Rating: 
Summary: What fun!
Review: 1824, Scottish, a cross between Faust and The Invisible Man, critiquing Calvinism, AND it's funny! What more can you ask? (As a friend of mine said, with a description like that, the book has to be anticlimax; but he's wrong.)
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Summary: A Scottish Psycho
Review: Another faustian tale from the turn of the nineteenth century, Confessions forms an interesting contrast with other works in the same vein, like The Monk of Matthew Lewis. The dualities of this novel go to extremes, with shadows of the shadows, but is richer in psychological insight than it is in critical morality.The first part of the novel sets the stage with an account of the tale from an objective and social view. Minor characters give their own perspective of the action, without dominating it into subjectivity. "Here's what happened, or at least how it seemed to the good folk who saw it happening." The second part, the actual confessions, is where the story becomes interesting - a first person account of a psychotic murderer, justifying his actions every step of the way. He walks us through the crimes with clear rationality, keenly sensible if we accept his misguided premises. The key to the illness reading, for me, came from his bafflement at the crimes committed where he was completely unconscious of what he was doing. This is no Faust, trading his soul for power. This is a man who has simply lost control of his reason. Reading the novel as a morality play reduces the impact - damn, that devil sure is a bad fellow. Reading it as a case study, a peek into the thoughts of a man who has genuinely lost his mind and personified his illness into an evil, immoral, silver-tongued changeling, makes Confessions a fascinating piece of work. My only complaint was the phonetic brogue which makes some small portions of the prose almost unreadable.
Rating: 
Summary: A pain in the arse.
Review: From and anonymous reveiw printed in the "British Critic" for July 1824 on Hogg's "Confessions": "There are three good reasons for reading books: first to be instructed by them; secondly to be amused; and thridly, to review them. The first does not apply at all to the tale befor us; as to the second, there are but few whose taste it will suit...;the third carried us through with that proud conciousness of martrydom for the public good, to which we are but too much accustomed when labouring in our vocation." I encountered this novel in an intermediate composition class. The instructor of the course was apparently a Doctoral Candiate specializing in Narrative Form. To this day I have not forgiven her for making me read this incredibly ill-concieved book. While Hogg's shifting narrative may entertain those with a taste for narrative complexity, the resulting lack of clarity may prove this book to complete waste of time for anyone looking for a meaningful text. It is a wonder that it has survived this long.
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Summary: Powerful and thought provoking
Review: Hogg writes a compelling story about a religious fanatic. Personally I'm a devout Christian and this novel scared me--in a very good way. Fanaticism can lead us away from God and we can become exactly what we thought we were fighting against. Wonderful story that will impact your life.
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Summary: The language is even more frightening than the plot.
Review: Hogg's book was one of many 'Gothic' doppelganger novels produced at the time, as editor Cuddon makes clear in his introduction. What sets 'Sinner' apart is the fierce, unforgiving, saturnine, phlegmatic, terse, Biblical, paganistic, ugly beauty of the vocabulary and phraseology (Hogg was a shepherd and a poet), suited to a narrative lashed with hate, murder, bigotry and terror, whose sheer violence connects it with another shocking Gothic one-off, Lautreamont's 'Maldoror'; the way the 'double' theme of the novel is embedded not just in the plot, but in the rich formal patterning, from character groupings to the religiously and politically divided Scotland of its setting; and the wide literary adventurousness as a whole which, in its proliferation of stories, framing devices, and self-reflexivity create a labyrinthine, elusive, very modern text.
Rating:
Summary: A Strange Case Indeed
Review: Hogg's novel is about 150 years ahead of its time. Published in 1824, the work has everything readers of post-modern novels could ask for, including clustered narratives, self-reflexive point-of-view, unreliable narrators, unsympathetic-protagonist, etc. Hogg is engaging in a highly playful exercise, yet at the same time the novel can be read as an entirely chilling depiction of what may happen to the human psyche when it is given absolutely free-reign. The story takes place in Scotland in the early 18th century, a time of political and religious foment. It chiefly concerns the religious "progress" of Robert Wingham. Robert's mother is a religious enthusiast who has left the household of her husband, George Colwan, laird of Dalcastle, because he does not meet her stringent standards of pious behavior. Before she leaves, she delivers a son, whom Colwan names after him and names him his sole heir. A year after she has left she delivers another son, Robert, whom the editor-narrator who first tells the story is too polite to say is illegitimate, but it's evident by all appearances and intimations that Robert is the son of Lady Colwan and the Reverend Wringhim, a dour, intolerant, "self-conceited pedagogue," who is the polar opposite of the easy-going laird. Reverend Wingham undertakes the instruction of young Robert and eventually adopts him. Robert, like his father, is a cold fish, who abhors the presence of women and anything else that he thinks will lead him to sin. Young George, on the other hand is naturally open and fun-loving, engaging in the "normal" activities young men of the time preferred. This attitude piques the ire of Robert, who sees any activity that is not directly related to religion as frivolous. He starts showing up uninvited whenever and wherever George and his friends get together. When they try to play tennis, Robert stands in George's way and interferes with the game. The same thing happens when they play a rugby-like game on a field outside Edinburgh. Even after George loses patience and punches Robert , the younger brother keeps on insinuating himself, uninvited, every time George and his friends meet. When the Reverend Wingham learns that his precious boy has been roughed up, he incites his conservative faction to retaliate against the liberals with which George and his friends are in league. A full scale riot ensues, reminiscent of the opening scene of Romeo and Juliet. Neither the editor nor Wingham ever give full assent to the fantastic elements in the story. Events are depicted in as realistic a light as possible, which lends weight to the storyline and keeps things from drifting off into never-never land. Everything about this novel "works." The editor's framing narrative subverts Wingham's "confession" narrative at just the right points, so the subversion actually adds to the solidity and texture of the work as a whole and adds to its plausibility. The comic characters are wonderfully depicted (including Hogg himself, who puts in an appearance as an unhelpful clod who's too busy observing sheep at a local fair to assist the editor and his party when they want to dig up Wingham's grave). Wingham's descent into fanaticism and his subsequent psychological disintegration is handled as well as it possibly could be. It is also a perfectly drawn cautionary tale about the pitfalls of antinomian religious beliefs. Hogg describes for the reader a splendid representation of just where the path of predestination can lead a susceptible mind. That's where the comparison's to Crime and Punishment evolve. Wringhim, like Roskolnikov, considers himself above the common rung of humanity. Unlike Rodyan, however, Robert never does discover the full import of his megalomaniacal doctrine until it is entirely too late. Readers might be interested to note that Hogg's novel had a direct influence on Stephenson' s Jekyll and Hyde and on Wilde's Picture of Dorian Gray. Hogg was considered by his contemporaries to be something of a rustic genius, and the poetic successor to Robert Burns. He was known as the Ettrick Shepherd, because he did earn his livelihood from raising sheep and was entirely self taught. He was a friend of Sir Walter Scott. He's still highly revered in his home country. If more readers become familiar with this one-of-a-kind book, he will be revered more universally. It really is that brilliant a novel.
Rating:
Summary: If you think you might want to read it, you should
Review: I "accidentally" found this book while backpacking through Scotland and will freely admit that I bought it merely based on the book's title. Of the many books I read during my time in Britain, this was by far my favorite, and I would recommend it to anyone either fascinated in with the occult or traveling in that region; this book, humorous in spots, also explores the depths of dementia and should exist in rank with Nietzsche and Dostoevsky etc. Though this book is now considered a classic, at the time of its publication it was ill-received by the general public. Because of its unflattering depiction of pre-destination and perhaps Christian fundamentalism in general, many readers thought the work to be a side-affect of alcoholismon the part of the author. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
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Summary: One of the first great psychological novels
Review: In 1824, James Hogg published one of the first great psychological novels. The "Justified Sinner" is a Scots Calvinist who comes to believe that no action of the elect is a sin. To put it another way, his theology drives him mad.
Or does it? He insists that a young gentleman led him into some of the evil he does and that the worst of the actions attributed to him are not performed by him at all. Is the "Justified Sinner" mad or has the Devil lured him into sin and even taken on his shape at times? This novel is a forerunner of works like Stevenson, THE STRANGE CASE OF DOCTOR JEKYLL AND MISTER HYDE and of James, THE TURN OF THE SCREW.
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Summary: Analysis: A supernatural psychological thriller.
Review: In recent times the genre of the psychological thriller has gained immense popularity. But it's a hardly a new art, as anyone familiar with Stevenson's famous Dr. Jekyll and Hyde will be aware. James Hogg's work does not enjoy the same legendary status as Stevenson's classic, but it is a worthy predecessor of its famous counterpart, anticipating it in many ways. In short it's very theological and psychological portrait of a man who is misled by the devil, evolving into a supernatural thriller. Published in 1824, it is widely regarded as the best work of the Scottish poet James Hogg (1770-1834). It's a great script. The three-fold structure leaves open many questions about the interpretation of the novel, since the first and last part of the novel are supposed objective rational accounts of Wringhim's life by an unnamed editor, and yet the real truth of the murder mystery has to be elicited from Robert Wringhim's own irrational and subjective record of the same events (the middle section of the book). The structure of the narrative itself lends to the elusiveness of identifying the exact role of Gil-Martin as a doppelganger, an allegorical figure, a multiple personality, or an embodiment of Satan (this last being the most satisfying conclusion in my mind). In the end, it is still not clear who has really perpetuated the murders, and part of the brilliance of the novel is that it itself eludes a clear answer to the question "What happened?" But it is not so much a murder mystery as it is a tale of the supernatural, and a deeply religious and psychological portrait of a madman. Some have regarded it as a satire on Calvinism, although it seems to me that shoe fits antinomianism rather better than Calvinism, because Calvinism maintains that assurance of election comes not through secret revelation, but through the fruits of election, which are a godly life. It could also be construed as a warning against intellectual arrogance, self-righteousness and hypocritical religious rationalism/fanaticism as embodied in Robert and his father. Certainly it is a deeply religious study in the deception of the evil one and the depravity of mankind, and chronicles a journey of human destruction. But although one having a theological interest in these matters will gain greater enjoyment of the story, in the end it is just as much a psychological tale as it is a theological one. The occasional use of Scottish idiom by commoners in dialogue sometimes makes reading difficult, but on the whole this is a story accessible to anyone with an appreciation for a fine literary creation with a theological and psychological twist. It's a chilling classic that deserves more exposure than it has received.
Rating:
Summary: Analysis: A supernatural psychological thriller.
Review: In recent times the genre of the psychological thriller has gained immense popularity. But it's a hardly a new art, as anyone familiar with Stevenson's famous Dr. Jekyll and Hyde will be aware. James Hogg's work does not enjoy the same legendary status as Stevenson's classic, but it is a worthy predecessor of its famous counterpart, anticipating it in many ways. In short it's very theological and psychological portrait of a man who is misled by the devil, evolving into a supernatural thriller. Published in 1824, it is widely regarded as the best work of the Scottish poet James Hogg (1770-1834). It's a great script. The three-fold structure leaves open many questions about the interpretation of the novel, since the first and last part of the novel are supposed objective rational accounts of Wringhim's life by an unnamed editor, and yet the real truth of the murder mystery has to be elicited from Robert Wringhim's own irrational and subjective record of the same events (the middle section of the book). The structure of the narrative itself lends to the elusiveness of identifying the exact role of Gil-Martin as a doppelganger, an allegorical figure, a multiple personality, or an embodiment of Satan (this last being the most satisfying conclusion in my mind). In the end, it is still not clear who has really perpetuated the murders, and part of the brilliance of the novel is that it itself eludes a clear answer to the question "What happened?" But it is not so much a murder mystery as it is a tale of the supernatural, and a deeply religious and psychological portrait of a madman. Some have regarded it as a satire on Calvinism, although it seems to me that shoe fits antinomianism rather better than Calvinism, because Calvinism maintains that assurance of election comes not through secret revelation, but through the fruits of election, which are a godly life. It could also be construed as a warning against intellectual arrogance, self-righteousness and hypocritical religious rationalism/fanaticism as embodied in Robert and his father. Certainly it is a deeply religious study in the deception of the evil one and the depravity of mankind, and chronicles a journey of human destruction. But although one having a theological interest in these matters will gain greater enjoyment of the story, in the end it is just as much a psychological tale as it is a theological one. The occasional use of Scottish idiom by commoners in dialogue sometimes makes reading difficult, but on the whole this is a story accessible to anyone with an appreciation for a fine literary creation with a theological and psychological twist. It's a chilling classic that deserves more exposure than it has received.
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