Keep away from the MOOR!. Review on The Hound Of The Baskervilles - Arthur Conan Doyle

It was a warm, wet night in Devonshire. Sir Charles Baskerville locked the door of Baskerville Hall behind him as he set out on his usual nightly walk, cigar in hand. He walked crisply down the Yew alley until he came to the wicker gate which opened out to the moor, about half-way down the alley. There he waited for the person he was supposed to meet. He took another puff from his cigar. Suddenly he saw it coming. His face contorted into a most bizarre expression of horror before he started running for his dear life. But so crazed was he with the monstrous sight that he ran further down the Yew alley, away from Baskerville Hall instead of towards it, crying out for help where help was least likely. He ran and he ran and he ran until he collapsed to the ground, never to get up again.

What was it that Sir Charles saw that night that drove him out of his senses? Who was he waiting for at the moor-gate, especially the night before he was to leave for London? With these questions and more, Dr Mortimer, a friend of Charles, consults Mr Sherlock Holmes of 221B Baker street. During his first visit, he tells Holmes and Watson about the curse of the Baskervilles according to which the members of the Baskerville family will be hunted down and killed by a phantom hound. He also asks them for advice on what to do with young Henry, the last of the Baskervilles, who was coming from Canada on that very day. Holmes advises the young baronet to go to the ancestral home to continue the good work Charles had begun. Since he is working on another more important case, he stays back in London and sends Watson along to keep him company.

The scene now shifts to Baskerville Hall and we start to read the story through Watson's letters to Holmes. We meet Barrymore the butler and his wife, Jack Stapleton the naturalist and his sister Beryl, and Frankland of Lafter Hall. How are all these characters inextricably linked to the dead old man? Who is the lady that sobs uncontrollably in the dead of the night and why does she do it? Why is Barrymore moving about stealthily in the middle of the night and holding a lamp to the moor? Who is the mysterious stranger Watson spots on one of the nights over the tor? Who is the person 'L.L' whom Charles had an appointment with out at the moor-gate? Which ones among these are friends and which ones foes? And if the curse of the Baskervilles is only a superstition, what in the name of God is that slow, sickening sound that envelopes the moor every now and then, freezing the blood in your veins?

Conan Doyle spins yet another intricate web of crime, deceit, love and horror which is all, for a change, up to Watson to unravel and report back to Holmes. All the ingredients of a vintage Holmes novel are all there; an introduction to Holmes' gifts in the first chapter, his inclination to tobacco and his love for solitude when hot on trail of something, his habit of keeping Watson, and hence the reader, guessing as to what is going to happen in the next moment, and of course, the retrospection which forms the last chapter. Doyle manages to keep the the reader thoroughly interested in the goings-on and by the time you put the novel down, you will have fallen in love with all its characters.

I remember reading this novel for the first time in a room full of people and getting scared out of my wits. When I told this to my dad, he told me that he was trembling with fear when he read it for the first time. So if it happens to you, don't worry. it is perfectly normal. Hound does that to people. You should not be worried if you go through the entire novel without any jitters either, because it simply means you are a superman. But it doesn't hurt to take precautions, some of which would be not to read it alone, not to read it during night, to keep a glass of water nearby where you can reach it...well you get the idea.

I know what you are thinking. You are thinking 'This reviewer is really a pussy. I am too tough to get scared while reading a novel so I won't take any of the precautions he suggests'. Oh well, suit yourself and read Hound all alone on an arm-chair on a rainy night. And then come back and report to me. Oh wait, dead people cannot do any reporting can they?