“It’s funny. Have you ever read the original story, Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde?”
“The original? By Stevenson? No, I guess I haven’t.”
“It’s funny. The original story doesn’t have anything to do with seeking to separate a man’s good and evil sides or anything like that. It’s just a mystery story about the relationship between this respectable doctor and his ugly new friend. Who is this Hyde person, where did he come from, why does Jekyll insist that everyone be nice to him and let him have his money? People think Hyde must be blackmailing him, but Jekyll doesn’t act the least bit like a man being blackmailed, he just acts like a man who is enjoying indulging his new best friend.
“So, the drug Jekyll is taking isn’t revealed to the reader at first?”
“Right, not until the end. It isn’t until Jekyll is caught out and he has killed himself that he leaves a note explaining how he created a drug that can change his appearance. It was only because he didn’t worry about Hyde’s reputation that he acted so wild as Hyde – he’d always wanted to carouse that way, and had done some of it in secret over the years, and now he could do all he wanted.”
“Ah. And Hyde ran wild, and became more and more brazen, and violent.”
“Yes, eventually he did things as Hyde that could send him to prison, so he knew he had to stop using that identity, but by then, he was changing without taking the drug, at random times. He was trapped, so he killed himself. But again, none of this had anything to do with Hyde being a separate person, it was just a disguise.”
“Weird. Funny how the story has changed so much.”
“Yeah. Also, Hyde was shorter than Jekyll, not bigger, as he is often depicted.”
“Hah. In The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Hyde is their Incredible Hulk. He even has a line, I guess Jekyll has a line, saying Hyde used to be shorter than him”
“Perfect example. I read that series, I loved it, but it’s got a Jekyll and Hyde who’re totally different from the original.”
“I do like the ways in which the story changes and slides around. It’s fun. But I didn’t know how different the origin was.”
“Neither did I. I read the original while because I’m working on a story in which Jekyll is an elderly man working on a rejuvenation formula that will take a few years off and extend his life a bit, but it winds up turning him into a young man who doesn’t look anything like himself, can’t pass himself off as Jekyll’s son or disguise himself as the aged Jekyll, so he is obliged to take on an entirely new identity. It’s different enough from the original that I could take away the Jekyll and Hyde element entirely, but I kind of like it.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“I hope it will be. By the way, I found out from the foreword to the book that Stevenson intended the name to be pronounced ‘Jee-kull’, but even I’m not such a pedantic twit that I’d try to insist on it now.”
https://www.flickr.com/photos/pbeile/3142891992/
[I have a feeling that link may not be good indefinitely, so I’m putting the whole poem, Question by Mae Swenson, below.]
Question
Body my house
my horse my hound
what will I do
when you are fallen
Where will I sleep
How will I ride
What will I hunt
Where can I go
without my mount
all eager and quick
How will I know
in thicket ahead
is danger or treasure
when Body my good
bright dog is dead
How will it be
to lie in the sky
without roof or door
and wind for an eye
With cloud for shift
how will I hide?
From Another Animal
The Magic Eight-Ball says: "Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken."