I
read this book for the Back
to the Classics Challenge 2018.
The Hound of the
Baskervilles – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
This novel stars the detective duo of Sherlock Holmes and
Dr. John Watson. The story uses country superstitions, a fiendish hound, and an
old family curse. Sir Charles Baskerville is found dead with a rictus of terror
on his face. And near the corpse, in one of the most famous lines in detective
fiction, “… the footprints of a gigantic hound!”
Conan Doyle skillfully piles up weird little incidents
that unnerve the heir to the vast estate, Henry Baskerville. Even the
unflappable Holmes is concerned for the safety of Sir Henry. He sends Watson
with the heir to his remote Dartmoor mansion. Watson therefore is particularly
active in this story and tells his story in letters, diary extracts, and straight
exposition.
On the up side, Conan Doyle skillfully describes dreary
landscape in order to capture an overall grim tone. Turning a conventional
Victorian creepy novel into a Sherlock Holmes tale contributes to the originality
of the plot. What Conan Doyle called “female interest” is fostered in the
story, mainly due to indirectly describing the hard lot of women, married and
not, at the hands of men. There are melodramatic passages but they are a lot of
fun. On the down side, there are is a plot hole so large that even Holmes
himself acknowledges it in the reveal when, provoked by questions, he says, “It
is a formidable difficulty, and I fear that you ask too much when you expect me
to solve it.”
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