Well that was quick
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I read short fiction books slowly
Big fan of Gaiman, Vonnegut, Bukowski. Yes that's right I am basic af.
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David Swinstead's books
2024 Reading Goal
50% complete! David Swinstead has read 6 of 12 books.
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David Swinstead finished reading After Dark by Haruki Murakami
David Swinstead started reading After Dark by Haruki Murakami
David Swinstead finished reading Chimp Paradox by Steve Peters
David Swinstead started reading Chimp Paradox by Steve Peters
David Swinstead finished reading The Trial by Franz Kafka
David Swinstead wants to read Two brothers by Ben Elton
Two brothers by Ben Elton
Berlin 1920 Two babies are born. Two brothers. United and indivisible, sharing everything. Twins in all but blood. As Germany …
David Swinstead finished reading Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut
David Swinstead commented on The Trial by Franz Kafka
David Swinstead started reading The Trial by Franz Kafka
David Swinstead set a goal to read 12 books in 2024
David Swinstead commented on Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut
David Swinstead started reading Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut
Fun enough but nothing special
3 stars
Content warning Spoilers if you don't already know the basic premise of the book. If you know the gist, as I'm sure everyone does, then it's basically spoiler free.
It's an interesting little book.
Of course everyone knows the basic premise, but still it was fun to read the way it was told. The way we hopped across a few different viewpoints at different times, and had different narrators, through the use of letters that the characters send each other, was quite clever and interesting.
But I do think Stevenson could have done a lot more interesting things with this premise. The idea that you can take a drug and a different half of your personality can come out, one that you've been longing to let out of the cage all along, is fascinating and I think there's scope there to explore how his potion is any different from a person with an addiction who doesn't feel like they're themselves until they drink, smoke, take drugs etc. There were feint allusions to this, it's in the text, but really I would've liked more around the questions of how much were responsible for our own actions when under the influence, how much we have to surrender to our instincts vs fight them, and how much or little we have to accept ourselves vs working to change and grow
People say this book is an essay on the duality of human nature but honestly, it isn't really. It could have been! If it were 100 pages longer perhaps...