\u201cThey\u2019re like the weird kids at the playground, who rather than running and going down the slide are like eating sand together, okay?\u201d\u2014Levy Rozman<\/p>\n
Above, Rozman describes how chess grandmasters look to an average person. Their actions look erratic and their moves make little intuitive sense. And yet, this \u2018sand eating\u2019 is of the highest performance.<\/p>\n
Rozman leans on a modern trope in which especially skilled individuals must also lack in other key components, usually social abilities. This individual\u2019s prowess would be so great that they surmount most, if not all, shortcomings. I wish to propose that this phenomena in a Victorian literature both reveals and critiques the capitalist call for specialization. In the case of Sherlock, for instance, he prides that his mind \u201cwill have nothing but tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order.\u201d (Doyle 17). So, while Rozman\u2019s comment may come from the past couple of years, Sherlock Holmes most certainly consumes a similarly large volume of sand.<\/p>\n
Holmes, however, may not possess that same iron stomach as modern chess players. At the cost of his specialty and skill, \u201cnow and again a reaction would seize him, and for days on end he would lie upon the sofa in the sitting-room, hardly uttering a word or moving a muscle from morning to night.\u201d (Doyle 15). Sherlock\u2019s character achieves balance through this suffering, and yet his focal point remains on his work. Holmes even encourages a blind eye towards this occasional catatonia. He instructs Watson that he, \u201cmust not think [he is] sulky when [he does] that. Just let [him] alone, and [he]\u2019ll soon be right.\u201d (Doyle 13). None of Sherlock belongs to himself. Everything from his pursuit of knowledge to his retention of information to his caring for his general well-being centers around his profession. When we love Sherlock as Watson does, do we also overshadow the pain and deliberate neglect in constraining a boundless man to specialized detective? Admittedly, he is one hell of a detective, but should we celebrate that?<\/p>\n
Works Cited<\/p>\n
Doyle, Arthur Conan. A Study in Scarlet.<\/em> Penguin Classics, 2001, pp. 1-128.<\/p>\n Rozman, Levy. \u201cGothamChess about eating sand Animation.\u201d YouTube<\/em>, uploaded by doctor bees, 21 April 2021, https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=M00sbevHlhs<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cThey\u2019re like the weird kids at the playground, who rather than running and going down the slide are like eating sand together, okay?\u201d\u2014Levy Rozman Above, Rozman describes how chess grandmasters look to an average person. Their actions look erratic and their moves make little intuitive sense. And yet, this \u2018sand eating\u2019 is of the highest … Continue reading A Study in Eating Sand<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4220,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[344620],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall-2022"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4220"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1049\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}