Lunchtime read: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and other stories

This collection finishes with two stories that both concern murder and the idea of the moral consequences of those acts.

The Body-Snatcher
A chance meeting in the pub between a practicing doctor and one locally known only as such as a nickname meet and the odd scene between them leads to the village trying to find out the history. The words uttered by the local man to the doctor from London, “Do you still see him?” get minds wandering.

The story turns out to be a tale of murder and ghoulishness with a man killed and then dissected by students turning up in one piece in a grave miles from Edinburgh. Just as with the evil that starts to creep up on Dr. Jekyll the sense of boundaries blur and it is only with the intervention of higher powers – the devil presumably – that the end comes to the crimes. At least both of the doctors get the chance to live another day.

Markheim
The thief driven to murder because of bad luck on the stock exchange meets with the devil that tells him that he can only escape by killing the maid and then making his escape. But as the devil boasts of knowing and watching Markheim make the descent from thief to murderer the focus of the story takes a change and as he opens the door to the maid he announced his guilt and asks for the police.

It is a positive way to end a collection of stories that question the evil in all of us and just have far it needs to go before that consumes us and makes us not just perpetrators of foul deeds but beyond saving.

A review will follow soon…

Vile Bodies - post III

There is a shift in the book that is after you read the introduction influenced by real events, that turns it from gaiety to bitterness. Adam finds that his fiancé has fallen in love with another man who has more riches than himself and from that point on the book moves towards its ending on a battlefield with the guns booming.

Several times in the text Adam remarks to Nina that he feels it all has to stop at some point and as he chases the drunk major who tells him that he has £35,000 waiting for him if he could only manage to get round to collecting it the fun drains out of life. Another of the characters is involved in a car crash and as she slowly loses her reason all her friends can do it party in her hospital room and hurry on her demise. There is something intended by the title and at the end the shallow and ultimately hurtful world of those vile but beautiful; young things has been well and truly punctured by Waugh.

A review will follow shortly…

Lunchtime read: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and other stories

The Suicide Club part II
The prince of Bohemia tries to control the activities of the president of the suicide club but those he chooses to chaparone him end up being killed and in the end the only way to bring the matter to a head is to face the murderer in a duel.

Before it gets to that part though there are a couple of chapters that both have fantastic twists and show off how inventive a plot maker Stevenson is. He manages to use the same devices of disguise and innocent embroilment in something very dark without it ever feeling repetitive.

The Suicide Club is really an excuse for a murderer to enjoy lying his trade and introducing others into the web of guilt that spreads out from being involved and complicit in the act of killing. At the end there is a sense of relief that the prince has killed his great rival but a sense that here was potentially a great literary feud like Holmes and Moriarty that could have been kept going longer.

Thrawn Janet
This is very Edgar Allan Poe with a vicar on a remote part of Scotland intervening to save a woman the other villagers describe as a witch only to come home from seeing and chasing the devil in a graveyard to find him possessing the woman. He wakes to find her corpse on the door and it is only as he calls on God and lightening strikes her down that she finally stops coming after the vicar. As a result he remains God fearing and frightens the villagers with his warnings against the devil. Nearly the entire story is told in a Scottish dialect, which reminds you of some of the techniques used by Kipling.

More tomorrow...

The introduction dilemma

I have had this dilemma before but in both cases of the books I am reading this week they both come with long introductions. There is a real temptation to get some background that will put the book in some sort of context but introductions always spill the plot and spoil the experience you get reading something never knowing what is coming on the next page.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a Barnes and Noble Classic version with a very good introduction as well as a timeline of Stevenson’s life. It feels somehow wrong to skip the first 80 pages or so and dive straight into the story.

The alternative is after reading the book to then go back and read the introduction. But somehow having finished the book you are half looking forward to your next read. Some of the most enjoyable books have a brief author biography but no introduction – takes the risk of prior knowledge out of the equation…

Vile Bodies - post II

“…Masked parties, Savage parties, Victorian parties, Greek parties, Wild West parties, Russian parties, Circus parties, parties where one had to dress as somebody else, almost naked parties in St John’s Wood, parties in flats and studios and houses and ships and hotels and night clubs, in windmills and swimming-baths, tea parties at school where one ate muffins and meringues and tinned crab, parties at Oxford where one drank brown sherry and smoked Turkish cigarettes, dull dances in London and comic dances in Scotland and disgusting parties in Paris – all that succession and repetition of massed humanity…Those vile bodies…”

Although the feelings are still largely superficial between the characters with an easy come and easy go attitude there is a sense that Adam does care about the prospect of marrying Nina. He wants to marry her and needs money to be able to afford her.

He manages to get a job as Chatterbox on the Excess newspaper as the former gossip society columnist gives up and admits failure putting his head into the oven. Adam is very good at the job inventing characters that then start to set their own trends. But he allows Nina and his friend Ginger to write the column in his absence and they cock it up and he loses his job.

He admits he cannot marry Nina but no sooner has that happened than he is off again on a jaunt with some more of the bright Young Things.

More tomorrow…

Lunchtime read: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and other stories

A Lodging for the Night
A poet down on his luck is sitting with friend’s playing cards when suddenly the evening takes a turn with one of the players deciding to murder another. The subject of the story Francis Villon (makes you think of villain) follows him worrying about the gallows as he leaves his friends running away from the fear of being linked to the crime. He discovers he was pick pocketed by his ‘friends’ and starts to worry that he might freeze to death like an old woman he discovers in a door way. After wandering round he manages to gain entry to an old man’s house. The old solider talks of honour and valour and tries to turn the criminally minded Villon away from a life of living in the gutter but he fails. The fear of the gallows is nowhere near as strong as the desire to steal and support a life of irresponsibility.

The Suicide Club part one
A prince and his friend enjoy dressing up in disguise and trawling through the streets of London. They come across a young man who reveals he is planning suicide and that he has paid his membership dues to the suicide club where they pick not just the victim but also the murderer. The prince and friend are appalled at the way depressed men are compromised into becoming murderers. But there is something also addictive about the thrill of the potential of losing your life on the turn of a card. The prince returns for the second night and picks the wrong card and is prepared for his death. His friend however rounds up the members of the club and liquidates the society saving the life of the prince. That ends the first part but the adventures continue.

By now, with a few stories into this collection, there is a sense of style. It reminds you in terms of the landscape of Poe and Conan Doyle but at the same time there is a lighter touch here with a more moral message. There are several biblical references throughout the text that give the impression that not everyone is necessarily evil from start to finish.

More tomorrow…

Vile Bodies - post I

This immerses you immediately in the social world of pre-war London with a group of passengers crossing over on the cross-channel ferry from France to Dover. Among the passengers are several Bright Young People and Adam Symes who is heading home to get married and make it as a famous novelist.

He manages to lose his manuscript to the furnace at customs as they decide its falls foul of decency laws but then gets invited by a young socialite to a party and he never looks back.

The parties are frequented by gossip columnists, who are them selves part of the landed gentry, writing about the antics of the friends. Money comes and goes and love is something to be enjoyed but not an issue to get ‘too intense’ about. Symes is the focus of the book so far with his on-off engagement being dictated by his fluctuating fortunes with money. He is given £1,000 pounds in a bet but promptly loses it being drunk.

The humour comes thick and fast and there is a great scene where the Prime Minister’s daughter ends up on the front pages after inviting people back to number 10. One of the gossip columnists gets the splash despite the potential to lose friends. But in a hedonistic society where no one seems to care about money or anything serious who really cares?

More tomorrow…

Lunchtime read: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and other stories

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
This short story is a great companion to Frankenstein. Part of the reason is because of the details it does share rather than those it decides to keep secret. So for instance you do get a rough explanation of how Jekyll turns into Hyde and an explanation of the thought behind the process.

But there is something else that also hangs over this story and you start to understand why it was such a source of intrigue and speculation around the time of the Jack the Ripper murders. This story appeared in 1886 and Jack started his murders just two years later. The private rooms that Hyde uses as a springboard to run out and disturb Londoners and in one case murder one reminds you of the sort of rooms where the Ripper’s victims were found.

But getting back to the story the book is about not only the dangers of man trying to conqueror nature but also about the attempt to banish evil. The irony is that evil is stronger and in the end Hyde overwhelms Jekyll and the doctor is left pondering on the fact that he did succeed in dividing himself but did so at the expense of the good.

Hyde is smaller than Jekyll, uglier and much more aggressive. But he illustrates the central point that there is a monster in all of us. Frankenstein may have created a monster but Jekyll manages to pull one out of himself.

Again a figures standing to one side of the action is used as a narration device and it is letters to the narrator that the feelings of the deceased are expressed.

More from this collection tomorrow…

Officers and Gentlemen - post IV

The latest stage of the war ends for Guy with him again being sent home slightly against his will. After the collapse of Crete he drifts in the sea for days and is picked up and saved but as a result is confined to hospital for weeks. When he is released he is sent home and back to his original regiment.

He is not in disgrace, unlike a fellow officer Ivor who fled and let colleagues be taken prisoner by the Germans, but it feels odd. Insistent doctors inform his superiors that he has to leave the warm climate of Egypt and so a blitz ravaged London awaits.

Just as the ending of the first book you are left wondering if that is the end of the war for Guy. In the scramble to get off Crete he failed to shoot a weapon in anger and make much of an impact. Perhaps that is the true distinction of an officer and a gentleman that they stood alongside the men prepared to face whatever came at them.

A review will follow soon…

Lunchtime read: Frankenstein

The narrative told by Victor Frankenstein to an increasingly horrified Walton on board the polar exploration boat nears its conclusion.

After having been told by the monster that he had better watch out on his wedding night Victor gets it wrong and thinks that the intended victim is going to be himself. He tells Elisabeth to go to bed and waits with a pistol in the next room. But he hears a scream and runs through to find her corpse and catches slight of the monster leaving through the window.

Guessing that his father and brother might be next he hurries home to Geneva but just the news of Elisabeth’s murder is enough to break his father’s heart and the old man dies three days after being given the news.

Then the hunt starts and Victor vows to catch the monster and end his reign of terror and chases him across Europe until they get close to catching each other. Amidst the ice and the cold Victor finally gives put and it is in letters to his sister that the explorer Walton chronicles the final act with the monster climbing through the window to howl at the discovery that his master is dead. He then announces his intention to kill himself and disappears into the night.

Despite its nineteenth century style, which is not always flowing, this does grip you because you can half predict what is coming but the ending is not something you can foresee clearly. This is so different from the films – let’s face it this would not have been more than an occasional walk on part for De Niro, and the Elisabeth love interest is kept to the margins in the text. The most notably absent detail is how he created the monster, something he keeps secret.

Worth reading and yet again proves that the book can be so different an experience from the film. A review will follow soon…

bookmark of the week

This is from the Museum Shop at the Art Institute of Chicago. It shows Paul Gauguin's Where Do We Come From? What are We? Where are we Going? A title that could be asked at any given hour on any given day...

book review - What's Become of Waring?

One of the benefits of having a writers major work come towards the middle or the end of their career’s is that you get the chance to read their earlier works and see how they got to the point where they had the confidence and vision to tackle something more ambitious.

Anthony Powell will forever be connected to the 12 volume Dance to the Music of Time but with What’s Become of Waring? he gets the chance to have a dry run at developing a story that shares many of the same stylistic features.

In this story you never are told the narrator’s name and it reminds you that you only discover Jenkins is called Nicholas fairly well after the rest of the characters have been established at the start of the Dance sequence.

But what really stands out is the way this narrative is weaved together around a reasonably small number of people. The characters are all introduced individually and placed in context and then shaken up and mixed with some amusing and interesting results. The same technique is used in Dance when people mix in different worlds. For instance the straight-laced Widmerpool meets and then has an affair with the independent and flirtatious Gypsy Jones.

One of the main characters in the book is a mystery with T.T Waring, a travel writer that writes books that prop up his publishing company, being pronounced dead at a séance. The narrator has been taken to the séance by his boss, and co-owner of the publishing company, Hugh. The sense that the hidden world of the medium and the dead pervades the book and provokes unease and humour.

This is also a story about secrets with Waring turning out not only to be a plagiarist but also a school friend of the man given the responsibility of doing his biography. As the story reaches its climax, with Waring being unmasked and then dying for real the narrator seems to drift out of publishing into advertising.

What holds it together is the family and social networks that are key to Powell’s world. Everyone either knows each other or finds some mutual connection that brings them together. As a result there is a farce like quality to the way as one character walks into a room it sets off reactions in others. It would be much more difficult to write in quite the same way now because the pre-war social world that is described here has almost vanished forever.

The book ends with a question about what it was that drove everyone on. The answer Powell decides is the lust for power. But the narrator, just as with Jenkins in Dance to the Music… does not seem to be motivated by power. He seems to be content to observe and remain involved but detached at the same time.

This book is enjoyable and gentle. It suffers from being slightly predictable but is no less enjoyable for that. The only slight miscalculation that Powell might have made is instilling in the narrator an increasing disinterest in the publishing industry that dominates the setting for the book. As he leaves the firm and ponders what it was all about the tone turns slightly more serious.

Powell was clearly interested in what drove people on and of course Dance to the Music… provided him with the opportunity to follow those stories through from start to finish.

Version read – Penguin paperback

Lunchtime read: Frankenstein

Having outlined his history and accepting he committed the murders of Frankenstein’s brother the monster then waits for a reply to his demand for a female companion.

He promises Frankenstein that he will take his companion and live in the deserts and never trouble people again but Victor does not believe him. But he does feel some responsibility and so consents to creating a mate. The monster (can’t think of a better way of describing him) explains that unless Victor creates a mate he will inflict misery on him and mankind.

Victor promises to go ahead with a female version and heads off to England to get the latest bits of research and start to create the mate. But when he gets away to the Orkney islands and starts he is disturbed by the monster and doubts creep in and he wonders if he should create what potentially could be a deadly duo. He breaks his promise and after a warning from the monster waits to see what the consequences will be.

He doesn’t have to wait long before the revenge bites and he is confronted in a police cell with the corpse of his best friend Clerval, who had been travelling with him across England. Victor is effectively framed but slumps into a fever that keeps him bed bound for two months.

More tomorrow…

Officers and Gentlemen - post III

Waugh is expert at describing the confusion, fear and fatigue that settles on soldiers as they actually enter a war zone. After weeks of mucking about in Egypt Guy and co. are put on boats and shipped out to Crete.

The idea is to hold the island but when they get there, after an eventful journey where the officer in charge Tommy Blackhouse breaks his leg, they pull into harbour and into chaos.

The island is falling and in rapid retreat and Hookforce gets deployed in confusion and in some cases with disastrous consequences. Guy and the officer who takes over, Hound, struggle to get to grips with the situation and are parted in the confusion.

Waugh then interestingly takes up the story of Hound leaving you wondering what has happened to Guy. In a brilliant couple of pages he describes Hound crawling into a culvert and falling a sleep after days without sleep and food. Despite the real prospect of being overrun by Germans and left behind on the island the solider cannot keep going.

It makes you think about those people that drop by the wayside on marches through the desert and the snows of Siberia.

The madness of war is the waiting, confusion and the randomness of death – all elements that Waugh manages to mix up expertly.

More later…

Lunchtime read: Frankenstein

After living alongside the family in the cottage and learning the language and gaining knowledge through reading Frankenstein’s creation starts to yearn for friendship. He decides to appeal to the family he has grown to love and visits the blind father when the rest of the household are out walking in the woods.

But he is discovered in the cottage and the horror he is hit and screamed at and leaves the house heart broken. He decides that he will seek revenge on mankind and starts to turn to violence. But what stays his hand is the idea that the responsibility for solving his problems with companionship reside with his creator.

He sets out to find Frankenstein and comes across his youngest brother and cannot resist the revengeful urge to kill him then use his cunning to frame the servant girl. That ends his story and his demands from Frankenstein are that he creates a female mate for him.

Having heard the sad story presumably Frankenstein feels some responsibility but the fact remains that the monster he created has killed his brother and the grief and anger in the young doctor is still raw enough to cloud his judgement.

More tomorrow…