Personal Reflection

Previously I had thought that the audience for classic novels are for older people. I think why I thought this because classic novels should, but don't have to have a fairly intellectual meaning; a deep purpose. When hearing the words “Classic Novel” I thought of an old dusty book that no one bothers to read. Mark Twain was quoted saying “'classic' a book which people praise and don't read”. This leads us into a discussion we had earlier on in the year if our decisions and opinions are based solely on others comments and critiques.

With The Hound of The Baskervilles, I was pleasantly surprised. It was an older book, a novel that I really enjoyed, and considered a Classic Novel. It had a universal theme, was stylistically rich, and most importantly was enjoyed by me; the reader. It's been a long time since I have read a book and liked it this much. The book has made me a stronger reader (I would like to think). Out of the classic novels out there, I would say the language used in it isn't as hard as most of the others. It was an easy read but never the less, I was a good book to ponder over. Ponder over mystery case, the emotions of the characters, and what lay in the future. I was introduced to a unique style of writing, and whenever I need to remember the difference between inductive and deductive I think of Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock is DEDUCTIVE.

I did like how we were encouraged (more like forced, but not in a bad way) to read a classic novel. And I liked how we were given guidelines to help us really dig into the book. However,...I DID NOT, like the blog format. More so it just really didn't like me,...at ALL! Countless times it would log off on me while I was working on a post. This would mostly happen on the school computers of room 306 (grrrr). My mom says you should always take a lesson from all your downfalls in life, so the lesson I took from this was firstly try to avoid blogger, but secondly to get your work done and quickly and efficiently as possible because you never know when the computer might get angry at you. I also rediscovered a trait of mine that my mom told me I had as a little child, stubbornness. Further human conditions that I have observed from this book, is how many times people view family as second priority to friends. I realized how nasty “families” can be to each other. We live in a world where it's ruled by “the survival of the fittest”

In the end I feel I have become a stronger reader, and writer. And I can honestly say that I deeply enjoyed this book. After reading The Hound of The Baskervilles I had this urge to buy a big collection of Conan Doyle mystery novels, and over the summer I will read them all. For the future I would like to read more classic novels because they are intellectually rich and would be good for expanding my vocabulary and making me a better reader and writer.