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Of the 3 summers I spent with my family in England, I’m left with just a handful of memories. Losing 2-3 kg per stay certainly falls into the category: I don’t consider myself someone with particularly refined culinary tastes, but the crap they passed off as lunch always ended up in the trash after a couple of bites. Always. And I still don’t know how I managed that evening, rainy as usual, to finish all the meatloaf that was generously and ignobly cooked. Oh yes, among the recesses of memory there are also a couple of nice semi-alcoholic evenings and even two stories that lasted until the bus ride back from Malpensa. But the memory that rises powerfully and overshadows the others is undoubtedly the English. Some of them, not all, I would have hit with a shovel in the face. What bothers me is their way of being. They don’t just observe you, they scan you. Damn, if you concentrate you can even see the green light passing from your nape to your feet. From above (their position) to below (yours). Different. They feel, and maybe still believe themselves, superior. Nobody must have told them that the strong sterling, the Empire, the Beatles, and the ’66 World Cup are history.
Sherlock Holmes embodies a cocktail of British pride with his pompous, polite, authoritative and authoritative demeanor, brilliant and impassive even in the most dangerous situations. A damn and hateful gentleman of the late '800 in every way!
Doyle's stories are truly enjoyable, with detailed descriptions, capable of recreating atmospheres and settings that lend themselves well to cinematic transposition. The enormous ego of this obnoxious and talented detective is portrayed so convincingly that it’s impossible, at least for me, not to root for the bandit of the moment, the inept Scotland Yard policeman, or the intrepid yet faithful Watson. Yes, it really seems like this doctor is his little dog. Wait here please Watson, take the stick Watson, sit Watson, I will tell you everything in due course Watson. This is Sherlock “Arrogance” Holmes.
Every story starts this way. He watches the rain fall from the window of Baker Street, scratches his scrotum on the armchair while smoking his pipe, caresses the violin, reads the insipid chronicles of the Times, and complains; because his brilliant and logical mind isn’t engaged in some problem worthy of his fame. Then a panting client arrives who unravels a tangle with 18 inextricable sailor's knots, and in about twenty pages of deductions as logical as they are impossible, disguises, and a theatrical grand finale, it returns to the aforementioned armchair. In the long run, the stories, especially if unraveled in rapid succession, lose their edge due to the repetitiveness of the pattern and structure, but the novels I must admit that I liked them very much. This one in particular.
THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES
A nobleman runs breathlessly. A headlong race for life. The widened, incredulous gaze full of pure terror turns backward towards something enormous that, even as it approaches, loses all real shape in the darkness of the night in which its flaming eyes become exceedingly evident. A creature from the underworld. More frantic steps and then he finds himself down, on the ground, with his sick heart stopped. Forever. The positivism of Holmes' analytical and logical method clashes in this novel with an intrigue that seems to take on the contours of the paranormal and superstition. Doyle, with a suitable number of pages, manages to meticulously recreate the atmosphere of suspicion and mistrust among the inhabitants of a remote village, reluctant to engage with outsiders. It seems impossible that in such a tiny context there could coexist a mystery that sees a noble family, the Baskervilles in fact, already without heirs, being persecuted. Only the last offspring, Sir Henry, remains. The multiple characters, described as the story unfolds, seem to hide something and do nothing but throw dust in the reader's eyes: attracted by the sublime Gothic setting of the moor and disoriented by the twisted turn of events. We seem to see it, the magnetic swamp: especially at night with its perilous nooks hidden by the mist and illuminated by the moon. It becomes a perfect backdrop to stage a mysterious and darkly tinted crime story where it’s hard to foresee an outcome until just a few pages from the end. Holmes finally seems to be in crisis, his methods are long slapped and mocked. It’s truly a good mystery.
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