Strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Ratings649
Average rating3.7
Though predictible, the storyline manages to keep you intrigued. The audiobook performance of the narrator really does the trick. I recommend it.
Despite knowing the twist, I still enjoyed the book greatly. Excellently written.
It was good, but I guess I found it too short. Maybe I would have enjoyed it even more if he had been able to flesh out the story and the characters more than they were. Alas, a short story can only do so much ¯_(ツ)_/¯
So... I'll start by saying that I have very mixed feelings about this book.
Let's begin with the positives:
- a really spooky atmosphere
- Jekyll's kinda cool :)) a very interesting character with a backstory
- Hyde's kinda cool too
- this quote - ‘“If he be Mr. Hyde,” he had thought, “I shall be Mr. Seek.”'
The negatives:
- I didn't get enough of Jekyll and Hyde. Instead I got more than enough of Mr. Utterson. He's just so bland and boring, I don't know...
- VEEEERYYY slow pacing, especially in the beginning. Nothing happens until the end. And considering it's a very short book it's weird and not okay for me.
- I guessed the plot twist from the beginning. It's not like it's a bad thing. It just took away from the story a little bit. And I think that the author could have tried to make it less obvious.
Scotland Book around the World for my challenge (although it is still part of the UK).
Very short and the writing style didn't do it for me. But I knocked out a Classic too!
Re-read this for [b:The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter 34728925 The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter Theodora Goss https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1490794116s/34728925.jpg 45924715].Now, everyone knows this story. A doctor experiments with himself and enjoys the bad inclination hiding in the good inclination from the consequences, but this won't do - he finds himself trapped in the bad inclination and forced to take the consequences.It is rather good.
I'm glad I read this but I think in this day and age the story is more valuable as a pop culture touchpoint/archetype/whatever. TBH I think whatever you already know about Jekyll & Hyde is sufficient and unless you are doing an academic deep dive of some sort, you can get by just fine without ever reading this actual book.
Very entertaining - I wish I could have read it without knowing the spoilers, since it's basically presented as a creepy mystery story, with us only getting Dr. Jekyll's point of view at the end.
In reading this, I unlearned a lot of things I thought I knew. I discovered:
- Jekyll rhymes with treacle. This is the normal Scottish pronunciation, and probably ties into the punnish names (Hyde-hide; Jekyll-seek all).
- Dr. Jekyll isn't the good and pure half of the duo. He's just the normal guy, with both good and bad characteristics. But actually he's pretty evil when you think about it, since he decides it's no fun indulging in baser instincts when you have that pesky conscience, and thus creates an utterly selfish version of himself so he can be a bastard without feeling bad or tarnishing his reputation. So weirdly, of all my pop culture brushes with the story, the time when Ren is split into Evil Ren and Indifferent Ren may actually be the most faithful to the source material!
- Hyde isn't a giant Hulk-style monster. He's short and little, and appears younger than Jekyll. He's also not physically ugly or deformed in any way - he just gives an impression that something Is Very Wrong with him in an indescribable way.
Anyway, I was impressed by Stevenson's artful depiction of evil, from its most banal to full-on murderous violence. I'm sure Hyde is salacious too, but his evil is represented in a much more effective way.
When we first hear a story of him, it's about him bumping into a little girl on the street. She's thrown to the ground and he calmly walks on, stepping on her without a thought. With the difference in mores between Stevenson's culture and ours, he might have chosen a vice that seems quite silly and tame to us, but this account is still chilling, even in 2018.
In fact, I couldn't help draw a connection between Stevenson's idea of anonymous indulgence in baser instincts, and the modern-day internet troll. This story is absolutely fresh and applicable in an age when we have “normal” good citizens going to work, hanging out with friends, parenting their children, volunteering for charities, and then sitting down at the computer and sending people messages like “You deserve to be raped to death, but you're too ugly” behind the safe concealment of their Internet avatars.
All in all, this was a great story - a quick read that retains its creepiness even when you know what's going on from page one. It also provokes thought about what it means to be a good person, how addiction can destroy people, and the usefulness of societal restrictions like reputation and criminal punishment.
A great story and a timeless classic. However having seen many different adaptations before reading the actual book, I feel that this story has since been better told.
I liked this book but it was a little underwhelming to me. The first chapter or two was a little slow for me but then it picked up. When I got to the last chapter it went pack to being slow. I found myself wishing I could get to the end already. I honestly was expecting so much more out of the story and I really wanted more. That's not to say that what I read wasn't good because it was good I just think it needed more to fully satisfy me.
I must say, it took me quite awhile to get into this one. Of course, the style of writing takes some getting used to, but the story itself kind of bored me. I think because I already know the story of Jekyll & Hyde so I wasn't really surprised by anything. Finally when I got Dr. Jekyll's narrative things got more interesting.
I read this version at the end of my basic English course. It was an assignment, and we were free to choose which story to read. The teacher told us to go to the library to look for Macmillan books—they publish stories with different levels for different grade levels—and read one of them. This one was an elementary-level edition.
I chose this book because I had read it once before in Arabic and liked it. It was as good as before, and I even enjoyed it a bit more.
At that time, I remember thinking to myself that I'd someday like to reread this again in its original version. Well, I hope this day comes this year.
Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace, like a clock during a thunderstorm.
I am still thinking about what impressions this book left me with. It is one of those classics that everyone thinks they know (or at least, I did) and it was a bit different than what I expected.
First, the language was flowery and circular, and it had me rereading paragraphs more than once, distracted by the unusual constructions. Well, not unusual - simply, the book was published in 1886, and it shows.
Second, the reasoning for Dr. Jekyll to try and become Mr. Hyde seems so... flaky! Basically, it was never an extrenous pursuit of science, as I first thought, or pure instinct taking over, as I assumed it would be the case. Of course, the moral impact is huge and Dr. Jekyll becomes more and more swamped by all consequences of what he did, but how it became reality in the first place is a bit strange.
Third, I missed an ending more elaborate than that. There was a letter from Dr. Jekyll, and we know he (or Mr. Hyde?) was deceased. (I'm hardly giving you a spoiler here, come on). But why exactly is he dead? There's nothing from Mr. Hyde, either. I don't know, it seemed it could be more exploited, after so much argument on morale.
All in all, I can hardly argue the main idea, that is absolutely great and original to the time. And it was interesting to read it, as an adult, with those images of cartoons and so on in the back of my mind and so much darkness in the story itself. But still, I expected more.
The low rating I give this book is not the author's fault. The story that Stevenson penned is a standard in 19th century science fiction and as good if not better than anything Verne or Wells wrote. At least, that's the way I probably would have felt had it not been spoiled for me. Everyone knows the relationship between Jekyll and Hyde so when the twist was revealed, it was very anticlimactic. I would love to get the perspective of somebody who didn't know the twist; sadly, it's such a part of common knowledge that I don't think I'll see that.
I believe this is the first book about the “split personality” that has ever been written. I loved every page of the book and the narrative form. I must admit I felt a strange liking for Edward Hyde and I felt sad that he and Dr. Henry Jekyll died at the end of the story. However, this is more than a novel, it's a good way to think about the dichotomy between good and evil.
Amusing tale. Too bad much of the suspense is built up around the fact that you don't know the gist of the story. Which sadly was not the case.
Short review: This is a good audio version of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Scott Brick is a perfect narrator for the book. But I was surprised how little is really in the original short story. The audiobook is unabridged and about 3 hours. Much of what I thought would be in the book was absent. It is really hinting at the story and it has been developed by others since it first came out.
Longer blog review at http://bookwi.se/the-strange-case-of-dr-jekyll-and-mr-hyde-by-robert-louis-stevenson/
A good storyline, but way too complicated in certain sentences. Either in French or in English. The reading isn't really pleasant, while the subject is great and the way the book is constructed interresting.
Don't expect a happy ending, though ! ^^