VoF: Ch 1-4 Blog
Tonight's reading really
opened us up to the novel and set the stage for the mystery to play out. This
is truly a typical Sherlock Holmes novel with cliff hangers at the end of every
chapter, untrustworthy characters, and pauses in the suspense to deeply describe
the surroundings and characters. Holmes is truly talented with his ability to
make connections and put everything together far better than anyone else, which
is what makes him such a great detective. He's definitely a bit of an odd
character, as he seems to know things way before he is willing to reveal them
and almost appears to be teasing the other characters with his hidden
knowledge. I think that his intelligence makes it a little hard to keep up with
everything at times, as he is always thinking of the next possible questions
and scenarios.
Watson, the narrator
of this novel, and all the other Sherlock novels, is great at playing his role.
He is smart enough to be a worthy accomplice to Holmes, yet he is not a crazy
genius so it is easy for the reader to relate to him and be on his level. The
team works together to find out how Douglas was murdered, but not everything
always adds up, which just further adds to the element of mystery. Just when
you think you've figured it out, new information is revealed and the chapter is
concluded, leaving you hanging for more. The author definitely used this style
to create suspense, and I think that's why these novels are known to be such
classic mystery stories; you really can never figure it out until you read the
whole book.
There are a lot of
variables that go into writing a strong mystery story and the author does a
good job at putting these all together. Although we have only read to chapter
four, it is clear that the author has spent the right amount of time on each
part of the murder. He dwells just enough on things like the murder weapon and
the escape, and focuses in and out on the idea of the actual suspect sneaking
in and out of the house without overdoing it. By adding a little more
information as the story goes on, all these elements come together and will all
make sense in the end. The difference between a mystery story and having actual
mystery in the story is to be able to incorporate the suspense into the plot
without making a plot that is solely about suspense. This way there can be a
truly interesting plot line as opposed to a random string of events that only
serve to entice the reader. This novel is strong because it would be enjoyable
to read without the cliff hangers; it doesn't rely on suspense to be
captivating.
Your blog is very interesting because it brought up things that I haven't considered. I didn't really think that Holmes was sort of teasing the other characters by keeping things to himself, but now that you mentioned it, it seems like a plausible idea. I also liked that you focused on the structure of the murder story and how the author spent the right amount of time on each part of the murder story. While reading the murder story, I haven't really every focused completely on just the general structure of how it was laid out--I was mostly thinking about the details that the author presented. I also think your thoughts about the difference between a mystery story and having mystery in the story is very interesting--I have previously never thought about the difference before and I think that knowing the difference would be useful to understanding what makes the Sherlock Holmes stories successful in captivating readers.
ReplyDeleteYour blogpost was very enjoyable. Your assessment of what makes Holmes a compelling character and what makes Watson effective at his role, as well, is well put. I like how you made sure to talk about how Watson plays a role -not just as a character- but for the reader as well. As if this was not enough, you then took a step back and embarked on commentary on the essence of mystery. You did this by first asserting what makes Holmes mysteries effective, and then what makes mystery effective in general. I could not agree more with the fact that Sherlock Holmes is special because it has an interesting plot and characters, as well as compelling suspense, but not simply the latter for the sake of itself. And to top it all off you hit us with, "The difference between a mystery story and having actual mystery in the story is to be able to incorporate the suspense into the plot without making a plot that is solely about suspense". BOOM! Attempting to dissect the theme of the syllabus in context with a sharp one-liner? Audacious. I love it.
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