Reviews - Kwaidan - Stories and Studies of Strange Things

149 reviews for:

Kwaidan - Stories and Studies of Strange Things

Lafcadio Hearn

3.71 AVERAGE

samlucero's review against another edition

5.0

dark funny informative mysterious sad fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I'm pretty slow reader even when I like a book. I finished this thing in like 3 days. The stories are very digestible even if some of the themes might be kinda dark or even sad.

Content Warnings

colonel2sheds's review against another edition

3.25

medium-paced

The first 2/3s are excellent and then the final section is a long series of essays on insects which I could barely begin to give a shit about

piremd's review against another edition

3.0

adventurous challenging dark informative mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

laurablackwell's review against another edition

4.0

Kwaidan is a fascinating look into supernatural and strange tales of Japan at the turn of the twentieth century. Lafcadio Hearn wrote these traditional stories in beautiful but straightforward English; he often gave cultural context and snippets of the original Japanese as well. Most of the stories are ghost stories or monster tales. However, the last section discusses insects, both in Japanese and Chinese strange tales and in comments from Western philosophers. Its original title, Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things accurate

I have a few issues with this particular edition. It overemphasizes the ghost stories by changing the title slightly to Kwaidan: Japanese Ghost Stories. A number of typos (beyond antiquated punctuation) crop up. Although the edition is full of beautiful color images, they are credited by owner only. It's nice to know what museum houses a certain image, but I'm not going to be able to travel to all of them to find out who the artist was and who or what the art depicts.

I give this edition four stars. If I found a preferable edition, I would give it five.

kenningjp's review against another edition

3.0

A bit lackluster in certain parts but definitely interesting and different.

graventy's review against another edition

4.0

The stories are fantastic, the studies maybe less so. I really enjoy the ghost tales, and the poems on butterflies were quite nice. I could maybe do with less hagiography on ants.