Apr 18, 2003 03:12 PM
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(Updated Apr 18, 2003 06:08 PM)
'' When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, is the truth.''
Continuing on these lines, eliminating all the other 'fictional' detectives, the only 'real' detective who remains is Mr.Sherlock Holmes(and this certainly is not an improbable proposition, is it!?)
Well, writing a review on ''The Hound'' certainly presents a certain amount of difficulties, for it has been written with a golden hand that can attract no criticism whatsoever. People who ''never read mysteries'' have read ''The Hound''. A word about background - it was published in 1901 running in monthly installments in ''The Strand'' in London.
And now coming to the novel itself...it starts off with the usual skills of deduction which made Holmes so special. A stick forgotten by Dr.Mortimer comes under the deductive scrutiny of Holmes and then of his comrade-the ever faithful Watson. It is quite humorous on Watson's part to poke some good-natured fun on himself when he says to have mastered the special skill of Holmes. Moving on further, the man-who-drops-his-stick-instead-of-his-card actually does reappear, with a problem which is now synonymous with the highest pedestal of crime investigation. He is there in connection with the murder(?) of Sir Charles Baskerville on the sinister Grimpen Mire at Dartmoor. The baffling part is that the circumstances leading to the death of Sir Charles correspond exactly with a long traditional ''Curse of the Baskervilles'' - a manuscript dating almost 200 years earlier when Hugo Baskerville(the only dark horse in the traditionally cultured Baskerville family) was killed by a ''a foul thing, a great black beast, shaped like a hound, yet larger than any hound that ever mortal eye has rested upon.'' Taking into account the bare facts that Sir Charles was always wary of the manuscript, and that the footsteps of a gigantic hound were found beside the corpse of Sir Charles. So now it is upto Holmes to seperate the mortal from the supernatural, to advise the heir to Sir Charles' mansion - Sir Henry whether to go to Dartmoor or not, and to fish out a mortal hand, if any, in the matter.
Everything in this story is picture perfect - the plot, the language, the characters et al. Nobody escapes suspicion, from the butler couple of Mr and Mrs.Barrymore, the naturalist Stapleton, the lawyer Frankland, even the innocent Dr.Mortimer. What follows is..well , quite simply ''The Hound Of the Baskervilles'' - a must-read for all you mystery-freaks , or quite simply for all you readers out there.
Doyle's incomparable novel brings to life a Victorian England of horse-drawn cabs, fogs, and the famous lodgings of 221b Baker Street, where for more than 40 years, Sherlock Holmes earned his reputation as the greatest fictional detective of all time.
Do not miss it for the world!
