facts when given the concluding state. Brilliant indeed. And thus, all fiction writers start from the end, and build the mystery for the reader. Since the author knows that he/she cannot reveal everything about the mystery, the end result is the end filled with a long confession by the culprit.

What makes Sherlock Holmes maybe stand apart from the others in the same genre is his human infallibility, when he admits to his defeat in four cases, one of them being a woman Irene Adler.

Thus it might be elementary, but is immensely interesting.