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lassiter's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
shiv91's review against another edition
5.0
Not much can be said really. I mean...OSCAR WILDE.
Well written, witty and always full of surprises describes pretty much all of Wilde's works.
A truly beautiful collection of literature that everyone should take the time to read.
Well written, witty and always full of surprises describes pretty much all of Wilde's works.
A truly beautiful collection of literature that everyone should take the time to read.
ems0's review against another edition
dark
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
pagesofnectar's review against another edition
5.0
I admit that I didn't read these as a child, but perhaps reading them older helped me fully appreciate them. Apart from the great aesthetic and fairy-tale scenery that Oscar Wilde manages to build with his perfect words (aestheticism, duh) those stories are so, so touching and talk about morality and virtues like generosity and altrouism that get crashed by egoism and, in the end, whether you see those selfless characters as heroes or naive losers says a lot about you. The stories are so beautiful and heart-breaking, managing to make their way to your soul and conquer it. Some of my favorites were: The Nightingale & The Rose, The Happy Prince (honestly, if this one didn't absolutely crash your heart, do you even have one?) and The Selfish Giant.
classicbookreader's review against another edition
4.0
"Flour is one thing, and friendship is another, and they should not be confused."
"One always suffers for being generous."
"One always suffers for being generous."
melcat's review against another edition
3.0
As I said in many reviews now, Oscar Wilde’s writing will always be my absolute favorite. This collection of short tales was quite depressing, but that was to be expected.
These stories are little gems of sublime evocative descriptions, that only Oscar Wilde can do. This collection includes two compilation: The Happy Prince and the House of Pomegranates: 6 stories in total.
Most of them are quite dark for children, or maybe they get darker as you get older and get more of the layered meanings. I’ll remember mot of these stories for years to come.
These stories are little gems of sublime evocative descriptions, that only Oscar Wilde can do. This collection includes two compilation: The Happy Prince and the House of Pomegranates: 6 stories in total.
Most of them are quite dark for children, or maybe they get darker as you get older and get more of the layered meanings. I’ll remember mot of these stories for years to come.
_lilireads's review against another edition
lighthearted
relaxing
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
Also entweder sind die Übersetzungen furchtbar oder die Geschichten sind es. Hat mir - bis auf wenige Ausnahmen - sprachlich und literarisch überhaupt nicht gefallen. Schade, weil Oscar Wildes Theaterstücke fand ich bisher immer sehr gut.
octavrian's review against another edition
5.0
A marvelous collection of stories from a fantastic writer. He both explores common fairy tale styles, while also subverting them to explore his own path through life. This book really helped me understand the life and artistic genius of Oscar Wilde in a way that I'd never appreciated before. I'd recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the fairy tale format, or just beautiful stories in general.
tbr_the_unconquered's review against another edition
5.0
This is a book that I have been waiting to read for a while now for two reasons. The first is the need to read up on fairy tales from across the World. This was one of those interests that was forever doomed to be in the attic of my mind. I would glance at my wish list and keep the fairy tales aside for just one more time. So finally I mustered up enough resolve and got this book to read. The second reason was that I hadn’t read anything by Oscar Wilde yet and thought of starting from here. It certainly was a good start. This book combines nine stories from two separate volumes : The Happy Prince and The House Of Pomegranates which to sum up are all pretty bleak and depressing. Maybe this was a problem with my expectation of the word fairy tale for I anticipated conclusions which are better and finer for the key characters. Wilde however shows a different world view altogether. He does have the key ingredients of fables in his stories : magic, animals who talk, gods and demons but the situations and occurrences in his stories are closer to real life than fantasy. The good does not always succeed, nice people get cut down fastest and selfishness almost always wins the day. This is not to say that the stories are not enjoyable, they are little gems of the writing craft and quite beautiful in terms of the language.
Oscar Wilde is rather unmatched in his description of beauty. Descriptions of nature and of human beings are stunningly evocative and made me yearn for more of it. There is this story of ‘The nightingale and the rose’ which talks about the ultimate futility of sacrifice and the irony of being in love, where at the start of the tale itself you sense that things won’t go right for the poor nightingale making the ultimate sacrifice. The sense of irony in these stories are as sharp as knives. A prime example for this is ‘The Star Child’ where almost everything seems to be going well when in the last one sentence, Wilde turns the whole story on it is head. The story of the happy prince is heartbreakingly beautiful and so is the one of the selfish giant. They filled me with awe and the all-encompassing power of having a gentleness to one’s behavior to fellow beings. The descriptions of lands from far away as told in ‘The fisherman and his soul’ are perhaps the finest descriptions of cultures and people of lands that never will be in existence.
To say that Oscar Wilde is brilliant is laughingly absurd and yet this is a must read for anyone who ever wants to know what a really brilliant fairy tale feels like.
Oscar Wilde is rather unmatched in his description of beauty. Descriptions of nature and of human beings are stunningly evocative and made me yearn for more of it. There is this story of ‘The nightingale and the rose’ which talks about the ultimate futility of sacrifice and the irony of being in love, where at the start of the tale itself you sense that things won’t go right for the poor nightingale making the ultimate sacrifice. The sense of irony in these stories are as sharp as knives. A prime example for this is ‘The Star Child’ where almost everything seems to be going well when in the last one sentence, Wilde turns the whole story on it is head. The story of the happy prince is heartbreakingly beautiful and so is the one of the selfish giant. They filled me with awe and the all-encompassing power of having a gentleness to one’s behavior to fellow beings. The descriptions of lands from far away as told in ‘The fisherman and his soul’ are perhaps the finest descriptions of cultures and people of lands that never will be in existence.
To say that Oscar Wilde is brilliant is laughingly absurd and yet this is a must read for anyone who ever wants to know what a really brilliant fairy tale feels like.