In which I punt in the Scottish Literature Clishmaclaver and say nice things about Jekyll and Hyde and Wuthering Expectations

Amateur Reader from Wuthering Expectations is hosting a Scottish Literature Challenge this year (details here). AR is trying to stimulate discussion and conversation about Victorian Scottish Literature. As a big fan of many things in Scotland (gardens, music, oatcakes, an Englishman* I met there . . . ) and discussing books in general, I signed up right away.

I intended to read [linked list inserted here].

Thus far, I have read three Robert Louis Stevenson stories: The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Markheim, and The Pavilion on the Links.

It was my first time reading Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and as "Jekyll and Hyde" has made it into common parlance, I figured I knew the plot. The story opens with characters other than Jekyll or Hyde and I realized with a start that not only did I have no idea what happened to these new characters, I had no idea what was going to happen to Jekyll/Hyde. Knowing that Jekyll and Hyde are the same person is knowing a premise, not a plot.
The story is good, very good, and I can't quite think what I have to say about it.
Most of Hyde's misdeeds happen off-stage, so one must imagine what a man without any conscience has been up to at nights. AR points out that this, "let's Hyde be as decadent as the reader's imagination allows, which is also amusing. The more innocent the reader, the more puzzling the story." I can imagine a time in my life when I would have found Jekyll and Hyde rather silly instead of frightening.
I noticed the role of wine and other transforming potions because AR and friends had mentioned them and likewise thought more about the ch0ice for the story to be mostly revealed in letters after the action has taken place because the subject had been mentioned on Wuthering Expectations.
The story ends abruptly with the end of Dr. Jekyll's letter. It is exactly where Dr. Jekyll's letter should end, but ending the story there didn't sit right with me. Still, any additional resolution outside the letter would have just been plain wrong.

Besides having nothing novel to say about The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, reading it felt like cheating in the Scottish Literature challenge. Stevenson was born in Scotland, but the story is a London story. There is nothing Scottish about it.
I therefore read two other R.L. Stevenson stories from the illustrated classics volume I had checked out of the library. At least one of them, "The Pavilion on the Links", felt remotely Scottish. It takes place in Scotland and the Scottish setting contributes to the story. It's one of those well-crafted stories with a final punch that made me wonder if anything I had just read was as it seemed, but not compelling enough to actually make me go back and re-read it with an informed perspective.

"Markheim" is another London struggle between the good and evil contained within one person. I was pleased to learn that it was written before Jekyll and Hyde. Markheim is an intriguing tale in its own right, but as it relies on a supernatural appearance, it would be a lame follow-up to Jekyll and Hyde, the brilliance of which is that an ordinary man can simultaneously harbor such good and bad intentions.
Thinking about Markheim (1885) and Jekyll and Hyde (1886) made me want to re-read The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) and wonder what was going on in the streets of London in the 1880s that so much evil can be found within "ordinary" looking people.

Altogether, I haven't much to contribute to the discussion of Scottish Victorian Literature thus far. I must read some more.

However, I do want to put in a plug for having something like Wuthering Expectations in one's life. Most of my life comprises things I do well or things I need to get done (many items I feel should be listed under the former too often fall under the latter, but this is a fact of life). I don't devote much time to things I am not particularly good at that don't need to get done. In absence of a knitting group, I don't knit. Without good instructors, I don't flail around in aerobics classes. I haven't struggled to keep up with a foreign language in years. But I do read small doses of thoughtful literature appreciationism daily.

Because Amateur Reader is an acquaintance in "real life", I started reading Wuthering Expectations the week it was launched and have been feeling well-read (by proximity) or completely unrefined (I don't read Victorian poetry and don't envision myself starting any time soon**) for three years since. It is great to have something to debate in my mind while washing the dishes ("saying that writing can't be beautiful because it doesn't look good on the page is like saying that a piece of music can't be beautiful because the score appears like almost any other") even if I am a month behind the discussion. I recently dreamed about compiling a list of narrators whose book we were reading as we read a novel. I kept reminding myself to keep track because it wasn't just Vonnegut (Yes, I forgot before I awakened).
Reading the Victorian Literature thoughts of somebody else isn't for everybody, I know, but let this serve as a public service message to do something that is well outside of what you do well or what you need to do.
And thanks for AR for keeping me thinking in a different way.

*It always did make me rather sad that my great Scottish romance was with an Englishman. Said Englishman, however, was in love with Scotland at the time, and my mother has always considered him Scottish, so it almost counts.
**With the exception of Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses.