Strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

I don't think I will ever understand why the point of view of so many classic novels is placed at such a distance from the subject of the story. I think it was the reason I found [b:Dracula 17245 Dracula Bram Stoker https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1387151694s/17245.jpg 3165724] so profoundly boring. At least [b:Frankenstein 35031085 Frankenstein Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1498841231s/35031085.jpg 4836639] is told from Victor Frankenstein's perspective, even if it is within the pretense of him telling someone else. When The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde began, I was willing to humor the point of view, even though it does seem to be designed to be as uninteresting as possible. Banality can in fact be quite striking when placed as a backdrop to the extraordinary, and the presence of the rogue and demonic Mr. Hyde is quite extraordinary. At first. Though the story of Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde has been rewritten mythologically in our culture as one of the duality of good and evil, it is in fact more about restraint and lack thereof. Dr. Jekyll, by his own admission, does not manage to rid himself of his unearthly desires, but rather gives himself a means for indulging in them that does not damage his reputation. Edward Hyde is less an alternate personality and more an elaborate disguise. The problem arises when he can't take the mask off. Whatever proclivities Jekyll has that he uses Hyde to enact are never elaborated on. I suppose that's the point - when we are told Hyde is evil, but Jekyll was simply “wild” in his youth, we're supposed to come to our own conclusions about what that means Edward Hyde is running around doing. Not going to lie though, it is mildly disturbing to think that whatever Jekyll wants to get up to so baldly but doesn't want to get caught doing, he's willing to to experiment on himself with dangerous chemicals in order to get away with it. Hyde's not the one that bothers me. It's the upstanding scientist whom everyone thinks is swell but in secret wants to....I guess you can just insert your personal evil here. It makes the good doctor far from sympathetic. His scientific advancements are less spooky and more like the predecessor to rohypnol.In short, this novella is more like a building block than a particularly good story in itself. It's no wonder that it has inspired movies, tv shows and books galore. By the time the story devolves into droning letters (much the same way Dracula does), its pretty clear why so many of those adaptations take the original story as inspiration, rather than direct source material. Ah well. At least I can say now that I read it.

I believe this is the first book about the “split personality” that has ever been written. I loved every page of the book and the narrative form. I must admit I felt a strange liking for Edward Hyde and I felt sad that he and Dr. Henry Jekyll died at the end of the story. However, this is more than a novel, it's a good way to think about the dichotomy between good and evil.

His terror of the gallows drove him continually to commit temporary suicide, and return to his subordinate station of a part instead of a person; but he loathed the necessity, he loathed the despondency into which Jekyll was now fallen, and he resented the dislike with which he was himself regarded.

When Stevenson wrote a sentence he turned it into a paragraph and when he wrote a paragraph he turned it into a chapter. This is a short but dense novel (in a good way). I'm amazed at the amount of story that Stevenson was able to squeeze into less than 200 pages. I really enjoy the poetry of the language of this type of literature.

And, yes, the story still holds up. I had my doubts at first (the ending was obviously already spoiled - Thanks, Scooby Doo...) that the story would be relevant, outside of the cultural dualities of Victorian society, but it, nevertheless, held up.