Episode 14: Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Explicit content warning

10/06/19 • 87 min

Better Read than Dead: Literature from a Left Perspective

We’re such goths (apparently), we didn’t even realize we were doing a Halloween month when we recorded this episode on Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886). Stevenson’s novella is about an insufferable prick who invents a potion that turns him into a tiny psychopath -- and then he gets stuck like that. What did your (deranged, race-sciencey) grandmother tell you about the dangers of making a face of THE CRIMINAL TYPE? Lots of great discussion on Victorian anxieties about “the criminal” and the city, epistemology, and, once again, phrenology.

We read the Penguin Classics edition edited by Robert Mighall. Chris Baldick’s In Frankenstein’s Shadow: Myth, Monstrosity, and Nineteenth-Century Writing puts Stevenson in conversation with several C19th authors (including Shelley, Melville, and Conrad!) working through the political in horror/early science fiction.

Find us on Twitter and Instagram @betterreadpod, and email us nice things at [email protected]. Find Tristan on Twitter @tjschweiger, Katie @katiekrywo, and Megan @tuslersaurus.

Find us on Twitter and Instagram @betterreadpod, and email us nice things at [email protected]. Find Tristan on Twitter @tjschweiger, Katie @katiekrywo, and Megan @tuslersaurus.

Previous Episode

Episode 13: Heart of Darkness

We follow one of literature’s least-impressive boats up the Belgian Congo in our discussion of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1899). It’s yet another magazine novella, this time about how our “hero” Charles Marlow journeys up the Congo seeing some truly horrifying effects of European colonialism, and how he encounters the ivory trader and Big Thoughts Guy Kurtz. We talk about empire, space, doubling, gender, and Marlon Brando.

We read the Norton Critical Edition edited by Paul B. Armstrong. Although it certainly shows its years, it’s always illuminating to read Edward Said’s “Two Visions in ‘Heart of Darkness’” from Culture and Imperialism.

Find us on Twitter and Instagram @betterreadpod, and email us nice things at [email protected]. Find Tristan on Twitter @tjschweiger, Katie @katiekrywo, and Megan @tuslersaurus.

Next Episode

Episode 15: Little Women

Put your crying pants on, because it’s time for Little Women (1868)! We talk about why Jo is so cool, whether it’s bad to steal a lady’s glove so you can sniff it in private (it is), and whether Beth—the shy sister who suffers from noted 19th-century ailment “paleness”—is actually the biggest psycho of them all. We get deep into how Megan lost her soul and ability to feel, as she found herself unmoved by the many touching and ennobling scenes in this book. We also discuss class (boy are they classy!), marriage (hooray!), the Civil War (serious.), and religion (hallelujah!).

On the show, we read the Norton Critical Edition edited by Anne K. Phillips and Gregory Eiselein. For more on Little Women and the religious novel, check out Katie’s favorite work of literary criticism ever, Gregory S. Jackson’s The Word and Its Witness: The Spiritualization of American Realism. If you still can’t get enough of Pilgrim’s Progress in American history after this episode, we also recommend Jackson’s article “A Game Theory of Evangelical Fiction.”

Find us on Twitter and Instagram @betterreadpod, and email us nice things at [email protected]. Find Tristan on Twitter @tjschweiger, Katie @katiekrywo, and Megan @tuslersaurus.