BOOK REPORT: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Stories by Robert Louis Stevenson

Title:       The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Stories

Author:                      Robert Louis Stevenson 

Original Copyright Date:             various

Original Publishing Date:  2009 (for this collection)

My Rating:             3.5 out of 5 stars  ( good )


Back Cover Description:
Idealistic young scientist Henry Jekyll struggles to unlock the secrets of the soul. Testing chemicals in his lab, he drinks a mixture he hopes will isolate—and eliminate—human evil. Instead it unleashes the dark forces within him, transforming him into the hideous and murderous Mr. Hyde.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde dramatically brings to life a science-fiction case study of the nature of good and evil and the duality that can exist within one person. Resonant with psychological perception and ethical insight, the book has literary roots in Dostoevsky’s “The Double” and Crime and Punishment. Today Stevenson’s novella is recognized as an incisive study of Victorian morality and sexual repression, as well as a great thriller.

This collection also includes some of the author’s grimmest short fiction: “Lodging for the Night,” “The Suicide Club,” “Thrawn Janet,” “The Body Snatcher,” and “Markheim.”

My Thoughts

This was an interesting collection of stories by Robert Louis Stevenson.  I should have read this before Halloween as all of them are macabre tales. 

"Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" is a novella which I've heard about all my life, but had never read.  I guess a topic so well known  can easily lead to hyped expectations.  It was a good story, although, not as good as Stevenson's other works.  I can see the parallels to Crime and Punishment alluded to in the back cover descriptions, and Stevenson even makes reference to Dostoevsky's works in the work. 

"Lodging for the Night"  tells the story of a cold night turned bad in a small hut where a game of cards leads to a stabbing and the main character venturing out into the night to get away from the scene and tries to find shelter.

"The Suicide Club" is actually three related short stories which follows Prince Florizel of Bohemia and his adventures infiltrating a suicide club.  a place, where for 40 pounds, you play russian roulette. but instead of a bullet, you pull cards.  Whomever pulls the ace of spades is the target, if you pull the ace of clubs, you must be one who kills.  I thought these stories were great.  According to the preface, Robert Louis Stevenson wanted to recreate the "Thousand and One Arabian Nights" and created a collection of short stories in that vein. The Suicide Club is part of that collection.

"Thrawn Janet" was a difficult story to read.  It is essentially a campfire horror story told by a drunk scotsman in the 1700's in his native dialect.  I never had to look so many words up, including "Thrawn" which means crooked or twisted. 

"The Body Snatcher" is a story of a young doctor's apprentice who's main task is to collect bodies for the anatomist.  Most of the bodies brought to him are in the middle of the night in suspicious circumstances.  This story did lead to a new personal goal.  Not only do I need "Gentleman Adventurer and Philanthropist" on my future business cards, but "Bon Vivant" needs to be added.  It means, "A person with refined taste, especially one who enjoys superb food and drink."

"Markheim" is a short story about a man who kills a pawn shop owner on Christmas morning to rob him and his personal crisis which comes thereafter.  This story is very similar to Crime and Punishment, on 400 pages shorter. 

All in all, it was a good set of stories, but it took me longer to read than expected.  

Now, in the style of Robert Louis Stevenson, " Let me profit my idleness, and make haste on my next verse"

BOOK REPORT: A Long Long Way By Sebastian Barry

Title:                                 A Long, Long Way

Author:                             Sebastian Barry

Original Copyright Date:  2005

My Rating:                    4 out of 5 stars  (Beautifully Written )

Would Recommend to a friend?:   Yes

Back Cover Description:

"...Irish author and playwright Sebastian Barry has created a powerful new novel about divided loyalties and the realities of war. In 1914, Willie Dunne, barely eighteen years old, leaves behind Dublin, his family and the girl he plans to marry in order to enlist in the Allied forces and face the Germans on the Western Front.  Once there he encounters violence on a scale he could not have imagined and sustains his spirit with only the words on the pages from home and then camaraderie of the mud-covered Irish boys who fight and die by his side.  Dimly aware of the political tensions that have grown in Ireland in his absence, Willie returns on leave to find a world split and ravaged by forces closer to home...."

My Thoughts:

This was a beautifully written book; the language was absolutely stunning.  It walked the fine line between prose and poetry to perfection.  The subject matter however can be difficult at times.  It is war after all.  

The basic story is a good one.   A young lad goes off to war to make his father proud of him, finds a girl before he ships off to war, and deals with the horrors in the trenches of World War I. But the twist is the Irish revolt which starts up while he is away.  He has to deal with fighting in Belgium and at home, where he is the "enemy" in both places.  

Trench warfare, mustard gas, death, injury, mud, cold, and  rain seem to be surround every scene and never leaves the characters alone, even when they aren't on the front lines or in Belgium for that matter.  But throughout all that, the main character Willie, despite peeing his pants before most any battle, copes with this adversity with a grace and dignity that only men of yore seem to have. You know, the ones that get interviewed on TV shows reminiscing about The War, talking about the small details that got them through the atrocities that surrounded them:  A flower here, a song by a comrade there, a lady back home waiting for him, etc...  Willie is not always brave, but he never runs.  Each time he had to kill a German, it weighed heavily on his soul, despite the fact that he was being attacked and almost died himself.

Sebastian Barry does a great job moving the story forward without bogging it down in the details.  He provides more than enough detail to understand the motivations and driving forces for all the main characters without turning it into a thousand page Vanity Fair style epic which it probably could have been.

But enough of the story, lets get back to the prose, that is the real story here.  It is hard to give examples in this format because the author uses sweeping narrative instead of poignant little quotable nuggets to progress the themes throughout the book.  I remember whole scenes which were simply awe inspiring.  

For example.  In one scene, after a particularly brutal gas attack and hand to hand combat which left 800 of the 1200 front line soldiers dead; Willie's group is brought back to the reserver lines to recuperate.   The soldiers set up a small stage in a barn and hold a somewhat impromptu concert.  As I am reading it, I come to a paragraph which I think shows some of the beauty of the moment.  In this scene, the first performer gets up nervously and starts to sing: 

"The listeners were stilled because in the song there was a melody that brought from their own memories coloured hint and living sparks of the past.  The past was a valued thing bit it was also dangerous to them in the toxic wastelands of the war.  It needed a box of safety round it, and this small room for concerts was a good as they had found" 

However, this poignant scene goes on for several pages and I soon gave up trying write it down in my reading notebook and just wrote a page number down instead.  I felt the shelter and comfort that the soldiers felt.  I was wrapped up into the beauty "Ave Maria" as Willie sings it even though I personally only know the first few bars. I was there. Very few books have ever done that to me consistently throughout a book. 

This isn't to say that there aren't great quotes in the book. 

"The pith of sorrow was in the upshot a little seed of death" 

Thanks Tom for the recommendation and letting me borrow the book!