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L'affaire Du Chien Des Baskerville (2000)

by Pierre Bayard(Favorite Author)

3.31 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

2707320218 (ISBN13: 9782707320216)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

review 1: This book is playful, funny and amazing and adds so much to its subject. Having read THotB though is pretty much required preparation, and ideally some more Sherlock Holmes stories. However, a caveat: This book requires you to like metafiction and be prepared to tolerate a charming arrogance/wankiness about literature though, but if you've read Sherlock Holmes then you should be up to the task. If you don't read it with too serious a face, it's really enjoyable.
review 2: I have never liked overanalysing fiction. It would then seem that I should have not even picked this book up and that is probably true. It is however an interesting read if nothing else and while I do not agree with Bayard's reasoning every time I still found it engaging. Sadly, this is not ... morea very amusing read. Unlike "The Physics of Superheroes", a book with a similar idea of applying real world reasoning to a world of fiction, this book takes itself a bit too serious. I will say, however that when Bayard's version of the crime was fleshed out in the final chapters I couldn't disagree with his findings. Annoying as it is, his theory does make alot of sense.That having been said, his overall reasoning is flawed at best. He makes assumptions based aparently solely on the french translation of the book. Which is, like the language itself, slightly more romaticized and makes more allusions to the moon and the aparent wolf-like properties of the Great Detective and are not aparent in the original english. One would think Bayard would have omitted such parts had he found they dd not fit in with the original novel, as his reasoning stems alot more from how he believes Doyle felt about his creation than the narrative itself at times. While there are, as previously stated, no real flaws with Bayard's ultimate theory based on the narrative itself, his attitude towards both the reader and the original author is one of almost smug superiority. He paints himself up as being wiser than most for having figured it all out. A quality that would have been much better suited had his theory been based on facts and not an interpertation of a fictional story. Regardless of how good it is. less

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