The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

For today's countdown to Halloween's reading suggestion, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson. I blogged about it in 2021, I wanted to revisit it properly this year. Every Halloween, I try to read one horror classic, so this year I reread that one. It was the first horror novel I ever read. What's to discover of the story, after the numerous adaptations and a plot twist everyone knows? Well, everything. Jekyll is a morally ambiguous character, for one, and a bit of an hypocrite. His alter ego Hyde is not physically deformed monster but a dwarfish evil man, whose appearance is uncanny and unsettling, but is mostly left to the imagination of the reader. The same goes with the bulk of Hyde's crimes, implied but never depicted, save for a savage murder. And finally, the plot unfolds like crime fiction. Even knowing that Jekyll and Hyde are the same person, the resolution remains shocking.

Dr Jekyll, Mr Hyde and me

For today's countdown to Halloween post, I have decided to blog about a classic horror story that is maybe neglected this time of year:I am referring to The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. Everybody knows it, yet I don't think that many people have read the novella. It inspired many adaptations,yet neither Jekyll nor his alter ego Hyde have an iconic image like Dracula or the Monster of Frankenstein, images which we can transform into Halloween decorations easily identifiable and so on. Hyde is ugly, but in the end he is physically a man. I discovered the book in 1990, in my library, just like other horror classics. That year, I read them many of them: Frankenstein, Dracula, Carmilla. I became a proper horror fan, absolutely obsessed by old horror stuff. Yet I did not develop the same fascination towards Stevenson's classic. I don't know why. I rediscovered it in 2006, during my literary countdown to Halloween and really enjoyed it. I wanted to read it in original English and bought the edition you see here (not the greatest cover, but the Introduction was interesting). I still think it deserves more than it has. My Halloweens are sometimes dominated by different themes or tropes, when I read and watch mostly horror fiction about a certain creature: the year of ghosts, the year of vampires, the year of werewolves, the year of Lovecraftian horror, etc. Maybe I should have the year of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, where I will reread the book, its unofficial sequels (I read one which was great), and watch its many adaptations. And of course blog about it when Halloween comes again.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

 For today's countdown to Halloween post, I am suggesting that you watch an animated adaptation of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. It is simply called Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. This may seems... strange, but I found it a few days ago and I really enjoyed it, in spite of the silly things added to appeal to children. Some changes are maybe more justified: Edward Hyde instead of a short man as he was in the novella is here a hulking brute. All things considered, it is a surprisingly faithful adaptation of the source material and it has some genuinely scary moments. Better still: it does not shy away from the tragic aspect of the story. The body count is even higher than in the original story. And the murders, even though they are never directly depicted, are meant to be gruesome. I have to say, this is the kind of film I wish I could have watched when I was a child (although I don't think my parents would have allowed me to watch this). Anyway, it takes a bit less than an hour to go through, so here it is and enjoy:

Macabre stories

Fortoday 's countdown to Halloween, some reading suggestion: the Gothic stories of Ray Russell, which I have never heard of until I found this book in the local bookshop. More "neo" Gothic than truly Gothic as they are late pastiches of the genre. If yesterday's suggestion was all about subtlety, this one is a spectacle of horror. There is blood, gore, torture, sadoeroticism and violence of all sorts, but the characters are not devoid of humanity. You will find only a hint of supernatural, but the plots are so bizarre and horrific that they remain unsettling and they are perfect for Halloween. There is also a bit of sly humour that never falls into downright parody. And there is plenty to love: a man whose face is paralyzed into a disgusting grin, the possible bastard son of Jekyll/Hyde, countess Elizabeth Bathory... And I miss some: Russell is eager to cram as many Gothic commonplaces as he can, whether historical or literary. This is your macabre read for the season.