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King, Holmes, and the Art of Imitation


At this point in my tenure as a Stephen King fan, it’s not too often that I am blindsided by some new knowledge of his work.  Yet I just recently discovered Stephen King had written a Sherlock Holmes story!  How had I not realized this?
 
As fortune has it, this particular short story—“The Doctor’s Case,” originally published in 1987 in The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes—was later added to the compilation Nightmares & Dreamscapes, so I even had a copy on hand, and didn’t need to track it down!
 
Having just read it, I found the story to be pretty great.  King obviously put effort toward striking an authorial tone that breaks form with what is most familiar for him and pays homage to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  I noticed this immediately in King’s use of certain language, phrasing and cadence, and the essential tone.  There is a certain formalized air to it that masks King’s usual style and places it nicely in the vein of Doyle’s work.  I suppose one could argue that King is essentially faking it or forcing something unnatural—trying to copy Doyle’s style and voice.  But I see it as King, who is nuanced and recognizable as a writer in his own right, challenging himself, by trying to channel the basic spirit of Doyle’s work, and thereby create something that is not so much a carbon copy as an entry that feels at home in that specific realm.
 
The story itself is a well thought-out mystery, which is to King’s credit, given that the mystery genre is not necessarily one he works in very often.  It is told from the perspective of an aging Watson, who is reflecting on a long-ago case which continues to stand out in his mind as the one instance in which he was able to solve a crime before Holmes.  This angle lends itself to some neat observations that enhance the level of feeling and of humor within the story. 
 
With an exercise like this one, I suppose the most important factor is that the author pulls off the trick of making the characters seem convincingly familiar.  In this case, the sense of history between Holmes and Watson is there. The duo is well represented in general; their quirks, mental inclinations, and especially the sense of rapport and understanding between them.

The influence of other writers is often present in King’s work, for sure.  And certainly there are times when he is paying homage to specific authors and their specific writings.  But I am not aware of instances in which he tries to write in the manner of someone else, to add to another well-established universe of fiction, as he did here. 

I’m not sure why this struck me as such a cool piece.  Maybe it’s because I just wouldn’t have expected King to try his hand at a Holmes story.  On an objective level, I realize it is not a grand endeavor necessarily; many authors have evidently done so.  I am just sort of thrilled that King did.  It’s a case of two independent things I very much enjoy coming together.  That it came as a surprise to me made it even a little more enjoyable! 
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