I’ll level with you: I have never understood the obsession Sherlockians have with the Giant Rat of Sumatra.

For those not in the know, this R.O.U.S. is mentioned once by Arthur Conan Doyle in his story ‘The Sussex Vampire’ (1924), when a note sent to Sherlock Holmes makes reference to “your successful action in the case of Matilda Briggs”:

“Matilda Briggs was not the name of a young woman, Watson,” said Holmes, in a reminiscent voice. “It was a ship which is associated with the giant rat of Sumatra, a story for which the world is not yet prepared.”

It has always seemed to me among the least intriguing of the untold tales hinted at in Watson’s narratives, not least because all you need to know is already provided: it involves a very large rat which, being a rat, doubtless would have done some violent things. Where, pray tell, is the interest? And what can it possibly have to shock the world except its size? Nevertheless, I understand that more than a few pastiches have been dedicated to filling out this story, and we encounter one today in the shape of the novel named after it, The Giant Rat of Sumatra (1976) by Richard L. Boyer.

The first difficulty encountered herein is that Holmes in the quote above implies that Watson is unaware of the story, but Boyer’s narrative amends the quote slightly so that it can be told as a Watsonian narrative. At this point, Boyer should have probably abandoned the undertaking, because what’s the point of a pastiche set within the confines of someone else’s canon that ignores the precepts of that canon? Undeterred, he continues, and manages to wrangle a story that’s about as beige as I always imagined these Giant Rat of Sumatra stories would always be. It’s a big rat, it does violent things.

And this, in a way, is part of my problem with the continued pursuit of this thread of Sherlock fandom: Doyle already wrote the perfect Large Violent Animal story, and, really, anyone imagining that they’re going to do a better job than that needs to add more to the legend than just a casual reference to “the Baskerville business”. Boyer has a few atmospheric scenes — the abandoned Matilda Briggs and its aftermath of violence is very neatly wrangled — but there’s never a sense of drama or fear or horror; we’re told characters saw a thing and found it horrifying, but Boyer lacks Doyle’s skill for painting the feelings so plainly on the page.

This is especially felt in the book’s final third, when, after a moderately pacey narrative which does reasonably well with setting and tone — though moves beyond pastiche with clear descriptions of violence and infant death, which Doyle would never have touched with a fifty-foot pole — we finally get everyone together in place for the endgame and things screech to a halt so that Boyer can once more maunder on about ominous feelings, gloomy settings, and the like. I read every word for the first two-thirds, and then skipped liberally as the book drew to its torpid, patience-testing denouement: it’s awful, first marked by a Surprise Big Bad monologuing for about 17,000 pages about their Big Plan, and then, when all’s resolved and everyone’s fine — surprise, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson survive this — Holmes proceeds to explain in minute detail everything that’s gone before for another 234,000 pages.

Like Lyndsay Faye last week, Boyer fails to appreciate that what made Doyle’s writing so compelling, even when his plots weren’t the strongest, was the sheer propulsion and compactness of his narratives. I’m even willing to believe that this is why Doyle did so much more in the short form with these characters, because the plots he cooked up couldn’t be spun out to novel-length if he told them the way he wanted to. Indeed, I’m willing to bet that, had anyone pressed Doyle on the Giant Rat of Sumatra storyline, he would have said that it was already written, the name itself doing all the work that needs to be done, that’s how good the man was at telling stories.

Ah, you’ll say, but this one has a twist! And, yes, there’s a surprise of sorts waiting in the final stages, but, frustratingly, for all the clever reversal offered by this development, there’s a question — a rather key question — just hand-waved aside which, like, needs answering (namely — rot13 for spoilers — cerpvfryl ubj n snzbhfyl qbpvyr navzny vf ghearq vagb n ivbyrag fnintr) if that’s going to be your take on this story. And, crucially, there’s also nothing in this story which would seem to require its suppression for decades — hell, Watson published stories that were far more shocking for what they revealed, and this is so tedious in motive (though, I won’t deny, the two plots do merge in a way that’s at least a little bit clever) and unexacting in every other aspect that, if you had been waiting since the 1890s to read this, you’d be furious.

I’m starting to think that many pastiche writers — and bear in mind that the last two I’ve read have come recommended as good examples of Holmesian pastiches — really do have only a very limited idea why what Doyle wrote was so good, and certainly no insight on why the popularity of the character of Holmes and the stories about him has persisted for 15 decades. A few shonky deductions early on and a reference to Toby the bloodhound is not what you need if you’re going to honour the spirit of Sherlock Holmes. Yes, you have a wonderful grasp of the society and geography of Victorian London, but this alone does not qualify one to add meaningfully to Holmes’s lore.

This Pastiche Project has left me rather deflated after only two books, so I think I’ll go back to Robert J. Harris next week, since he at least seemed to have some sense of how to write about a version of Holmes in his first attempt. Honestly, I’m starting to feel that those people who hate on Sherlock (2010-17) and Elementary (2012-19) have no idea how good they had it.