Valley of Fear, Ch. 1-4 reflection

As someone who has not read a large amount of Sherlock Holmes mysteries, or mysteries in general, I had absolutely no expectations or preconceived notions as I began to read. However, the author managed to make Holmes' entire persona almost entirely evident within the first few pages. Following Holmes' deductive reasoning while he analyzed the note from Porlock, I immediately understood the reason behind his extreme fame among mystery fans; Doyle portrays Holmes as such an absurdly intelligent, levelheaded man while somehow still making his brilliance seem realistic and connecting him directly to the reader.

In my opinion, the most notable aspect of this novel is how Doyle demonstrates Holmes' train of thought through his conversations with others. Each time he discovers a new meaning behind a clue or deciphers a difficult code, he essentially walks the reader through his deductive reasoning as he explains the concepts to his partner or other coworkers. This style, which is present throughout all four chapters, creates a connection between Holmes and the reader; by being able to follow his train of thought, the reader almost begins to feely more personally involved in the case. Similarly, Doyle illustrates relationships between Holmes and his coworkers through their conversations which often include different ideas and answers to questions bouncing off of one another until they are in agreement. This type of interaction occurs often with his partner, the narrator. Since the reader experiences the mystery unfold from the perspective of Watson, and because Watson has such a large amount of interactions with Holmes himself, the reader also forms a seemingly personal relationship with both Holmes and the case itself through their conversations.

In addition to Doyle's use of interactions between characters to allow the reader to feel included, I also appreciated Doyle's use of descriptive language to involve the reader even further and to establish an appropriate atmosphere for the scene. Doyle consistently uses in-depth descriptions and vivid language to create a realistic image of the scene. For example, he captures Birlstone with such profundity that the reader almost feels as though they can see the cottages and smell the woods. He later generates a suitably dark tone for an eerie scene while describing the Manor House, "with its many gables and its small diamond-paned windows, [that] was still much as the builder had left it in the early seventeenth century". Finally, I appreciated Doyle's approach to describing the appearance murdered man in the house; the illustration was just descriptive enough to create a visual and allow the reader to imagine the injuries that this man endured, but not overdone to the point of being garish and unnecessarily gory.

After reading these four chapters and getting to know Sherlock Holmes, I believe that the following quote from the reading perfectly captures Holmes' essence: "Twice in his career had Holmes helped him to attain success, his own sole reward being the intellectual joy of the problem". While other people, including the other characters in the story, work on these cases so furiously to find an answer for the distinction that comes with solving a prominent case, Holmes dedicates every part of himself to these cases simply for the genuine pleasure of solving a mystery. This quote demonstrates how Holmes truly has a special mind compared to others.