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cookedw 's review for:
This book was really tough for me to rate because of the way it is written, which is both a boon and a curse. The book is written in three parts: a historical tale told by the narrator; a diary by one of the characters in this tale explaining his side of things; and a short segment by the narrator explaining how he came upon the diary. The big issue is that the bulk of the plot is played out in the first half of the book and then simply rehashed in the second, and the inner psychology of the diary loses its impact quickly, IMO, although it has some spurts of interest again later.
The darkly humorous way in which the author skewers those who would take a particular religious view to the extreme is pretty fantastic - it seems like he is skewering organized religion as a whole more in the first part, but through the second half he is very clear to repeatedly emphasize the virtues of religion and slamming solely those who would appropriate it to ridiculous extremes. It is very much about finding frustration with not the believers but a particular doctrine and its practitioners. I thought this was done well, and the tone of the writing really pushed things along briskly.
However, the diary is tedious, and it feels like going through the motions for so much of the time, since it is repetitive and you get the gist early on while having to sit through a story you already know. The one element I did appreciate about the diary is that this is very clearly a strong influence on RLS' Jekyll and Hyde, with dual personalities and blackouts and horrible deeds being ascribed to an unwitting individual.
The biggest flaw in the book may be that it is ahead of its time to a degree, and it feels like it isn't quite sure what it is trying to be. There are some masterful moments of mysteriousness that make it feel like a modern supernatural thriller, but they are moments that don't really feel fleshed out. Similarly, there is some heavy and weird description at the end that is moody and dark and strange about how they find the diary, but it doesn't really seem to serve a point, and a lot of the description is superfluous and not aimed at creating that offputting, chilling mood.
All in all, it seems to me like this is a book that is more important than it is good. Its greatest value is in being a precursor to what came later, and so for historical purposes, it's interesting. But as a book on its own merit...eh.
The darkly humorous way in which the author skewers those who would take a particular religious view to the extreme is pretty fantastic - it seems like he is skewering organized religion as a whole more in the first part, but through the second half he is very clear to repeatedly emphasize the virtues of religion and slamming solely those who would appropriate it to ridiculous extremes. It is very much about finding frustration with not the believers but a particular doctrine and its practitioners. I thought this was done well, and the tone of the writing really pushed things along briskly.
However, the diary is tedious, and it feels like going through the motions for so much of the time, since it is repetitive and you get the gist early on while having to sit through a story you already know. The one element I did appreciate about the diary is that this is very clearly a strong influence on RLS' Jekyll and Hyde, with dual personalities and blackouts and horrible deeds being ascribed to an unwitting individual.
The biggest flaw in the book may be that it is ahead of its time to a degree, and it feels like it isn't quite sure what it is trying to be. There are some masterful moments of mysteriousness that make it feel like a modern supernatural thriller, but they are moments that don't really feel fleshed out. Similarly, there is some heavy and weird description at the end that is moody and dark and strange about how they find the diary, but it doesn't really seem to serve a point, and a lot of the description is superfluous and not aimed at creating that offputting, chilling mood.
All in all, it seems to me like this is a book that is more important than it is good. Its greatest value is in being a precursor to what came later, and so for historical purposes, it's interesting. But as a book on its own merit...eh.