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historically contemporary) psychoanalytic movement. Some of these connections,
which are obviously quite diverse, can be explained by the breadth and diversity of
the canon itself, with its wide ranging collection of characters, settings, and plots.
However, what all of these philosophical, scientific, and theological positions share
is a deeply modem character, modem in the sense that they place observation,
experience, and material facts in a superior position and are rehant on the devaluation
of custom, superstition, unjustified authority (human and supernatural), and the
mystical. Some of this might be explained by Conan Doyle’s other career as a
medical doctor and his presumed modeling of Holmes after Dr. Joseph Bell, a
surgery professor of Doyle’s (see Hall 76-87); in the final section of the essay, this
will be discounted as entirely plausible. For the moment, I will merely reiterate the
status of Holmes as a kind ultra-modem figure.
Bell, contrarily, might be understood as an ultra-postmodern figure, a
description that is evident in the juxtaposition of his work with that of a number of
postmodern philosophers. Firstly, this is tme at a thematic level, with Bell’s constant
attention to the covert, the paranormal, and the hidden mirroring the obsessions of
a number of postmodernists, particularly the aforementioned Kroker, but also ViriUo,
Serres, and Deleuze; the work of the latter is also echoed by Bell’s use of an
unconventional, arguably “rhizomatic” network to provide information for his
program. Additionally, the skepticism regarding official sources of information
(and sanctioned methods of information gathering) suggests the work of Lyotard,
whose own skepticism regarding the meta-narratives of western culture was a
foundational element in the postmodern school. As with Holmes, Bell is a figure
of such cultural complexity that a single philosophical correlate is difficult to locate,
and one can discover a similarly varied selection of cohorts for Bell.
However, as with the Holmes-Peirce connection, there is one particularly
notable parallel figure, one with a metaphysical as well as thematic connection.
Bell’s 1997 book The Quickening, which argues that we inhabit a world marked by
the titular condition, one in which viral diseases, environmental destruction,
computer systems failures, and other natural and technological calamities will
emerge at an ever increasing rate, bears a remarkab le similarity to the recent work
of renowned French postmodernist Jean Baudrillard. In The Illusion o f the End,
The Perfect Crime, The Transparency o f Evil, and several other works, Baudrillard
makes a case for precisely the same phenomenon, in similarly apocalyptic if more
literarily engaging terms. Indeed, the contrast between Peirce (among others) to
Baudrillard as properly philosophical correlates for Holmes to Bell may tell us
more than any deep textual analysis regarding the cultural significance of these
two figures; it also suggests an intriguing philosophical depth to these two popular
cultural icons.