For this first review of
2014, I have a confession to make; I am not a fan of Sherlock Holmes.
No, don’t take it that way – I never said I didn’t like the
detective, or any of the stories or adaptations he appears in, just that I
would not count myself as a devotee. I have read very few of the Arthur Conan
Doyle stories, and I have not grown up with any of the television series’, so
my knowledge of the character and his career is a little sketchy. But of
course, how could I know nothing about him? The answer is that I cannot, and so
his detective methods, his language register, and his apocryphal catch-phrases
(“Elementary, my dear Watson”, something which never appeared in the original
Conan Doyle stories, so they assure me) are all still quite familiar to me,
despite my distance from the series. I could always do what I did for H.P.
Lovecraft, and make a project to read each and every one of the Holmes stories,
but for some reason I have no real desire to do so, at least not at present.
The reason that I read The Hound of the
Baskervilles is because it is one of the most famous there is – and I
happen to own a copy. Oh well, here we go.
For those who don’t know, Sherlock Holmes is a British
folk-hero – an independent London-based Victorian detective who, with the aid
of his friend Dr Watson, solves heinous crimes using his skills of logic and
sound, deductive reasoning. Most of the stories are told from Dr Watson’s point
of view, who serves as narrator thanks to his more accessibly human character,
as opposed to Holmes’ rather less approachable cold, clinical, ultra-rational personality.
The story of The Hound of the
Baskervilles opens with Holmes and Watson as they meet with yet another
client, Dr Mortimer, who informs them of a most curious mystery involving the
death of a Sir Charles Baskerville, an aristocrat who lived out in the wilds of
Devon. No cause is found for his sudden fatality, other than that he seemed to
have died of sheer fright, due to the supposed re-emergence of an old family
curse in the form of a gigantic hound from hell. The last member of the
Baskerville line, the young Sir Henry, is returning to his ancestral seat to
take up residence, and Holmes is contracted to protect the young gentleman’s
life and find out who, if anyone, is responsible for wanting the family dead.
Much of the story takes place in the rural setting of
Devon, and due to unforeseen circumstances Holmes is largely absent from most
of the book – leaving Dr Watson alone to face the horrors of the moor, protect
the life of Sir Henry, and uncover the mystery that has been dogging the
Baskerville family. All these elements weave together to create an interesting
tale, as much a Gothic thriller as a Sherlock Holmes mystery, and even people
such as myself who have little experience with Holmes can observe the telling
absence he plays for a large portion of the book. The characters are all there,
distinct enough to make them memorable, and not too numerous to make them
unmanageable: there’s Sir Henry, the adventurous young colonial now out of his
depth in his old ancestral home, Barrymore the creepy butler and his wife, Dr Mortimer
the skull-collecting old weirdo, Stapleton the chummy butterfly-net wielding fellow,
his strange exotic sister Beryl, Mr Frankland who opens legal proceedings over
the most insignificant matters just for the hell of it, Laura Lyons the bitter
and impoverished divorcee, and Seldon, an escaped convict said to be living
wild on the moor. Not to mention the hound itself, the evil presence that lurks
at the edge of the story for the entire duration, uncertain of whether it’s
meant to exist or just be some horrifying centuries-old legend. They all work
well, and thus the story is fresh and interesting.
The book is good. Not too long, well-structured,
well-paced, and satisfyingly concluded. The old-fashioned, slightly stilted
language register – a case which might hold a story back in circumstances other
than it being a Sherlock Holmes – gives it that nice Victorian character that
fans of the series love so much. There is little else I can say without giving
away too much of the plot, and the plot is one of the main reasons you go for a
mystery tale such as this. I can find no criticism to make, so if you’re a
long-standing fan of the character and desire to see what the original is like,
or wish to dabble into a bit of Holmes for the first time, then by all means
acquire yourself a copy and get reading.
Bibliotionalism
Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Hound of the Baskervilles. Penguin:
St. Ives. (2001 [First Published 1902])
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