The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner

[Gail]

A most twisted little tale. The actual events of the story take place in the 1710's. The gothic tale is bookended by the editors telling of the tale from a neutral point of view in the 1820's and then capped off in the end by the findings of an almost archeological nature that relate to the memoir. The layers of possible meanings found in the book are potentially dense, particularly for a book published in the 1820's.
We have the actual physical story of a young man who becomes attached to a friend who is a being of somewhat supernatural powers that convinces our MC the best way to fight for the glory of God is to do away with those who do not believe in his particular version of Christianity. This ultimately leads to the death of his own brother, possibly by his own hand and then his own demise. We have the telling of the same story from the point of view of believers who see the "friend" as the devil and this tale is full of gothic hauntings. On top of this is a very sarcastic wit brought to bear against the Christian theological clashes of the time that believed either in going to heaven through "good works", or going to heaven by "faith alone" or being predestined to go to heaven as a "justified" being who can do all the wrong in the world and still find themselves in heaven. Then underpinning all the tales is the roots of Jekyll and Hyde, in that all of the stories could be understood by seeing both the angel and the devil living in the one human body and his acting on all his horrors as a sort of mental illness. The author does not tip his hand and I ended the tale thinking that the author deliberately embraced all of these interpretations and wanted to leave us haunted by both human minds and devilish beings.
As literature it is quite unique and I see why it is on the 1001 list.

[Rosemary]

I really enjoyed this book. It has so many layers, as well as the stories within stories. There are themes of doppelgangers and mental illness which was seen at the time as possession by the devil.

The first part is an introduction supposedly written 100 years after finding the document that forms the second part. But even this introduction is very dramatic.

The whole leaves the reader guessing at what was the "truth". The reader is invited to judge for themselves and yet uncomfortably aware that our judgements are made on the basis of our own prejudices, just like the characters whose opposing views seem equally right to themselves. This is as true in our time as it was then.

Overall I found this a masterly book that would bear rereading.