He was sunk beneath seas of silence; and his name , which would once have caught his notice above the howling of a storm, had become an empty sound.
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
by Robert Louis Stevenson
Genre: Psychological Thriller
About: Most know the tale of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde though the original does vary drastically from media adaptions and pop culture references. This book comes with an introduction that offers further context, as well as three short stories (all in a similar vein to Dr Jekyll) and two essays by Stevenson discussing writing and literature in general.
The Good
I really enjoyed reading the introduction as I've read a few other works from Stevenson but I didn't know much about him as an author or how his contemporaries viewed his work. I also found it fascinating to read his essays on writing; especially A Chapter on Dreams where he attributed many of his best ideas to dreams, and stressed the importance of incident in fiction, rather than characters. That surprised me as what I love most about his writing are his characters. I think he's written some of the best characters in fiction and while I do agree that his main characters do tend to be forgettable (deliberately so it seems to place the reader in the story), I really enjoyed the characters in his short stories. Fettes and Macfarlane's dynamic reminded me very much of Treasure Island, I wish there had been more of the dealer in Markheim and the family in Olalla all held interest for me. The complexities behind his work are why he's remembered today and this is a great collection to showcase that.
The Bad
I'm sure that to a 19th century reader, Stevenson's prose flowed like poetry. For myself, I loved many of his descriptions or turns of phrases but found the majority of passages dry and repetitive. His dialogue and characters I could eat up all day long, but his prose overall read clunky a lot of the time for me. Markheim was probably the worst as it started off so well - there was action, intrigue, an excellent character in the dealer, but then a large chunk of the story is Markheim's internal monologue which repeats the same themes over and over. Olalla has some of these issues as well and the main character wasn't my favourite to be in the perspective of.
The Somewhat Iffy
One of the things I felt was missing reading Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was more information on Hyde's actions, beyond those two violent acts we hear he commits. It leaves the question of what thrilled Dr Jekyll to turn into this version of himself. Simply the youth or feeling of reckless abandonment? Having read the introduction afterwards, the reasoning behind Stevenson's vagueness can be better understood, but it still results in the novella feeling like more could and should have been said.
Probably the cringiest for a modern reader is the portrayal of one of Stevenson's rare female characters in Olalla. That love story does not translate well and reads worst in the male perspective that it's in. I actually feel like printing a t-shirt for one of the things the male character says of Olalla - 'wise beyond the use of women'. I think the story would have been better suited in Olalla's POV or for Stevenson to have stuck with his usual male centric casting and forego writing a romance at all.
Overall
I can appreciate the Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde novella for the layers in how the story is told and the concept of duality, but I did find his short stories overall a better reading experience. The Body Snatcher was my favourite but all the stories had memorable elements to them.
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