Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles

My local library was promoting a Sherlock Holmes detective story, and wondered why? "Sherlock Holmes baby boomers do not read things," I thought.

With some hesitation I purchased The Hound of the Baskervilles and read the weekend. The novella is a story about the detection of a spectral dog that has terrorized the countryside. It turns out that the dog was not spooky ghost at all, but real, half-starved dog that kept by a convict.

Soon, I realized why I had not read Conan Doyle in such a long time.First, Watson Sherlock cruelty is distasteful, if not rude to the reader. But on the other side can not help thinking that abuse may be due to the nature servile Watson. However, the arrogance and cruelty in any form is repugnant to me.

Second, Holmes Watson thinks like a donkey, a vehicle for the detective genius, and is not reluctant to say:

You may not are bright, but you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it. I confess, my friend, I am greatly indebted.

If the author's intention for us - the public to hate his character, Sherlock Holmes, and then achieved his goal, so it can be more detestable than a character who denigrates another as it rises in a manner so obvious.

Third, oh yes - do not overlook support Holmes clay pipe and violin.After a while you get bored with such trivialities, and the characters inevitably becomes a caricature.

The novel lacks substance, which, for two thirds of the book Holmes is absent, leaving all the work and the kind of detective Watson.Readers interested in the mind of Holmes, Watson, and we have been conditioned to believe that Watson is an intellectual midget.

Anyway, if not for the prayers, well-balanced, this detection of the story-a story of terror, even a mild by today's standards, have not deserved to be revived. What I admire about Conan Doyle is his mastery of English syntax and use of rhetorical tools.

Alliteration:

Bronzing bracken and mottled bramble gleamed in the light of the setting sun.

Negative reversal and alliteration:

Never in the delirious dream of a disordered brain could anything be more savage, more appalling, more hellish be conceived than the dark form and savage face which broke upon us from the wall of fog.

Concretization of the abstract:

There was pride, courage and strength in his thick eyebrows, sensitive nose, and large hazel eyes.

Notice how, in the example above, the "pride", abstract nouns value "," and "force" are anchored in the mind of the reader by concrete nouns qualified "eyebrows" and "nose".

All the above techniques, along with the waste of old family tradition will delight readers for generations to come. Or, if you will, the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children, as it was in the history of the clan of the Baskervilles.