848447111X

A very, very enjoyable read: definitely the pinnacle (thus far) of the Holmes canon.

Every element fits into its proper place: the isolated location is well described, with many fascinating features such as the Neolithic huts, fatal bogs and rows of yews. Each character is well-drawn, and each has their own mystery which interlocks perfectly with the overarching puzzle. By utilising different aspects of Watson's narrative voice - his diary, his letters, his reminiscences - Conan Doyle is able to shake up his writing formula somewhat, and present us with a mystery in which both Watson and Holmes are used to their respective strengths.

Beyond this, the mystery is multi-faceted and - particularly noteworthy - the novel is about every aspect of the crime, not just the "whodunnit" or how. As a result, even though the revelations are really no more than typical Conan Doyle fare, they are in no way a letdown, because it is only part of a larger canvas.

Seasoned crime readers like myself will probably pick up on the big clue planted very early in the book but, even then, it by no means allows you to solve the crime. The only aspect which might be seen by some as negative is that the book is always happy to pause and consider any minute clue (half a chapter is spent on exactly which newspaper a ransom-style note was cut from). To me, though, this is quintessential Holmes. The traces of romantic characterisation and storytelling linger, but are kept in check by the power of the work overall. As a result, I'm soldiering on with renewed vigour to the sixth of the nine Holmes books. ( )

Some books have such a grip on the popular imagination that it is easy to fall under the mistaken impression that you know them very well. One such novel is certainly Conan Doyle's “The Hound of the Baskervilles”, in which the great “consulting detective” Sherlock Holmes solves the mystery of a spectral hound haunting the scions of a wealthy family on the bleak Devon moors.

I vaguely recall reading “The Hound of the Baskervilles” in my early teens. Fresh from a week’s stay in Dartmoor, I returned to it, and was surprised to discover that my impressions of the novel were based less on my recollections than on misconceptions and second-hand retellings.

For one thing, at the very beginning of the book I noticed an element of what could only be “self-parody”. Consider the following extract from the opening chapter, which led me to double-check whether I was reading the original text or a spoof:

I stood upon the hearth-rug and picked up the stick which our visitor had left behind him the night before...
"Well, Watson, what do you make of it?"
Holmes was sitting with his back to me, and I had given him no sign of my occupation.
"How did you know what I was doing? I believe you have eyes in the back of your head."
"I have, at least, a well-polished, silver-plated coffee-pot in front of me," said he.

Although the setting of the story is before Holmes’s presumed death at the Reichenbach Falls in (what should have been) his “Final Problem”, the Hound of the Baskervilles was the work in which Holmes returned to print after an absence of eight years to appease the public clamour for a new adventure featuring the seemingly omniscient detective. Conan Doyle’s playful opening scene might be poking fun not only at his own characters but also at the public’s obsession with his creation.

I was also surprised at the fact that, for the greater part of the novel, Watson is the protagonist. Certainly, the “presence” of Holmes hovers over each chapter, but putting Watson in the foreground gives the book a particular flavour. As Anthony Lejeune puts it in his foreword to this Capuchin Classics edition, you can stereotype Holmes but not Watson. It also makes this more of an “adventure story” than a “puzzle-solving” crime novel.

The most striking fact about Doyle’s “little book” however is how much it owes to the Gothic genre. Whilst most Holmes stories have a gothic element, this is generally of the Dickensian “London” type, where evil is battled in foggy city streets. Here however we’re in the classic territory of solitary country mansions, nightly terrors, eerie moorland, mires which entrap unwary men and beasts, escaped convicts, femmes fatales, family curses and, to top it all, a giant ghostly hound with flaring nostrils. And although the final neat (yet complex) solution explains away the supernatural trappings (as is typical of that strand of “rationalistic” Gothic which runs from Ann Radcliffe to Scooby-Doo), the brooding sense of fear and dread is difficult to shake off and gives the novel its distinctive aftertaste.

This is an undisputed classic. ( )

3.5 stars ( )

848447111X