Review: Hyde

Hyde by Daniel Levine
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I generally like retellings of stories we all know (Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead and Wicked are both favorites) and there were many good points to this retelling. Hyde is a complex and interesting person in this story, and when he describes his own internal conflicts and his struggle with Jekyll's choices he is compelling. However, it was ultimately too sordid a tale to suit me as Levine goes into a fair amount of detail of the devilish actions of his characters. I think Stevenson was right to leave these aspects of the tale to the imaginations of his readers as it makes for a more powerful story. Levine does provide a very plausible motive for the murder of Carew--which is missing from Stevenson's tale.  The structure of this novel is well matched to the original tale and the way that language from the Stevenson work is woven into the narrative is very well done.