Small Reviews (1): The Strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; King Solomon Mines; Journey to the center of the Earth

I've being making reviews of all books I read. Unfortunaly there are several books that I read many years ago and I will make my review as best as I remember. This kind of posts will include several books and will be call... Olde Library

Nothing better than to start with three classics. This being
The Strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. A small book with only 88 pages. I remember reading this novel and didn't enjoying that much... but I was young... and looking back it was not a bad book afterall.

In this book we follow Gabriel Utterson who investigates strange occurrences between his old friend, Dr Henry Jekyll, and the misanthropic Edward Hyde. 4/10

From Wiki:
"The work is known for its vivid portrayal of a split personality, split in the sense that within the same person there is both an apparently good and an evil personality each being quite distinct from the other. The novella's impact is such that it has become a part of the language, with the phrase "Jekyll and Hyde" coming to mean a person who is vastly different in moral character from one situation to the next. "

This story represents the inner conflict of humanity's sense of good and evil. In particular the novella has been interpreted as an examination of the duality of human nature (that good and evil exists in all), and that the failure to accept this tension (to accept the evil or shadow side) results in the evil being projected onto others. Paradoxically in this argument, evil is actually committed in an effort to extinguish the perceived evil that has been projected onto the innocent victims. In Freudian Theory the thoughts and desires banished to the unconscious mind motivate the behavior of the conscious mind. If someone banishes all evil to the unconscious mind in an attempt to be wholly and completely good, it can result in the development of a Mr Hyde-type aspect to that person's character.

This story was not boring but why didn't I enjoy it there? Well because I was young and the victorian writing was not easy. I was used to fantasy novels and I was trying to read in english.. This was one of the first books I read in english. I think that's why I didn't enjoy it... The second book from that time that I didn't enjoyed that much was King Solomon's Mine by H Rider Haggard.

I remembered seeing some movie and I thought of reading it. I enjoyed in the beginning but it then I thought it drag on a little bit. Again the writing is not what I was used. What thing I've got to get him credit it's for creating a new genre inside fiction... The Lost World witch inspired Edgar Rice Burroughs, Arthur Conan Doyle, Kipling and Michael Crichton. Nowadays its a theme used in many many writers ad nauseum. Most of them are just awful. I'v read somewhere that this book was one of the first to have an interracional romance. Don't forget we are at 1886 at that time and the colonization was under way. 6.5/10

This was the third book I read in a row from that time. And Fortunaly it was the best one. This is how a discovery book must be. This is how you mix fiction with science and a dozen other smaller genres. What a brillant ride it was. I would adivce anyone to read this book. It has good characters and a on-going plot, well the plot is the discovery of all the otherworld. I have the book in english and two versions in portugese. This is the book I must read every ten years or so. It's just that good. 10/10