Sherlock's Appointment in Samarra

"I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra."

Benedict looking all Sherlockesque. 
Photo by Fat Les (bellaphon); derivative work by RanZag / CC BY

[This post contains spoilers for Sherlock Series 4 Episode 1 titled "Six Thatchers".]

The long-awaited and much-anticipated return of Sherlock posted stellar TV ratings but received mixed reviews among the critics and the viewers.  Some praise Director Rachel Talalay's adaptation and showcase of impressive visual landscapes and actions scenes, the main characters' brilliant acting, and the usual clever use of disparaging plots to connect the main thread; while others criticize Mary's character development or lack thereof, the digression into emotional relationship drama and "Bourne-styled globe-trotting action thriller" instead of encouraging audience involvement in solving a suspenseful central mystery, and the overall disjoint, unfocused, and underwhelming nature of the episode.

I personally liked this premiere.  I enjoyed the various visual settings from the vast expanse of a Morroccan desert to the blue intimacy of the London Aquarium.  This episode consists elements of a typical Sherlock episode with its combination of witty dialogues, fast-paced crime-solving montages, and patented textual displays. It was gruesome at times and emotional at times. Though I must confess that I haven't been pining for the return of Sherlock nor did I know about its return until I saw it on the TV listings.  And I haven't read any of the Doyle's original Sherlock Holmes stories but have seen all the previous Sherlock episodes.  Since I am totally unaware of Mary's predestined fate in Doyle's books and the real life split of Martin Freeman and Amanda Abbington, the on-screen death of Mary came as a total shock.

I am indifferent to same old digs at Lestrade and the over-used baby-birthing/baby-rearing trope but I did get a chuckle or two out of them.  The only thing that I didn't like that much was Watson's secret affair.  I am not sure if this was a case of the show-runners wanting to re-emphasize and remind us of Watson's dormant thrill-seeker trait or what, but it is quite unfathomable to believe that Watson, a person so loyal and devoted, would abandon anyone much less his beloved and his new born baby to indulge in some late night texting with some lady whom he barely flirted with on a bus.  I am sure this woman will turn out to play an integral part in a future plot but it's just so out of character for Watson to be involved and linger on such a thing.

Minaret at the Great Mosque of Samarra 
Photo by J.Merena / CC BY

The most intriguing part of this episode for me have to be the fable of the Appointment in Samarra especially when narrated by the melodious voice of Benedict Cumberbatch in a shark tank.  (And for those of you who haven't had the pleasure of hearing the audio recording of Cumberbatch reading Franz Kafka's The Metamorphsis, please do yourself a favour, drop everything, including reading this review, and go listen to it right now.)

The Appointment in Samarra is an ancient Mesopotamian tale; Samarra is located 125 km north of Baghdad in the present day Iraq.  The popular version retold by W. Somerset Maugham can be found here and is as follows:

"The Appointment in Samarra"
(as retold by W. Somerset Maugham [1933])

The speaker is Death

There was a merchant in Baghdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, Master, just now when I was in the marketplace I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me.  She looked at me and made a threatening gesture,  now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate.  I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me.  The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went.  Then the merchant went down to the marketplace and he saw me standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning?  That was not a threatening gesture, I said, it was only a start of surprise.  I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.

The inevitability of Fate has long been a favorite theme for the writers from Oedipus Rex to Doctor Who. This story is no different but it is told by Death who knows the outcome instead of the ignorant fate avoiders who try to run away from Fate only to run into it. As the story was originally narrated by Death and then retold by Sherlock, I don't think we have heard the end of this fable.  I just have this unsettling feeling that the death of Mary, while one might be led to believe that this is the inevitable the story is alluding to, doesn't seem to completely parallel the original fable. Sherlock, as the narrator, should be Death and foresaw that someone is going to be dead before he or she is dead.  I don't think we are at the appointment in Samarra just yet.

And to add to the complication, there is an alternate version of this fable as re-imagined by a young Sherlock who changed the ending so that main character somehow avoids Samarra and Death altogether to become a pirate. One can't help but wonder if the seemingly rational and deterministic (all his deduction skills and his talk about fate and weaves) Sherlock might actually be a romantic and yearns for the possibility that something cannot and should not be determined. It gives one pause that maybe, just maybe, he secretly hopes that his deduction would be wrong. He needs to be wrong to refute Fate.

I know that everything has been filmed and determined and set in stone but maybe it's the optimist in me talking but I would like to see Sherlock happy for once similar to when the ninth Doctor happily proclaimed that "just this once, everybody lives!"  I am probably completely wrong here but I want Sherlock to have the same feeling of miracle and wonder and escape and randomness.  To reenact his childhood fantasy, Sherlock would have to somehow help the victim avoid death and escape from a deterministic world.  Let's see what happens in the "Lying Detective" then.

Onward to Samarra!

Cyril Connolly's The Unquiet Grave Translation Cheat Sheet (Part 2)

The Unquiet Grave is a book written by Cyril Connolly in 1944.  It is a book of self-reflection written by a writer in a time of propaganda, war, and private grief.  In this collection of musings, exploration, quotes and aphorisms, Connolly wishes to escape and show solidarity to France and to Western culture by "quoting as many passages as he could from the French".  And quote in French he did, and some Latin as well.  Because not all of us are polyglot like Connolly, I have made a collection of my own to help translate some of the original text from already translated sources, Wikipedia, Google Translate, and, my own rough translation and interpretation.  The page number is based on the First Persea Edition 1982 (and the fourth printing in 1999).

This is the part 2 of the translation which covers the second half of Chapter 1.
The first half of Chapter 1 can be found in Part 1.

Original Text Pascal writes, "Le moi est haïssable ... le moi a deux qualités: il est injuste en soi, en ce qu'il se fait centre du tout; il est incommode aux autres, en ce qu'il les veut asservir: car chaque moi est l'ennemi et voudrait être le tyran de tous les autres". "Qu'on s'imagine un nombre d'hommes dans dans les chaînes, et tous condamnés à la mort, dont les uns étant chaque jour égorgés à la vue des autres, ceux qui restent voient leur propre condition dans celle de leurs semblables, et, se regardant les uns et les autres avec douleur et sans espérance, attendent à leur tour. C'est l'image de la condition des hommes." [- Pascal] Christmas Eve: Dégoûté de tout. Midwinter cafard. "Manes Palinuri esse placandos!" 'Aristippus parlant à des jeunes gens qui rougissaient de le voir entrer chez une courtisane: "Le vice est de n'en pas sortir, non pas d'y entrer."' - MONTAIGNE (Essais, III, v) oeil de boeuf "La liberté et l'oisiveté qui sont mes maîtresses qualités". [- MONTAIGNE] "L'expérience confirme que la mollesse ou l'indulgence pour soi et la dureté pour les autres n'est qu'un seul et même vice". [- Home Truth from La Bruyère] "C'est un contrat tacite entre deux personnes sensibles et vertueuses. Je dis sensibles car un moine, un solitaire peut n'étre point méchant et vivre sans connaître l'amitié. Je dis vertueuses, car les méchants n'ont que des compolices, les voluptueux ont des compagnons de débauche, les intéressés ont des associés, les politiques assemblent des fâcheux, le commun des hommes oisifs a des liaisons, les princes ont des courtisans: les hommes vertueux ont seuls des amis." [- Voltaire on Friendship] ver solitaire Lacrimae Rerum Angoisse des Gares TOUT EST DÉGOÛT ET MISÈRE. Madame du Deffand to Horace Walpole: 'Ennui. C'est une maladie de l'âme dont nous afflige la nature en nous donnant l'existence; c'est le ver solitaire qui absorbe tout ... "Ah! je le répète sans cesse, il n'y a qu'un malheur, celui d'être né." Comment est-il possible qu'on craigne la fin d'une vie aussi triste ... Divertissez-vous, mon ami, le plus que vous pourrez; ne vous affligez point de mon état, nous étions presque perdus l'un pour l'autre; nous ne nous devions jamais revoir; vous me regretterez, parce qu'on est bien aise de se savoir aimé.'

Translation to English The Self is hateful ... the Self has two qualities: it is unjust in itself since it makes itself the centre of everything; it is inconvenient to others since it would enslave them; for each self is the enemy, and would like to be the tyrant of all others. - Pascal, Penseés (Laf. 597, Br. 455) Let us imagine a number of men in chains, and all condemned to death, where some are killed each day in the sight of the others, and those who remain see their own fate in that of their fellows, and wait their turn, looking at each other sorrowfully and without hope.  It is an image of the condition of men. - Pascal, Penseés (Laf. 434, Br 199) Disgust for everything. Midwinter Depression (cafard is also french for cockroach). The ghost of Palinurus be appeased. [extract of Servius's commentaries on the Aeneid.] Aristippus, who, speaking to some young men who blushed to see him go into a scandalous house, said "the vice is in not coming out, but not in going in." [Aristippus is a philosopher and a pupil of Socrates.] small round window (ox-eye window) Liberty and idleness, that are my mistresses' qualities Experience confirms that gentleness or indulgence for oneself and harshness towards others is but one and the same vice. [La Bruyère, Characters, IV] It is a tacit contact between two sensible and virtuous persons. I say sensible, for a monk or a recluse can be not wicked and lives without knowing friendship.  I say virtuous, for the wicked have only accomplices, the voluptuous have companions in debauchery, the self-seekers have associates, the politicians assemble factions, the generality of idle men have connections, the princes have courtiers. Virtuous men alone have friends. [Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary, Friendship] tapeworm Tears for things [Aeneid, I, 462] Station Anxiety All is repulsive and miserable. Boredom. It is a sickness of the soul with which nature afflicts us by giving us existence; it is the tapeworm that absorbs all ... "Ah! I repeat it incessantly, there is only one misfortune, that of being born." How is it possible that we fear the end of such as sad life ... Enjoy, my friend, as much as you can; do not be afflicted by my condition, we were almost lost to each other; we never need to see each other again; you will miss me, because it is nice knowing that you are loved. [Walpole was first ashamed of being "pursued" by Madame du Deffand because she was 20 years older than him but he enjoyed her society and they maintained a close correspondence for 15 years till her death.  She entrusted her dog and her papers to Walpole when she died.]

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Cyril Connolly's The Unquiet Grave Translation Cheat Sheet (Part 1)

The Unquiet Grave is a book written by Cyril Connolly in 1944.  It is a book of self-reflection written by a writer in a time of propaganda, war, and private grief.  In this collection of musings, exploration, quotes and aphorisms, Connolly wishes to escape and show solidarity to France and to Western culture by "quoting as many passages as he could from the French".  And quote in French he did, and some Latin as well.  Because not all of us are polyglot like Connolly, I have made a collection of my own to help translate some of the original text from already translated sources, Wikipedia, Google Translate, and, my own rough translation and interpretation.  The page number is based on the First Persea Edition 1982 (and the fourth printing in 1999).

Original Text Ecce Gubernator "Les plus forts y ont péri. L'art est un luxe; il veut des mains blanches et calmes. On fait d'abord une petite concession, puis deux, puis vingt. On s'illusionne sur sa moralité pendant longtemps. Puis on s'en fout complètement et puis on devient imbécile." - FLAUBERT "Bien écrire c'est à la fois bien sentir, bien penser et bien dire." - BUFFON  Brevis hic est fructus homullis "... je t'aurais rendu un peu de service. J'y tiens TELLEMENT - si tu savais comme j'y tiens. ..."  - W. SICKERT (to Nina Hamnett). WISDOM of PASCAL 1623-1662 "Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre." "Notre nature est dans le mouvement; les repos entier est la mort." Ennui: "Rien n'est si insupportable à l'homme que d'être dans un plein repos, sans passions, sans affaire, sans divertissement, sans application. Il sent alors son néant, son insuffisance, sa dépendance, son impuissance, son vide. Incontinent il sortira du fond de son âme l'ennui, la noirceur, la tristesse, le chagrin, le dépit, le désespoir." Misère: "La seule chose qui nous console de nos misères est le divertissement, et cependant c'est la plus grande de nos misères, car c'est cela qui nous empèche principalement de songer à nous, et qui nous fait perdre insensiblement." La Gloire:  "L'admiration gâte tout dès l'enfance: Oh! que cela est bien dit! Oh! qu'il a bien fait! Qu'il est sage, etc. ..." "Les enfants de Port-Royal, auxquels on ne donne point cet aiguillon d'envie et de gloire, tombent dans la nonchalance."

Translation to English Here comes the pilot. The strongest perished there. Art is a luxury; it requires calm white hands.  First you make a small concession, then two, then twenty.  You are deceived by your morality for a long time.  Then you don't give a damn and then you become an imbecile. - Flaubert's letter to Ernest Feydeau November 1859. To write well is to feel well, think well, and speak well. - Buffon (rearranged by Flaubert whom Connolly quoted) in a lecture on the style of pronunciation at the French Academy on August 25, 1753. Brief is this fruit of joy to paltry man. - Lucretius, De Rerum Natura I would have provided you some service.  I really like it - if you only knew how much I like it. All the misfortune of men comes from one thing, which is not knowing how to remain rested in a room. Our nature is in motion; complete rest is death. Boredom: "Nothing is so insupportable to man as to be in complete rest, without passion, without business, without entertainment, without use, He feels then his nothingness, his insufficiency, his dependence, his impotence, his emptiness.  Boredom, darkness, sadness, sorrow, frustration, despair will emerge unrestrained from the depths of his soul." Misery: "The only thing which consoles us from our miseries is entertainment, and yet that is the greatest of our miseries for that is what prevents us from self reflection, and which makes us lose indifferently." Glory: "Admiration spoils everything since childhood: Oh, that is well said! Oh, that is done well! That he is smart, etc..." The children of Port-Royal, who are not given this sting of envy and glory, fall into indolence.

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Part 2 of the Translation (Second half of Chapter 1)

More Quotes for People in Need of Hope

Or how to deal with WTF just happened.

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.

- Desmond Tutu

I find hope in the darkness of days, and focus in the brightest.  I do not judge the universe.

- Dalai Lama

I simply can't build my hopes on a foundation of confusion, misery and death... I think... peace and tranquility will return again.

- Anne Frank

Just as despair can come to one only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings.

- Elie Wiesel

Quotes from The Shawshank Redemption

Fear can hold you prisoner, Hope can set you free

Remember, Red.  Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.  I will be hoping that this letter finds you, and finds you well.

 - Andy Dufresne [in a letter to Red]

I find I'm so excited I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head.  I think it is the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain.  I hope I can make it across the border.  I hope to see my friend, and shake his hand.  I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope.

 - Red [on a bus to the Pacific]