Response to R.L Stevenson's "Jekyll and Hyde"

I thought R.L. Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde would unquestionably be my favorite book in the Victorian novel class I’m taking. I mean, it’s a monster story set in Victorian London; it should have adventure, intrigue, murder, a race against time and maybe a love interest. It should be great, but it isn’t, really. After having read three out of the five novels assigned for the class, I would so far call it my least favorite. Despite the fact that it’s short and has to do with strange and supernatural events, there is just no suspense to the story because anyone reading it in this era is all-too familiar with what’s going on. So there’s no tension as we get to the big reveal, and it seems anticlimactic. Jekyll and Hyde are the same person, in case you were wondering. That being said, I could probably enjoy the story more if it weren’t written in that flowery, overly complicated style that I despise so much. Here’s an example: “And indeed the worst of my faults was a certain impatient gaiety of disposition, such as has made the happiness of many, but such as I found it hard to reconcile with my imperious desire to carry my head high, and wear a more than commonly grave countenance before the public.” Yawn. I used to think all Victorians wrote like this, but it turns out that plenty of them understood that plain speech does a lot more to engage your audience (see the Dickens quotation in my last post on Great Expectations). This kind of language seems to be designed to impress people with powdered faces and bouffant wigs—it is the same aesthetic in my mind.

There’s really not much else to say. There isn’t much of a story here other than the origin and death of Jekyll and Hyde, which we all know about already. And no one figures out the mystery; it’s left to Jekyll’s last written confession to sort out all the details for Utterson (who is basically a flat narrator/main character) and for the reader. Hyde’s big crime—a murder of a magistrate or something—is not too exciting; it’s told by a bystander who sees it from a distance. There was one funny moment that sadly had nothing to do with the text itself, but with the editor, who seemed determined to make sure we didn’t misread the old-fashioned words and accidentally conclude that Jekyll and Hyde are gay. The words “gaiety,” “faggot” and “comely” all have footnotes with definitions. How on earth did the meaning of the word “faggot” get changed from bundle of sticks to . . . oh, I get it. So anyways, I would say if you want to read some old gothic monster story, you might as well give this one a miss and read Dracula or Frankenstein instead. Of course, as it weighs in at a comfortable 72 pages, you can read it and decide for yourself without too much inconvenience. 

Response to Dickens's "Great Expectations"

Last night I met someone who claims she never reads (anything other than cookbooks). This confounded me so much that I believe my knee-jerk reaction was simply to recite the plot of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment to her in the space of about a minute and a half—which I am sure was the least appropriate response possible. She confided that she is indeed reading a novel: Anna Karenina. And she has been reading it for two years. Now today I finished Dickens’s Great Expectations, which is a very long novel, and I note that it took me nine days to get through. So anyways, this conversation was a refreshing glance into how the other half might live: I would certainly have more time for friends, fitness, nutrition and other artistic pursuits if I read less—though most probably I would just drink more. I wonder though, if a person reads say twenty to thirty novels in her lifetime instead of every six months or year, would the literature mean more or less to her? Does your love for a narrative increase if you revisit it ever so briefly over the course of a long time? This is part of a larger question that has loomed ever more in my thoughts as I make my way through this graduate degree: what exactly am I doing and why is literature—or art in general for that matter—important?

I will leave it there for the moment and turn to Dickens. I may have been wrong in dismissing Victorian novels out of hand. I think Great Expectations is a remarkable book.  My friend J and I have noticed that a lot of our favorite writers learn the art of literary thrift after working in the newspaper business, and of course it turns out that Dickens was one of them. Now, newspapers in the nineteenth century were significantly wordier than in the twentieth, and Dickens’s books are certainly hefty, but he shows respect and economy in his word-choice that I find invigorating to read. There is no unnecessary punctuation or wasted words. I read a sentence like "I said to Biddy we would walk a little further, and we did so, and the summer afternoon toned down into the summer evening, and it was very beautiful." and I see something that Hemingway could have written a hundred years later, at the height of modernity.

Dickens’s strength is as a storyteller, and this narrative is complex and immaculately put together. Young Pip comes unexpectedly into an inheritance and is elevated from blacksmith’s apprentice to gentleman. He is also associated with an eccentric and wealthy old lady whom Pip assumes to be his benefactress. There is a love interest, a dark past, an uncertain future. The narrative is gripping and full of interesting secondary characters that insure there is hardly a dull moment through 566 pages.

My only problem with the book occurs precisely on the point of narrative: because it is meant to be a flawless and realistic story, when something happens that is unbelievable or just too coincidental, I have trouble accepting it. Here’s an example: Pip gets a letter to meet a man who knows about his dark past. He goes to meet the unknown person in a remote place only to find out it’s a trap. No one knows Pip is there, but when Pip cries out for help, his best friend shows up immediately to rescue him. How did his friend know where to find him? Well, it turns out Pip had accidentally dropped the original letter on the floor of his apartment where his friend discovered it, smelled a rat, dropped everything and came to the rescue. I thought this little bit of storytelling was a bit slapdash, and there are a few other examples of sloppiness that really jar the experience.

Still, all in all, this is a great book told by a master craftsman and I will certainly be reading more Dickens in my lifetime. I’m happy to report that I shall continue to read novels at a staggering pace because it’s just what I do. At this point there’s no real reason to stop. 

My new blog

I decided to make a 'blog this evening instead of doing the reading I most urgently need to do. The impetus of this 'blog is to write personal responses to the books I read. Let me explain: I am currently a Master's student in English at the University of Victoria. In a class I took on the modernist novel, my professor had us write 500 word personal responses to the novels we read. A few of us, being acquaintances, shared them on Facebook via the Notes function. I found it an enriching experience and have opted to carry on with all (or most) of the subsequent books I read. I thought, too, that a 'blog would be a good outlet for any other thoughts I might have and care to write down that may exceed Facebook's 500 maximum characters for status updates. Here is the first:

I have shared my bachelor apartment for the past four days with an enormous black fly. I first noticed he had entered my abode, like I said, four days back - and didn't think much of him until nighttime when he became a bit tiresome as I was reading by my bedside light. So I tricked him by turning off all lights except the bathroom light, into which he was lured. Then I turned off the light and shut the door and that was that for the evening. Next day, same thing and I tried my trick again. It worked, but this time the sneaky bastard found its way under the door and so I suffered it to fly around while I read and slept. Last night I tried no trickery and as I read, he alighted on the wall near me and rubbed his front legs in what I believe was a gesture of friendship. So now we live together. This is the fourth night. I don't know how long flies can live eating only the leavings from my neglected fruitbowl and unwashed dishes. So far he has apparently avoided all of the spider corners - and I might add the spiders have done a pitiful job of luring him anywhere near them. No. So far things seem to be fine in fly-land. I might try speaking Goldblum to it. But he shall not die on my account.