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little_black_sheep
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27 May 2012, 4:24 pm

Hi everybody,

do you think that Sherlock Holmes has many Aspie traits? I just watched a Sherlock Holmes movie and it struck me that many of his particularities seem familiar.

I found an interesting article about that hypothesis:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/magaz ... =cse&scp=2


Wikipedia describes him like this:

According to Watson, Holmes is an eccentric, with no regard for contemporary standards of tidiness or good order. In The Musgrave Ritual, Watson describes Holmes thus:

Although in his methods of thought he was the neatest and most methodical of mankind ... [he] keeps his cigars in the coal-scuttle, his tobacco in the toe end of a Persian slipper, and his unanswered correspondence transfixed by a jack-knife into the very centre of his wooden mantelpiece ... He had a horror of destroying documents.... Thus month after month his papers accumulated, until every corner of the room was stacked with bundles of manuscript which were on no account to be burned, and which could not be put away save by their owner.[7]

What appears to others as chaos, however, is to Holmes a wealth of useful information. Throughout the stories, Holmes would dive into his apparent mess of random papers and artefacts, only to retrieve precisely the specific document or eclectic item he was looking for.

Watson frequently makes note of Holmes's erratic eating habits. The detective is often described as starving himself at times of intense intellectual activity, such as during "The Adventure of the Norwood Builder", wherein, according to Watson:

[Holmes] had no breakfast for himself, for it was one of his peculiarities that in his more intense moments he would permit himself no food, and I have known him to presume upon his iron strength until he has fainted from pure inanition.

Holmes has an ego that at times borders on arrogant, albeit with justification; he draws pleasure from baffling police inspectors with his superior deductions. He does not seek fame, however, and is usually content to allow the police to take public credit for his work.

Holmes's demeanour is presented as dispassionate and cold. Yet when in the midst of an adventure, Holmes can sparkle with remarkable passion.

Holmes is a loner and does not strive to make friends, although he values those that he has, and none higher than Watson. He attributes his solitary ways to his particular interests and his mopey disposition.

Holmes says, "I was never a very sociable fellow, Watson, always rather fond of moping in my rooms and working out my own little methods of thought, so that I never mixed much with the men of my year;... my line of study was quite distinct from that of the other fellows, so that we had no points of contact at all".

his intense attention to details, lack of interest in interpersonal relationships and tendency to speak in long monologues

So what do you think?

little black sheep


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edgewaters
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27 May 2012, 4:42 pm

Perhaps, but the Sherlock Holmes in the recent movies is a signifigant departure from the one portrayed in Doyle's stories and I don't really regard that character as the same one (mind you, I still enjoyed the films)



little_black_sheep
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27 May 2012, 5:00 pm

Well, I am not sure I ever saw the most recent movies, but I read all the stories. I love Holmes and his relationship to Watson was one of the few relationships I never had a difficulty to understand. To me, Watson is the epitome of a friend.


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edgewaters
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27 May 2012, 5:38 pm

Yeah I really like it too ... I have a complete anthology with the original illustrations on my bookshelf. I'm going to have to read it again with a new perspective, I think, and see what if that idea fits ... it seems to in a way but I'd really have to read it again. Most likely, its based on someone Doyle knew, or a pastiche of people he knew. It could very well have been based on an aspie or someone with aspie traits. The stuff in bold in your original post is striking.

I never read it before with much analysis ... I just read it for sheer enjoyment. Now I've got an excuse to read it again. :wink:



little_black_sheep
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27 May 2012, 5:53 pm

I also think that Doyle must have met an Aspie somewhere. That would be interesting in so far as it would indicate that Aspergers has always existed even long before someone put a name to the description.

When I was a kid, I was obsessed with becoming Sherlock Holmes when I grow up. I even called the friend who joined me in my 'detective work' Miss Watson ^^


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Every morning in Africa, an antelope wakes up. It knows it must outrun the fastest lion, or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest antelope, or it will starve. It doesn't matter if you're