Shelf Life -- Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: Measuring Civilisation

Shelf Life is a monthly column I write on clothes in books.

In RL Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Alberto Manguel's Stevenson Under the Palm Trees, clothing makes us human

Banner: Poster for a theatrical adaptation of Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

When a literary character becomes part of the language, you know that the writer – that strange solitary creature delivering into print the outpourings of her mind – has caught something in the zeitgeist that needed expressing. 'Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde', thought up by Robert Louis Stevenson when Longman's Magazine requested a ghost story for their 1885 Christmas Special, first gained popularity as a “shilling shocker” or “penny dreadful”, a novel of crime or violence sold cheaply. Soon it seemed the Victorian parable par excellence – the respectable Dr Jekyll whose secret sinful side walks the streets as the evil Mr. Hyde was a fitting fictional allegory for an era of repressed feeling. But the “Jekyll and Hyde” idea acquired much wider resonance, the temptation of immorality striking a chord with anyone who has ever hidden a part of themselves from society, or suppressed their transgressive desires.

Book covers of RL Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde over the years.

Stevenson's writing may seem long-winded to the 21st century reader, but it is spare, offering detailed descriptions only when necessary to his narrative – the feel of the neighbourhood in which Hyde is first seen, the spatial arrangements of Dr Jekyll's house. Since we never hear of Dr Jekyll's clothes, we assume they were appropriate for a Victorian gentleman of the sort Dr Henry Jekyll, M.D., D.C.L., L.L.D., F.R.S. undoubtedly was. But when the book's narrator, the doctor's old friend and lawyer Mr Utterson, is called upon to break into his laboratory, the “still twitching” body he finds there is “dressed in clothes far too large for him, clothes of the doctor's bigness”. Another eyewitness account describes Hyde's clothes as being “of rich and sober fabric” but “enormously too large for him in every measurement—the trousers hanging on his legs and rolled up to keep them from the ground, the waist of the coat below his haunches, and the collar sprawling wide upon his shoulders.” The effect, says Dr Lanyon, “would have made an ordinary person laughable” – but here the sense of evil makes laughter impossible.

Integral to Stevenson's tale is the idea of Dr Jekyll, described by his butler as “a tall, fine build of a man”, shrinking into a dwarf-like creature when he sheds his good qualities. The Jekyll and Hyde story influenced many future narratives of duality, the most popular of which might be the Incredible Hulk, a favourite Marvel Comics superhero. Writer-editor Stan Lee, who first created the Hulk in 1962, says he was inspired by Stevenson's story alongside Mary Shelley's Frankenstein's monster. Like the violent Mr. Hyde, the Hulk is an animalistic alter ego who takes shape when a respectable man of science – Jekyll, Bruce Banner – is overwhelmed by uncontrollable emotions. But instead of becoming smaller, the Hulk turns into a giant, his muscular green body ripping the mousy Banner's ordinary clothes to shreds.

Cover, The Incredible Hulk #1 Marvel Comics (May, 1962).

What is common to these visions of the hero's metamorphosis into something not quite human, though, is that his clothes no longer fit him. And shedding one's clothes is, in some ineffable way, to drop the veneer that keeps one human.

The writing of Jekyll and Hyde has been the subject of its own mythology. Stevenson wrote it while convalescing in the British seaside town of Bournemouth. In one version, it originated as a nightmare. Some have spoken of a first draft that Stevenson burnt after his wife Fanny said his story had “missed the allegory”, while his stepson Lloyd Osbourne has described him as coming downstairs in a fever to read half a first draft aloud. His later biographers have claimed he wrote it under the influence of cocaine, or a fungus called ergot.

Whatever the truth of these narratives, Stevenson certainly led an interesting life. Having fallen in love with Fanny – an American woman ten years older than him, with three children – in 1875, he travelled with her before and after their marriage in 1880. Stevenson and Fanny and their children travelled the South Seas for three years before settling down in 1890 on a plot of 400 acres he bought on a Samoan island, taking the native name Tusitala – 'Teller of Tales'. This was where he died in 1894. 

A book cover for the superbly inventive, deceptively simple Stevenson Under The Palm Trees.

The writer Alberto Manguel has crafted Stevenson's last Samoan years into a stunning little novella called Stevenson Under the Palm Trees (2002), mixing the known biographical facts with a disturbing reimagining that is perhaps a fitting tribute to Stevenson's own fevered mind – in particular, to Jekyll and Hyde. And here again, clothes come to the forefront. The nakedness of the Samoans is repeatedly contrasted to the buttoned-up world of Stevenson's Scottish childhood, his mother's stiff, lace-edged dresses to the sun-soaked softness of the Samoan matrons. Stevenson is well-loved in Samoa, his public persona perfectly at peace with the islanders' own comfort in their skin. But is it possible, asks Manguel's haunting story, that a lovely young girl's barely covered body arouses his basest instincts? Has the idea of nakedness seeped into our minds so deeply as 'uncivilised' that we dehumanise those without clothes? By making clothes the measure of civilisation, it is our gaze that reveals itself as bestial.

Published in The Voice of Fashion, 17 Sep 2020

Mere saamne wali sarhad par: thoughts on Aisi Taisi Democracy

My piece on the political comedy show 'Aisi Taisi Democracy', published in the Footprints section of the Pakistani newspaper, Dawn. 

I’d almost given up on stand-up comedy, to be honest. The first couple of shows I went to, while at graduate school in New York City, largely passed over my head. I’d like to think the reason wasn’t that I have no sense of humour, but that the humour was firmly rooted in the specific culture and politics of mid-2000s America — and I wasn’t.

When I returned to India, it seemed that stand-up was beginning to be a thing here, too. So I gave it another try. But the comics I heard in Delhi, circa 2007-08, seemed neither sharp nor funny. They had precisely the opposite problem from the Americans I’d heard before — they weren’t rooted enough in contemporary India.

Aisi Taisi Democracy (ATD) doesn’t have that problem. A three-person act made up of Sanjay Rajoura, Varun Grover and Rahul Ram, ATD’s brand of often caustic, unabashedly political humour, delivered in a linguistic mix that is 80 per cent Hindi/Hindustani and maybe 20pc English, is anything but derivative. Rajoura, 42, lives in Delhi and is a full-time comic. Grover, 35, is based in Bombay, where he used to write for television and now does lyrics and scripts for films. Ram, well-known as the lead vocalist and bass guitarist of the band Indian Ocean, came on board last year, when Rajoura and Grover had agreed to combine their acts. “Because Rahul Ram agreed, we had to become more organised. We had a big musician now, so we had to give the show due respect,” Grover told me, characteristically poker-faced. The trio first performed together in Gurgaon last July, and has now done 12 shows across India, playing to full houses everywhere.

Nandini Nair, writing in The Caravan in 2010, pointed out that the Indian-American stand-up comedy scene was dogged by “[j]okes about ‘cheap’ parents, rebirth, recycling, computers, mispronounced names, Indian male ugliness, Indian female beauty, and traffic at home”, highlighting “the homogeneity of the group”. There is indeed a thin line between an appeal to familiarity and a rehashing of stereotype. Humour must be site-specific, and certainly ATD represents a particular subset of urban India. There are references to the Mumbai metro and TGIF; there are swipes at Facebook posts about Father’s Day.

Both Rajoura and Grover, however, bring with them a richness of experience that refuses some flattened idea of the Indian metropolis as unconnected to the hinterland. This is immanent humour, emerging from lives lived at many levels, and often producing almost affectionate insider jokes. If Rajoura draws on his decade-long career as a software engineer to poke fun at the hierarchies and frustrations of the corporate world, Grover’s years growing up in Lucknow and Banaras throw up laugh-out-loud takes on small-town cybercafes and Uttar Pradesh train toilets. Rajoura’s solo acts in the past have focused hilariously on his Jat family background, though the ATD show in Delhi reserved most of its community-centric jokes for Komal Trilok Singh’s opening act, which dwelt lovingly on Sardars/Punjabis (“Other people have sex. We have chicken.”).

The choice of language is crucial, and I was glad to learn that performing in south Mumbai and Bangalore haven’t forced ATD to abandon their wonderful idiomatic Hindi. “We tried translating ourselves into English in Bangalore,” says Grover, “But halfway through the show, we knew the flow wasn’t as good. Never again, we decided.”

What makes ATD stand out, though, are the unapologetic take-downs — and biting send-ups — of contemporary politics. Narendra Modi’s fashion sense, Arvind Kejriwal’s quarrelsomeness, the Ambanis’ philanthropy and our ridiculous defensiveness about Bharatiya sanskriti are all suitably skewered. The songs — performed by Ram, but written by Rajoura and Grover — tick some more political boxes, though with fewer imaginative sparks. A take-off on ‘Barbie Doll’ is called, what else, ‘Babri Doll’. Pakistan comes in for some ribbing, too, mostly aimed at the rocky history of the country’s democracy and the figure of the Pakistan-based terrorist.

“Stand-up is very lucrative in India right now, and if you’re not doing political comedy, then you will make more money, since then you can be invited anywhere,” said Grover. “Taking the risk of offending some people — that’s a gamble few take.” Grover characterised ATD’s politics as anti-establishment, “whether it’s the Indian establishment, the American or the Pakistani”. He continued, “Pakistanis have a great sense of humour — or perhaps just better material for making fun of? I enjoy two Pakistani shows, Hum Sab Umeed Say Hain and Loose Talk. Maybe 20pc of the humour doesn’t reach us, but the rest is common. Our success may be at different levels, but in our failures, we are very similar. And we are here to point out our failures.”

ATD can certainly marshal subcontinental unanimity on our unending supply of corrupt politicians, prying relatives and badly-behaved children. But the ATD song Mere saamne wali sarhad par, kehtein hain ki dushman rehta hai has already elicited a critical Pakistani rejoinder, ‘Aisi Taisi Hypocrisy’, urging Indians to swap easily-made bhai-chara promises for a more honest estimation of popular views on either side. The Pakistani response does cotton on to what might be ATD’s weakest link — that we aren’t as divorced from our politicians as we might want to believe. Perhaps in this respect, ATD could still up their game a bit. And perhaps Pakistan needs to up theirs, too: shouldn’t ‘Aisi Taisi Hypocrisy’ be a full-fledged show?

Published in Dawn, September 22nd, 2015

Graphic Designs

While Germany might be a late starter as a comics nation, India has much to learn from it. (My piece in last week's BL_Ink, drawing on a recent trip to Germany organised by the German Book Office, New Delhi.)

One of the primary aims of the Delhi-based German Book Office (GBO) is to explore different aspects of book publishing in India and find ways of developing them further. A few years ago, for instance, their focus on children’s book publishing led to the establishment of an annual programme called Jumpstart, whose fifth instalment is due to unfold in Delhi and Bangalore at the end of this month. In general, most Indian publishers and editors do not have sufficient opportunities to meet their international counterparts and see how things happen in other markets. As a joint venture between the Frankfurt Book Fair and the Foreign Office, Berlin, the GBO is well-placed to facilitate such contact. With this in mind, it organises an annual editors’ trip to Germany, centred on a different genre each year.

This year, the trip focused on graphic books and young adult (YA) writing, enabling editors from five Indian publishing houses — Penguin Random House, Rupa, Roli, Vani and National Book Trust — to meet representatives of German publishers such as Mosaik, Oetinger, Carlsen, Reprodukt, Carl Hanser, Suhrkamp, S Fischer and Büchergilde.

As presentations and conversations unfolded, it became apparent just how varied and mature German publishing is in these genres, both of which are still nascent in India. German YA fiction, for instance, ranges from tender coming-of-age narratives that take on board issues of race, disability and sexual identity to disturbing, even erotically charged (though not explicit), murder mysteries.

The comic/graphic book scene is even richer. There are independent publishers such as Mosaik, which nurtures the legacy of Abrafaxe, a very popular series that began in East Germany in the 1950s, and Reprodukt, which specialises in graphic novels. There are also larger houses such as Carlsen, which began a Manga imprint in 2000 and also publishes some of the most acclaimed graphic artists, including Isabel Kreitz and Reinhard Kleist.

Considering this range and excellence, it came as a surprise that within the Euro-American universe, Germany is considered a late starter as a comics nation. Andreas Platthaus of the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung argues that the reason for this was, ironically, the historical popularity of picture stories in Germany: humorous illustrated periodicals became popular in the 19th century, and the strength of that tradition made Germans dismissive of American-style comics, even as they spread through Europe in the early 20th century.

Then came the Nazis, who famously ridiculed comics, making it near-impossible for publishers to promote them. Even after 1945, with American occupation, comics did not really take off in Germany (unlike, say, in Japan).

Thus many Germans started out reading comics from Belgium, France and Italy, and their classics such as Asterix and Tintin remain hugely popular. A visit to X-tra Boox, an excellent little comic bookshop in Frankfurt, revealed the German market’s continuing openness to other cultures, with a top floor filled with Manga in translation and a basement devoted to American superheroes.

It was after German reunification in 1990 that the first generation of avant-garde German graphic artists emerged. Anke Feuchtenberger and others became university professors, helping groom a second wave.

“Now we’re into the third wave and the fourth wave,” said Sebastian Oehler of Reprodukt. “At the end of the ’90s, there was a big discussion on whether comics were art. And now the discussion is, are comics literature?” More graphic artists now address ‘serious’ subjects — like Ulli Lust’s Flying Foxes on World War II, or Nicolas Mahler, who has produced graphic versions of Thomas Bernhard’s Old Masters and The Do-gooders.

The trip also provided occasion for the participating Indian editors to discuss the challenges they face. The German comic reader, while exposed to international comics, reads German books avidly. But one of the problems in India, said Ameya Nagarajan of Penguin Random House, is that Indian readers who actually buy graphic novels prefer to buy wellknown Western names, rather than risking money on Indian newbies. And this, as Nagarajan points out, is that small proportion of readers who are visually literate.

Regional runs

The costs of good-quality graphic publishing are also a real hurdle, especially for smaller publishers. “We are bringing out our first graphic book series on Param Vir Chakra bravery award-winners,” said Neelam Narula of Roli Books. “We had published a non-fiction book on the subject earlier, but the author wanted to reach out to a younger age group, 12-18 years. The first two books are doing well. But to sell these 32-page books at ₹100 each, we had to keep our costs down and increase our print runs.”

The situation is even tougher when it comes to publishing in the regional languages. “Visual culture is the next big thing, but it is still not the choice of the masses,” said Aditi Maheshwari of the Hindi publishing major Vani Prakashan. “We’re trying to create a body of work through translation. But we have to create a buzz for each book.” Vani has just released one of the first graphic books in Hindi, in collaboration with the Japan Foundation.

Neerav Sandhya ka Sheher, Sakura ke Desh is the Hindi translation of an award-winning Manga calledTown of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms, on what happened in Hiroshima after the atomic explosion. Also in the pipeline is a Hindi translation of Persepolis.

What about original graphic books in Hindi and other regional languages? “The Vani Foundation has just instituted four ₹20,000 fellowships for writers and illustrators of children’s books,” says Maheshwari. “Selected fellows will get to attend masterclasses at Jumpstart 2014, receive mentoring from Gulzar and Paro Anand, and get a three-book contract with Vani.” It’s going to be a long haul, but it looks like the visual book is here to stay.

(Trisha Gupta is a writer and critic based in Delhi)