Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

I read this book almost by accident. Basically, I was at M’s place, I had finished “Ash”, and I had nothing to read. I read the edition in Spanish, which usually means I take forever in reading, but this was actually a pretty fast read. The book contains four stories (or well, three stories and one very short novel): “The Suicide Club”, “The Bottle Imp”, “Olalla”, and “Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”.

Rather than talk about each story in particular, I’m going to talk about the author’s style of writing as a whole: basically, I swallowed the book really really fast. However, it wasn’t only that that left me with a strong impression: it was the fact that, from the very first page, the book not only provoked in me a desire to keep reading, but also to write. At first I didn’t know what all this was about, but the desire was there and kept increasing the more I read. Finally, I realized what it was. These stories don’t have great literary embellishments. The language has the natural elegance of 18^th century literature, but there are no remarkable descriptions, no witty word uses, no poetic stanzas. There is also no great symbolism: I wrote 1300 words about James M. Barrie’s plays, and immortality, and women, and bla bla bla, but Stevenson has no such depth. And there isn’t any great characterization. No onion-like characters that you want to peel and dissect. What is it then? Basically: this book is pure story telling. It goes back to the basics: creating an ambience, giving you characters, but mostly, giving you plot. He could just as well be telling you these stories over a fire on a cold night in Scotland. Honestly? It’s refreshing not to have to think so much. All you want is to know what happens.

At first I was thinking that a book like this could in no way survive nowadays. The tendency lately seems to be an emphasis on world-building and character construction, where plot is usually sacrificed. Just off the top of my head: Maggie Stiefvater’s “Ballad”, Melissa Marr’s “Ink Exchange”, Malinda Lo’s “Ash”, and Neil Gaiman’s “The Graveyard Book” all have amazing characterization, language use, and world-building, but have strong plot issues. However, looking back to my teenage years I recalled a successful author who seems very much in the legacy of Stevenson: Stephen King. King doesn’t go about with unnecessary pretties. He basically creates page-turning mysteries. There is a reason why “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” is so short: it doesn’t have a word it doesn’t need.

Of course, characterization, and depth, and morality, and language, and all those things are important—and having the whole package, including plot (Holly Black!) should be your goal. I’m not discrediting those who focus on these—after all, one of my favorite books is “Franny and Zooey” by J.D Salinger, which is full of fabulous language, and wit, and characterization, and symbolism—but in which nothing really happens. However, reading Stevenson makes me remember that if your creative resources are limited, it is the plot that you should probably be focusing on.

La Loca de La Casa by Rosa Montero

Three words: Read this NOW.

If you love literature, if you have ANYTHING to do with literature: as a reader, as a writer, as an editor, as someone who writes about writers, this book is highly recommended.

Part autobiography, part essay, part fiction, this book has enough twists and turns to get you hooked. I mean, it is not a novel, and yet you can’t put it down until you finish it.



Montero mixes parts of her own story (although you never know what, if anything, of what she is telling you is true), with the biography of great authors like Tolstoi, Stevenson, Marquez, Mary Shelley, Austen, and others, to speak about the act of writing, the act of reading, and the imagination that is necessary to do both things.

I can’t tell you how many times during the book I’ve (literally) cried out “Yes! That happens to me too!” Montero explains to us the passion for reading, she tells us why some writers never get around to writing their best work, she describes the fears of someone with too much imagination, the fickleness of memory, the uncertainty of reality, the difficulty that women authors face—and all of this with enough wit to make Oscar Wilde proud. There is enough food for thought in this short book to feed 10.000 conversations. In fact, you can probably feed a couple hundred on each chapter alone.

It’s hard to put all the wonders of this book into words, so I’m going to list a couple of the things Rosa says:

- Why is it that when a male author writes, everyone assumes he is saying something about humanity, but when a female author writes, everyone assumes she is saying something about women? Rosa complains about those people who believe there is such a thing as “female” literature. Gender is not the only thing that influences how someone writes. For example, she believes she has more in common with a man her age, living in Madrid, and who has lived under Franco, than with a black, South African, 80-year -old woman who has lived through the apartheid.

- Rosa talks about the fear of authors. How, on some days, you feel like everything you are writing is perfect, and then, on other days, you hate all you say and think you should have chosen a different career path. She says that many times authors don’t put their best work on paper: it stays in their head. While in their imagination, the story is perfect, it is the best, most enlightening work ever written. However, once you start putting it down on paper, you know you will screw it up. No matter how much you work, it will never be perfect. The fact that a novelist has to spend the whole afternoon just writing a person leaving a room makes the work clumsy. Suddenly, your lack of talent has tainted your masterpiece—and so, it takes much resolution and character to decide to write your best work.

There is much, much more in this book. I can’t possibly describe its awesomeness. I’ll just have to repeat what I said at the start: read it!!!