Robert Louis Stevenson's immortal story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is one of my all-time favorite works of literature, and so when I learned that Hugh Walpole, one of my favorite writers, made a 20th Century version of it, I was excited to try it. Does this book honor the legacy of the original, while being creative enough to be its own thing?
I would say "yes," but it certainly doesn't earn classic status, nor does it rank as one of Walpole's finest. But it actually was quite good.
Let's get the negatives out of the way. The first half is almost unbearable. The novel is told from the point of view of a man who is writing his justification for a murder he committed, so that people won't judge him as criminally insane. Well, you know immediately that this is an unreliable narrator. He weaves this long and depressing story, starting from childhood, about how he is an introvert that has been picked on his whole life. This is clearly a semi-autobiography on the part of Walpole, and I'm sure it was cathartic for him, but--oh my--it is tedious for the reader! The main character is such an awkward milquetoast that he literally screws up any potential for decent social interaction or friendship. It's cringe-inducing and painful to read about for page after page.
I found myself bored to tears, and almost did not finish. In the introductory remarks by John Howard, the length of the novel is noted as being brief. The Valancourt edition is 189 pages, so I'd count that as brief. But it sure seemed that each page crammed in an awful lot of text. I was shocked to discover that, after only 40 pages into the story, I felt like I had already read an entire novel! And it seemed that no matter how long I kept reading, I wasn't making any progress. I began to ask myself, "Just how long is this thing, REALLY?!" Perhaps that was a testament to how little I was enjoying this book. I've never experienced this with a Walpole story before.
But once you reach the halfway mark, things pick up. I don't want to reveal exactly what happens, but let's just say it's a solid premise that would make a great episode of the Twilight Zone.
I can tell you what this book is about via a personal allegory. I had a friend in New Orleans who was a lot like me in every way, but he embodied the more bold, reckless, bacchanal, and adventurous side of my personality. Sometimes he could aggravate me, or even frighten me, but it was always because I saw those impulses in myself. I would tease him that he was the devil on my shoulder. Conversely, I think he saw some of my more timid features to be a bit of an annoyance. I certainly was no saint, nor have I ever been an introvert, but he almost felt it was his duty to encourage me to take more chances and be spontaneous. Most interesting of all, whenever I did some wild and crazy things of my own accord, his shock (and perhaps a little disappointment) was palpable. I think that's because he respected my grounding influence, and even relied on it. Our other friends would joke that he was the one who wanted us to fly to the sun, and I was the one who made sure our wings didn't melt off from the heat. In short, the best of both our personalities could certainly compliment each other. And after I moved to the Midwest and didn't see him nearly as much, I felt his influence more strongly, perhaps too strongly at times, an influence that could be destructive, but in the right doses could be healthy and liberating for myself and even others, an influence that encourages one to turn off the television and crank up the music, to let loose at a party, to be the first to rip your shirt off and dive in the river on a float trip, to be confident at work and in the bedroom, to be friendly to people you don't know.
Well, this very idea is explored in this book. It's an interesting psychological study of what attracts us to friends and lovers, of the mental phenomena of repression and splitting, of the struggle between superego and id. Overall, "The Killer and the Slain" is a clever reimagining of the Jekyll and Hyde motif in a post-freudian age.
Perhaps what makes the whole product so uneven was because of Walpole's state of mind when he wrote this. He had been deeply impacted by World War I, and he communicated that impact brilliantly in his earlier novels. I think he was so shocked and disillusioned that we were heading into a second great war that he went into a serious depression while writing this book. Also, as John Howard hints in his introduction, Walpole had been hungry for a best friend, and was at a time in his life where he felt that such a close bond was never going to be in the cards. So this novel is a cynical lament on relationships and human nature. Therefore, it feels less mature and more nihilistic than you'd expect from such a seasoned author. His language even lacks his usual poetic style and vivid imagery, at times feeling very pedestrian and dull. If you read this side-by-side with his books from twenty years prior, it can be shocking how regressive it is, as though it had been a self-published debut novel from an angry teenage emo, albeit one with considerable talent and potential for understanding the human condition.
Ironically, this is one of his better known works, so it is unfortunate that this novel isn't one of Walpole's most beloved--because this was his last, released posthumously after the author died of heart failure and complications of diabetes.
So, if you found my review because this is the only Walpole novel you've come across, please do not let me put you off this writer! In the end, lovers of supernatural horror fiction will likely enjoy this tale--IF they can make it through the first half. But it sure as hell wouldn't be my recommendation to start your Walpole journey here.
SCORE: 2.5, rounded to 3 Jekylls out of 5