The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Robert Louis Stevenson
94 p.

For Decades ‘08.

Giunti Gruppo Editoriale, 2001.
(first published by Longmans, Green & Co 1886.)

Back cover blurb:

It was the cures of mankind… that in the agonised womb of consciousness, these polar twins should be continuously struggling.

I just must say that this edition is so weird. It was bought in Italy, it’s published by an Italian publisher, but still it’s in English and all! It’s crazy. Because of this, I have been completely unable to find the cover. It’s not much to see, really. It’s a picture by Toulouse-Lautrec, which is a little weird, I think.

Me being a human being, I more or less knew what this novella is about. What did not know was the perspective it was told. It is told indirectly, without any real showdown with Jekyll and Hyde. And that was amazing. I didn’t have a clue that it was told in that way. I’ve previously seen the musical version of this story, and perhaps some TV-version as well (I can’t really remember, I see so many strange things), and there it is told very straight-forward. The novella is completely reliant on the suspense that is built up. You know something is strange, but you can’t really see what it is, until just at the end. I suppose that is an element of gothic fiction. In the musical there was women in it (SHOCKING I KNOW), but in the novella, there’s nothing of a kind. In fact, there are very few characters. There’s the narrator, two of his friends, a butler and Jekyll/Hyde. And possibly some other very small roles, as well. It is impressive what an atmosphere Stevenson builds up with only these few characters.

I read this the evening after finishing Assassin’s Apprentice, and if the Forged scared me, it was nothing against how Mr Hyde terrified me. Right, I am very easily scared, but still! Stevenson is more than a little talented. (read, a lot.)

Dracula
Bram Stoker
402 p.

Penguin Red, 2006
(first published 1897 by Archibald Constable and Company)

For Decades ‘08.

Back cover blurb:

Count Dracula’s castle is a hellish world where night is day, pleasure is pain and the blood of the innocent is prized above all. Young Jonathan Harker approaches the gloomy gates with no idea of what he is about to face…

And back in England eerie incidents are unfolding as strange puncture marks appear on a young woman’s neck. Can Harker’s fiancée be saved? And where is the evil Dracula?

The blurb above is a bit misguiding, but seeing as almost anyone can tell you what the book is about, it doesn’tbother me much. It is an extremely good novel. Like a lot of people (probably), I have been exposed to the Dracula-story uncountable times; I’ve seen lots of different film versions and parodies and all sorts of things. My sister was a bit of a vampire-buff, but I never got around to read Dracula. Until now, of course. And it is brilliant, it really is. The found I almost found best was that the characters were so full of life. They were believable and felt as though they could have been real. Most characters in books from this century seem to be quite stiff and don’t show much emotion. These characters do. The men in it embrace each other and cry and show a lot of affection to each other. I love that. Van Helsing, the slightly mad but yet so brilliant professor in almost every subject, was the sort of character I wanted to give a real big hug because he seemed so sad. My favourite character, who seems to be changed a lot in most of the filmed version, is Dr. Seward, who is gently and noble and loyal, the kind of traits I wish I would have, but sadly don’t. Dr. Seward is also a bit of tech geek (yes, in that day and age), and it was fantastic to see how he longs for his phonograph (a kind of gramophone) when he has been forced to write by hand.

Dracula is narrated by several different characters, in the form of journal entries and letters. Unlike many novels of this kind, the reason why they write a journal is justified; every character seems to have a reason for setting down their thoughts. The characters read each other’s journals and together they form a beautiful entirety. There were two things I did not love about this novel. One of them was how Mina and Jonathan Harker were very wussy at times. If they had not been in love and married, I would not have any problem with them. The other problem was a little note at the end of the novel, telling us that everyone was happily married and they had children and all sorts of things. It felt a bit over-the-top. But then again (as my sister said) it is Victorian. And they were a little strange.

edit. I forgot about this as it wasn’t that annoying, but there was one more thing; the footnotes were missing. They were marked out and everything, but there were no footnotes. I guess it was a relief, because it takes so much time to turn to the back all the time.