#97: Dracula

I want to be Dracula...on one condition.  Yeah, I don't want to turn evil and drink people's blood.  But who wouldn't want to fly, see in the dark, turn into a mist or bring on lightning, direct animals, mind read, slip through cracks in doors, and wield the strength of 20 men?  This guy is almost a super hero!

But seriously, Dracula terrifies me.  When I was a kid, I was certain that Dracula planned to creep into my room while I slept alone in my bed.  To ward him off, I could not rest unless I had a blanket covering my throat--even on the hottest of nights.  It isn't that I thought a flimsy ol' blanket would stop Dracula, but I knew he would have to move it out of the way to expose my neck, and I would wake up and have a chance to defend myself.  How I would fight him, once awake, did not ever seem to enter my mind.

Take the Can You Defeat Dracula? Quiz.

There's just something about sleep that can be so terrifying (especially to a young, imaginative child).  In sleep, we lie amongst our universe completely comatose and unaware to all the evil that may hide in the shadows and surprise us at any moment.  I wonder how many cases of somniphobia Bram Stoker's creation has induced since Dracula was first published in 1897.

Sadly, people began losing sleep long before Dracula ever entered the scene.  The idea of vampires didn't originate with Bram Stoker.  The legends and folklore of the nasferatu were passed around before time was even recorded, most notably in Eastern Europe.  Consequently, it provides the perfect backdrop for Castle Dracula.

What I Loved...
was the gore!  Nothing is more disgusting to me than open, gushing veins, twisted and splintered limbs, unraveled intestines, or severed spinal cords.  I am shivering just to write the very words!  So, why do I love to torture myself by reading Jonathan's assessment of Count Dracula after a meal?

There lay the Count, but looking as if his youth had been half restored. For the white hair and moustache were changed to dark iron-grey. The cheeks were fuller, and the white skin seemed ruby-red underneath. The mouth was redder than ever, for on the lips were gouts of fresh blood, which trickled from the corners of the mouth and ran down over the chin and neck. Even the deep, burning eyes seemed set amongst swollen flesh, for the lids and pouches underneath were bloated. It seemed as if the whole awful creature were simply gorged with blood. He lay like a filthy leech, exhausted with his repletion.

Doesn't that make you want to throw up?  But also, don't you just want to read more?  Of course you do, and Bram Stoker will not disappoint you.  You are sure to feel nauseous several times while reading this book, and yet, I can't get enough!  I have no explanation for my sick fascination and love affair with horror fiction, but chances are, you love it just as much as I do, or Dracula wouldn't be so popular today.

I also loved Van Helsing's speeches.  He wasn't always the most straightforward fellow, but you've got to admire the means by which he makes his point.

‘My friend John, when the corn is grown, even before it has ripened, while the milk of its mother earth is in him, and the sunshine has not yet begun to paint him with his gold, the husbandman he pull the ear and rub him between his rough hands, and blow away the green chaff, and say to you, ‘Look! He’s good corn, he will make a good crop when the time comes.’

Dr. John Seward spends a good portion of the book in confusion because Van Helsing speaks by way of  quaint, little riddles.  Some trouble may have been prevented had he been clearer.  But how does one tell another of something they know to be true, but of which they know their friend will not believe?  Bram Stoker may have uncovered the true motivation for the metaphor!

What I Hated...
was the ending! (Beware: If you haven't read it, or seen the movie, or realized that Dracula dies, I am posting the ending, and I don't want you to cry that I am giving it away, so stop reading now!)


As I looked, the eyes saw the sinking sun, and the look of hate in them turned to triumph.
But, on the instant, came the sweep and flash of Jonathan’s great knife. I shrieked as I saw it shear through the throat. Whilst at the same moment Mr. Morris’s bowie knife plunged into the heart. It was like a miracle, but before our very eyes, and almost in the drawing of a breath, the whole body crumbled into dust and passed from our sight. I shall be glad as long as I live that even in that moment of final dissolution, there was in the face a look of peace, such as I never could have imagined might have rested there.

Yeah, that's it.  No last struggle.  No flowery description.  No dying scream or threatening words to drag them all to Hell with him.  They simply find Count Dracula in his box, stab him, and he turns to dust.  Superhuman Dracula's reign was brought down in 2.3 seconds.  It is too disappointing on so many levels!  It's like when you find out your favorite athlete has been taking steroids.  It's like Popeye before he chugs a can of spinach!  It would have been much more exciting if the sun had set, and they had been forced to hunt down Dracula at the height of his power.  Had things turned out differently, I may have been reading  this book much later in the year when I will get to the very, very best on the top 100 list!

See if you can kill Dracula so easily in the Can You Defeat Dracula? Quiz!

What's Next?
It turns out that the Czechs are pretty protective of their books, and you can't find an ebook of the The Good Soldier Svejk anywhere.  Oh, thank you, Amazon, for your easy access to bookstores throughout the world for I now hold in my grubby hands an excellent-condition hardcover.  It isn't loaded with pictures, but the pictures it has give it the appearance of a comic book.  I'm excited for some light, Czechoslovakian military humor, circa 1923.  I couldn't get through Dracula fast enough!  

Get a sneak peak and watch a trailer for The Good Soldier Shweik!