The mysterious story of the British detective Sherlock Holmes called The Man with the Crooked Lip is told from the point of view of his assistant, Doctor Watson. For this reason we see Holmes and the mystery he solves primarily from a doctor's point of view. As such, we never get inside Homes' head, but see the story as Watson sees it. Watson's medical training allows him to articulate his expertise in accurate detail, in the same way he might articulate his diagnosis of a patient's condition. For example, note the description of his entry into an opium den in London in 1889: Upper Swandam Lane is a vile lane hidden behind the high piers that line the north side of the river east of London Bridge. Between a swill shop and a gin shop, reached by a steep staircase leading down to a gap as black as the mouth of a cave, I found the den I was looking for. Ordering the carriage to wait, I went down the steps, dug in the center by the incessant tread of drunken feet; and by the flickering light of an oil lamp above the door I found the latch and forced my way into a long, low room, thick and heavy with the brown smoke of opium, and terraced with wooden bunks, like the forecastle of a emigrant ship. . (Doyle, 2)The same meticulous details occur throughout the story, but not only when Watson describes what he himself observes. It also happens when he recounts what Sherlock Holmes is telling him because he remembers Holmes's own observations at the same level of detail in which he recounts his own, as is evidenced when he writes of Holmes' description of a particular man begging in the streets of London : Its appearance, you see, is so extraordinary that no one can pass it without observing it. A poor... middle of paper... seeking logic and resolution in his pursuit of the mystery surrounding Stillman, elements in the text itself tempered against this attempt and ultimately influenced and shaped Quinn's life and persona in ways such that he could no longer survive in the narrative as a character or detective. This not only affected Quinn, but altered the entire narrative itself. Which elements in the text caused this destruction and dissolution – Paul Auster or the Narrator – are the mystery the reader must solve in the epilogue of City of Glass. Work cited Doyle, Arthur Conan. Sherlock Holmes: the most important stories with contemporary critical essays. Ed. John A. Hodgson. Boston: Bedford of St. Martin, 1994. Print.