Let's Play Lions . . . Part 1: The Book

I have little patience for novels written like “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” I read enough of that type of fiction while studying for my English degree. The narrative technique is complicated because the story is not told to us by the protagonist. In fact, the protagonist is rarely physically present in this type of narrative. The technique may have worked in the early days of fiction when authors were trying to trick their readers into believing they weren’t in fact writing fiction, but today’s readers aren’t so easily fooled.


In college, I read many books from the 19th century which used this technique. Wuthering Heights, Frankenstein, and the Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym are a few examples of this sort of writing. In Frankenstein, the story is told to us through a narrator’s letter to his sister. The narrator meets Dr. Frankenstein and the doctor tells him the story of his creation. Of course, at times, the narrative gets even more complicated when we are reading the monster‘s story told by Frankenstein to the narrator who is still writing every thing down in letters. Wuthering Heights uses more of a mix match of ways to get Heathcliff and Cathy’s story across. The narrator first hears the story through Cathy’s diary, but then when the entries stop, he is forced to question the old maid who may or may not be a reliable in her answers. Likewise, in Jekyll’s story, the narrator is Jekyll’s lawyer. He hears the story of Hyde first from acquaintances and then through letters from Dr. Lanyon and Dr. Jekyll himself. Dr. Jekyll is only present in a scene once or twice in the entire story.

I become frustrated with this sort of storytelling because it forces the reader to be removed from the action of the story. When I read, I like very visceral description and also being allowed to be right in the action with the characters. This is why I sometimes have little patience for literary fiction as well. I love beauty in language but when I read for pleasure, I want a good story. I had enough of elegant prose in college and now that I’ve graduated I want to read the fun stuff. I can appreciate complicated narrative techniques like those in Jekyll and Hyde but for now, I’m planning on avoiding them like the plague.

Bring on the pop fiction!