The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Weir of Hermiston: And, Weir of Hermiston (Oxford World's Classics)

Rating:
Summary: Leaves the 'great' Victorians flailing.
Review: The first half of this novella can be counted among the most remarkable writing I have ever read. its sense of unstated terror and crisp, nightmarish atmosphere; its portentous introduction and proliferation of the double theme; its destabilising of its own narrative, where the violence of the language and the force of the metaphors makes the abstract material, and the material abstract; its evocation of London as a menacing organism, a miasma-wheezing labyrinth, with an economy that defeated Dickens, with streets and buildings embodying human flaws; its characterisation of a grim, barren, self-destructive men's world - all this take the novel away from the generic sensationalism or pseudo-scientific philosophy of the horror genre towards the metaphysical anxieties of Chesterton and Borges.

The rest is more familiar, made complex by innovative structure, ambiguous narration and a startling use of imagery. this is not a simple tale of man's good and evil side; in its admission of an ungraspable, shifting, multifarious existence, shown here in character, place and language, where metamorphosis is the only rule, we can see why Nabokov considers Stevenson a master. And yet the book also works as a lean, compelling thriller, even if, like everyone, you already know the twist. Emma Letley's introduction and notes are over a decade old, and need updating.

Rating:
Summary: Leaves the 'great' Victorians flailing.
Review: The first half of this novella can be counted among the most remarkable writing I have ever read. its sense of unstated terror and crisp, nightmarish atmosphere; its portentous introduction and proliferation of the double theme; its destabilising of its own narrative, where the violence of the language and the force of the metaphors makes the abstract material, and the material abstract; its evocation of London as a menacing organism, a miasma-wheezing labyrinth, with an economy that defeated Dickens, with streets and buildings embodying human flaws; its characterisation of a grim, barren, self-destructive men's world - all this take the novel away from the generic sensationalism or pseudo-scientific philosophy of the horror genre towards the metaphysical anxieties of Chesterton and Borges.

The rest is more familiar, made complex by innovative structure, ambiguous narration and a startling use of imagery. this is not a simple tale of man's good and evil side; in its admission of an ungraspable, shifting, multifarious existence, shown here in character, place and language, where metamorphosis is the only rule, we can see why Nabokov considers Stevenson a master. And yet the book also works as a lean, compelling thriller, even if, like everyone, you already know the twist. Emma Letley's introduction and notes are over a decade old, and need updating.

Rating:
Summary: Two faced man
Review: This is a great book for all sorts of people, It is great how Robert Louis Stevenson describes Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. It is great on how the author uses both sides as a twisted sence of human. Mr Hyde a high hung man, Wants to cause havok every where he goes, Brutal murders etc, Dr Jekyll, Kind of a mad sientist, Wants to create a cure for the mentally ill. This is a great book, I would recommend this to anyone.