Good Intentions!
Procrastination!
Identification!
I completely identify with the students who come to me frantic for the condensed version or the shortest book on the approved list for their book report which is due in four days! Of course, the condensed version or the shortest book has already been checked out by their fellow students who also don’t want to read anything without a picture on every other page or has more than 100 pages. But I love them anyway and convince them that they really can finish their assignment. In that vein and to prove to them that they can accomplish that goal, I confess my procrastination and finish my challenge in four days!
I am substituting a title that is on the list of Saturday Review of Books but that is not on my list of choices for the Challenge. I did not obtain The Goose Girl in time - note my identification with students; however, in my favor I did not choose to substitute The Penderwicks or A Wrinkle in Time both of which are on the approved list and for which I have already done reviews.
I am choosing as my replacement The Hound of the Baskervilles which I promise I had not read until this fall. Yes, I read many books during the fall - just not my assignment - again note my identification with students. I read Hound just after my completion of A Drowned Maiden’s Hair; and if you read that review, you will notice my mention of Arthur Conan Doyle. I have read many, many of Sherlock Holmes' cases and have watched many, many cinematic versions of The Hound. As an aside, in my opinion Jeremy Brett is the Sherlock!
The Hound of the Baskervilles
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
'The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes. Where do you think that I have been?'
'A fixture also.'
'On the contrary, I have been to Devonshire.'
'In spirit?'
'Exactly. My body has remained in this armchair and has, I regret to observe, consumed in my absence two large pots of coffee and an incredible amount of tobacco. After you left I sent down to Stamfords for the Ordnance map of this portion of the moor, and my spirit has hovered over it all day. I flatter myself that i could find my way about.'
'We are coming now rather into the region of guesswork,' said Dr. Mortimer.
'Say rather, into the region where we balance probabilities and choose the most likely. It is the scientific use of the imagination, but we have always some material basis on which to start our speculation.'
The more outre and grotesque an incident is the more carefully it deserves to be examined, and the very point which appears to complicate a case is, when duly considered and scientifically handled, the one which is most likely to elucidate it.'
Doyle takes the reader to a place where it is perfectly logical that a mystical beast could exist.
'I say, Watson,' said the baronet, 'what would Holmes say to this? How about that hour of darkness in which the power of evil is exalted?'And then, as always, Holmes gets his man!
As if in answer to his words there rose suddenly out of the vast gloom of the moor that strange cry which I had already heard upon the borders of the great Grimpen Mire. It came with the wind through the silence of the night, a long, deep mutter, then a rising howl, and then the sad moan in which it dies away. Again and again it sounded, the whole air throbbing with it, strident, wild, and menacing. The baronet caught my sleeve and his face glimmered white through the darkness.
In my book . . . What could be better on a cold winter night that to curl up with a book that takes one to foggy London town and hear “The game is afoot.”?
