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4.01 AVERAGE
4.01 AVERAGE
One of the best graphic novels I have ever read. The movie totally does it justice.
Excellent novel. Best graphic novel I've read but this doesn't say much as I've only read a few. More than just a grim tale of Jack the Ripper as I found it to be like a study of the crimes and it's "influence" accompanied with dark illustrations and intelligent background details. This has spurred me on to indulge in purchasing more of Alan Moore's work.
Just...too cramped, too wordy, too much. The movie was surprisingly better than the book in this case.
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Alan Moore’s From Hell creates such a compelling and logical scenario that the reader feels Moore MUST have solved the mystery of Jack the Ripper’s identity and motivations. (Moore himself says a hundred other theories are just as likely.) But in the hands of a self-proclaimed sorcerer like Moore, language can create new realities. As a self-proclaimed psychic admits in the prologue, “I made it all up, but it came true anyway.” From Hell is a story for the “me too”/Trump era — a bone-dry and blood-wet procedural concerning a conspiracy to commit (and cover up) misogynist violence against society’s most vulnerable in the service of the power structure. Some may be put off by the occult elements of the story, especially its epilogue, but there is plenty here for the left-brained among us. One complaint: Moore missed an opportunity to explore the contradiction of one of history’s greatest woman-haters operating under the direction of one of history’s most powerful women. Other than that, it’s virtually perfect!
Read this and try to forget the terrible movie that was based - loosely - on it.
My first graphic novel. The perfect pairing of story and medium. A complete work: a convincing conspiracy theory; a seductive counter-history; a visceral depiction of a time and place; a horrific descent into the darkest extremes of misogyny. Thrilling and upsetting and moving.
This is a very grim read, and a hefty one at that as well. The tale of multiple murders was never going to be a happy one, but this is set in particularly bleak circumstances, in the poor end of Victorian London. This is the tale of Jack the Ripper, a tale from Hell, and Alan Moore's idea of what really went on. So this isn't told in the suspense sense, with the true identity suddenly being revealed right at the end. We see right from the start who is Jack the Ripper, and why he did it, including all his crazy justifications. In such detail that there is an entire chapter dedicated to him driving around London with his carriageman, and explaining everything. It feels very authentic, and especially after reading the appendix cartoon at the end, it looks like he's done his research and this is a very credible theory. This last appendix was particularly interesting, going through how we've gone so far from the murders in the continued interest, the different researchers and theories, that it almost doesn't matter anymore who Jack really was.
The artwork reflects the sooty, depressing destitution of Whitechapel. It's full of class snobbery of the utterly depressing kind (the upper classes regarding the lower classes as a seperate species); there's extreme poverty, mysogyny, madness, police corruption, cover ups, freemasons and the general Victorian attitudes to madness, poverty and women. Not a happy place to be. And if this theory is correct, it's horrific to consider what all this bloodshed was to cover up - the illegitimate child of a randy git. For the most part I liked the art work, although sometimes that kind of loose, freehand rushed style did just look a bit crude. And I found a lot of the women looked similiar. I couldn't always tell the different Whitechapel girls apart - whether this is something lacking in the art, or perhaps done on purpose to show the interchangability that society regarded the women with, I wouldn't like to say.
As for what the Jack the Ripper story is,... well, I don't think I really need to say anything about that. Surely everyone has heard of that.
The artwork reflects the sooty, depressing destitution of Whitechapel. It's full of class snobbery of the utterly depressing kind (the upper classes regarding the lower classes as a seperate species); there's extreme poverty, mysogyny, madness, police corruption, cover ups, freemasons and the general Victorian attitudes to madness, poverty and women. Not a happy place to be. And if this theory is correct, it's horrific to consider what all this bloodshed was to cover up - the illegitimate child of a randy git. For the most part I liked the art work, although sometimes that kind of loose, freehand rushed style did just look a bit crude. And I found a lot of the women looked similiar. I couldn't always tell the different Whitechapel girls apart - whether this is something lacking in the art, or perhaps done on purpose to show the interchangability that society regarded the women with, I wouldn't like to say.
As for what the Jack the Ripper story is,... well, I don't think I really need to say anything about that. Surely everyone has heard of that.
"Liking" this was a challenge because it was extremely graphic (violence, sexual and language) so it was certainly not an easy read. But the story was really fascinating. Dr. Gull (Jack) and his reasoning for his behavior was very interesting, the story that swirls around the murders and other events that occur (some real and some imagined) make it a very complex read. Some may not know, but I had (have) a bit of an obsession with serial killers in my younger days and I have read several versions of the Jack the Ripper story. This was very different with Alan's Moore involving the crown and the Masons. I would recommend to others if this type of genre interests you, but probably not a good one to jump into if you are not a fan or horror or the like.
Maybe I wasn't in the right mind-set or mood, but I had a super hard time trying to get through this book. Maybe it just wasn't the book for me.