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blogthatbook's review against another edition
4.0
I've currently only read the title story in this compilation, since that was my main drive for buying it. I plan on picking off the other stories between other books I read through the year.
First off, the star rating aspect of reviews. How can anyone really rate a classic, such as this, without being influenced by the years of its prevalence in our history and by virtue of it being labelled a classic, I honestly don't think you can. So, letting alone quality of writing, narrative construction, pacing and the myriad other elements that go into writing a quality novel, or in this case novella, my rating is based simply on overall reading enjoyment. To which end I think four stars is accurate. It possibly would have made it to five stars if not for the last twenty pages being Jekyll's own accounting of his experiments and their results, which was a large block of narration that seemed to offer little relief for the reader and bogged me down a little.
The story itself was not what I was expecting at all. Which is actually very gratifying to discover, and the reason I want to read more classic stories like this, to experience the real stories as they were originally written. We grow up privy to so many bastardised versions of classic stories, in movies, TV and written adaptations that all we tend to get is the essence and not the actuality.
The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde was not the monstrously violent escapade I'd presumed it would be, instead it was more an externally observed case of loss and tragedy. The majority of the goings-on are observed from without not within, until the last section that is. And personally I think it probably held much more atmosphere because of this than if it had been written solely from Jekyll's point of view, as I expected it would be.
The writing itself won me over completely, I found it an absolute joy, and was happy to meander through the rich prose. I think it's both a tragedy and a blessing that books today aren't written with this kind of language structure, because it's a joy to read this kind of thing as a rarity, but if all books were written in this manner it would simply be an incredible chore.
I personally am a fan of, for want of a better phrase, 'flowery writing'. Writing that is happy to wander off into colourful and detailed explanations and descriptions, character moods and mindset, atmosphere building and sensory elements. So I very much look forward to dipping into this book and more of the works of Stevenson in the future.
First off, the star rating aspect of reviews. How can anyone really rate a classic, such as this, without being influenced by the years of its prevalence in our history and by virtue of it being labelled a classic, I honestly don't think you can. So, letting alone quality of writing, narrative construction, pacing and the myriad other elements that go into writing a quality novel, or in this case novella, my rating is based simply on overall reading enjoyment. To which end I think four stars is accurate. It possibly would have made it to five stars if not for the last twenty pages being Jekyll's own accounting of his experiments and their results, which was a large block of narration that seemed to offer little relief for the reader and bogged me down a little.
The story itself was not what I was expecting at all. Which is actually very gratifying to discover, and the reason I want to read more classic stories like this, to experience the real stories as they were originally written. We grow up privy to so many bastardised versions of classic stories, in movies, TV and written adaptations that all we tend to get is the essence and not the actuality.
The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde was not the monstrously violent escapade I'd presumed it would be, instead it was more an externally observed case of loss and tragedy. The majority of the goings-on are observed from without not within, until the last section that is. And personally I think it probably held much more atmosphere because of this than if it had been written solely from Jekyll's point of view, as I expected it would be.
The writing itself won me over completely, I found it an absolute joy, and was happy to meander through the rich prose. I think it's both a tragedy and a blessing that books today aren't written with this kind of language structure, because it's a joy to read this kind of thing as a rarity, but if all books were written in this manner it would simply be an incredible chore.
I personally am a fan of, for want of a better phrase, 'flowery writing'. Writing that is happy to wander off into colourful and detailed explanations and descriptions, character moods and mindset, atmosphere building and sensory elements. So I very much look forward to dipping into this book and more of the works of Stevenson in the future.
lamina_miah's review against another edition
4.0
I get why writers were dying over Stevenson and Jekyll and Hyde. He's got great ideas, I'm just not a huge fan of the gothic and the some of the period typical writing style bits were a bit lacklustre.
sedonak's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
llamaburger32's review against another edition
3.0
To be perfectly honest, this book basically just felt like reading another GCSE text. The overall story was interesting enough and I quite enjoyed the first few chapters and the overall mystery of it all, But I probably wouldn’t have read it if it weren’t so short.
astratton1027's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
haiqanoor's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
anniejh's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
laurasauras's review against another edition
4.0
This was fun, though I think my jaded 21st century eyes failed to be impressed by what was probably quite suspenseful back in the day. Not helped by the fact that I already knew the twist. I must say, though, I haven't seen a modern adaptation that captures the puritan/Catholic-esque guilt that Dr Jekyll feels. The novel tells us that he never did anything worse than any other person, but he felt so insanely guilty about normal transgressions that he felt the need to externalise those actions. It could be a really interesting plot point considering modern puritanism, where many people (especially young people) feel the need to be 100% morally correct on all issues and are extremely unforgiving of anyone who doesn't meet those standards. All of that particular kind of person's nastiness gets funnelled into punishing other people for their bad behaviour, and I'm sure that many have their own Mr Hydes lurking under pseudonyms on the internet.