No Mystery To Classic Status

Title: The Hound of the Baskervilles
Author: Arthur Conan Doyle
Published: 1902
Pages: 214

Reading Time: Winter 2010.

Plot Teaser:
Some blame the sudden death of Sir Charles Baskerville on the legend of a fearsome and ghostly hound that is said to have haunted his Devonshire family for generations.

So when the services of famed detective Sherlock Holmes are engaged to ensure the safety of Baskerville heir Sir Henry - recently arrived from America - Dr Watson is surprised to find his friend dismissive of the matter. In fact, Watson is dispatched alone to accompany Sir Henry to Baskerville Hall in Devon while Holmes deals with another case.

Yet Watson finds the wild moors are a far cry from the orderly streets of London, and in the cold night a savage and bestial howl may be heard...

How I Got It:
This was a brand new purchase from Indigo at Dix 30 in Brossard, Quebec. I was honestly drawn to the stylish Penguin edition cover, and I had always wanted to read a Sherlock Holmes novel. This was a totally impulse purchase made in late 2010, which added to the pile of the original 40 books that I had listed at the start of this blog.

The Review:
When Sir Charles Baskerville suffers a harrowing death, Sherlock Holmes delves into the mystery of a ravenous hound feasting on the foggy English countryside. The Hound of the Baskervilles is considered one of the seminal literary works in the English canon, and after having gone through it twice myself, it is not difficult to see why. The story succeeds on the strength of its characterization, intrigue, and eerie atmosphere.

The book sinks its teeth into the reader from the outset, featuring a dialogue between the effervescent Holmes, and the humourless Watson, as the two men try to discover the owner of a curious walking stick that had been left behind by a visitor the day before. The relationship between Holmes and Watson is immediately presented as one of mutual respect, but of witty banter also. It is one of the greatest strengths of the novel, which is recounted through the diary of Watson himself. All throughout, we are party to Watson's inner thoughts, deductions, and conversations with others. While this alone may seem like a cliche, the skill with which Arthur Conan Doyle crafts Watson's line of logic is one of the attributes that mark this as a classic.

The mystery of The Hound of the Baskervilles is simple enough: a rich old man has been murdered by what appears to have been a supernatural hound. It is up to Holmes and Watson to find out how the man was murdered, for what purpose, and by whom or what. The reader tags alongside the two detectives, who are sometimes together, but also separated for a long stretch of the adventure, and tries to uncover the mystery as well. It's the formula of every crime novel, and though it may seem slightly obvious who the killer is from the start to veterans of the genre, there are more than a couple of astounding revelations that are definitely not able to be seen ahead of time. Needless to say, there is never a dull moment.

Thus far, I have praised the characterization and the plot of the novel. In both parts, it is Conan Doyle's adroit hand which is to be lauded. His wordplay is also the very reason the third aspect of the book, the atmosphere, plays such an integral part to the reading experience. Conan Doyle depicts the England of most people's imaginations today: grey, morose, dreary, fog-choked, and filled with characters who are not quite as grave as their surroundings, but who often feel like ghosts cutting through the winds of events in the novel. There is a timeless feeling, as if these characters have always been in these forsaken places, and that these forsaken places will never taste the elixir of morning sun. Take this description of the moor that is the centrepiece of the murder:

"Over the green squares of the fields and the low curve of a wood there rose in the distance a grey, melancholy hill, with a strange jagged summit, dim and vague in the distance, like some fantastic landscape in a dream." (p. 67)

The mood is almost supernatural, and wonderfully juxtaposes with Holmes and Watson's very clear and practical methods of investigation. The atmosphere is symptomatic of the denizens of the area, and vice versa; you cannot imagine one existing without the other.

All in all, this is a truly great book. It is worthy of anyone's time, especially those who enjoy a good mystery told with a sharp tongue.

The Verdict:
A classic, and a book which I will be going back to time and again to study its clarity of narrative, wittiness of dialogue, and cleverness of mystery. This was my first exposure to Arthur Conan Doyle's mastery, but it will certainly not be the last.

5/5

Up Next:
Under the City of Angels by Jerry Earl Brown.