#95: The Woman in White

As you may have noticed, The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins, nearly single-handedly destroyed my blog.  Okay, so maybe kids, work, house, pets, and an overgrown garden played their parts, but The Woman in White had her ghostly hands around the neck of The Book Club Book and squeezed.  Luckily, months later, I was able to pry her white fingers away and pump some life back into the nearly-dead, motionless body of this blog.

Why is The Woman in White so detrimental to The Book Club Book, you ask?  Well, because it’s just not that remarkable.  The prospect of filling a whole blog post with ramblings of a book that I don’t really care about, I knew, would do nothing more than lull the reader and the writer (me) to sleep.  And who wants to write about a boring book when there are so many other lovely, more exciting books to read!?  Let it die, I told myself.  If these are the kinds of books I’m going to have to write about, then I might as well let it die. 

But I’m just not the type to give up easily, albeit it may take me several months of dodging the battle before I decide to join the war.  I never forget, and darn that Woman in White!  I just could not let her win!  My revenge is to write as short of a review as possible, because honestly, I feel that is all this book deserves.  And Dear Reader, I feel much more of a commitment to entertain you than I do to give homage to poor Wilkie Collins.

Let me first add the disclaimer that I (gasp) have never really cared for mystery books.  So what if this book started a genre?  It reads just like most other mysteries (yawn).  Woman is wronged, man outwits and defeats the bad guy, right after his diabolical plan is revealed.  People die along the way.  Blah, blah, blah.  If you like mysteries, in which the outcome always, always is assured, you will like this book.  If you don’t, well, then, don’t bother—unless you want to be well-read and brag to your friends that you’ve read “One of The Greatest Classics of All Time”, you arrogant shrew.

What's Next?

Truthfully, I’ve read The Woman in White twice now, straining to gather a deeper meaning to present to you, and I still cannot garner anything worthwhile.  I couldn’t even muster together a witty quiz to salvage it all.  Hopefully, my next book, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger will fare better in my estimation.  Don’t worry, Dear Reader, I’ve already read it.  And I promise you, my next review will not be filled with complaints.  Sorry, no preview for this one.  Rumors of film adaptations of this book have been circulated for years and years, but so far, none have come into fruition.

#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!

#99: The Hound of the Baskervilles

Sherlock Holmes!  Who doesn't love him?  His first chronicled mystery appeared in 1887 and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle thereafter featured his famous creation in 55 short stories and four novels, the third novel being The Hound of the Baskervilles.  Even today, Holmes' infamy lives on in Hollywood (though I still think Robert Downey, Jr. is an odd choice to the play the lead).  But what makes this famous detective so intriguing, so apart from the rest?  Well, The Hound of the Baskervilles will do little to enlighten you.  With so many publications behind him, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle must have felt that repetition of Holmes' past successes, habits, and personality were unnecessary.  In fact, I could not find one single, clear description of the detective in the entire book!  You are merely left with the impression, mainly from Watson, that Sherlock Holmes is a great man, worthy of respect in every way.

And oh, it was such a fun, chilling mystery!  The mystery of Holmes' character, however, must stay unresolved...for now.

What I Loved...
was the scenery.  Forget the hell hound, with descriptions like this, who wouldn't suspect that sinister, supernatural forces were afoot?

From the end of it a small wand planted here and there showed where the path zigzagged from tuft to tuft of rushes among those greenscummed pits and foul quagmires which barred the way to the stranger. Rank reeds and lush, slimy water-plants sent an odour of decay and a heavy miasmatic vapour onto our faces, while a false step plunged us more than once thighdeep into the dark, quivering mire, which shook for yards in soft undulations around our feet. Its tenacious grip plucked at our heels as we walked, and when we sank into it it was as if some malignant hand was tugging us down into those obscene depths, so grim and purposeful was the clutch in which it held us. Once only we saw a trace that someone had passed that perilous way before us. From amid a tuft of cotton grass which bore it up out of the slime some dark thing was projecting. 

 And then, when we do finally meet the infamous hound, what a fiendish creature!

 A hound it was, an enormous coal-black hound, but not such a hound as mortal eyes have ever seen. Fire burst from its open mouth, its eyes glowed with a smouldering glare, its muzzle and hackles and dewlap were outlined in flickering flame. Never in the delirious dream of a disordered brain could anything more savage, more appalling, more hellish be conceived than that dark form and savage face which broke upon us out of the wall of fog.

And we can't forget my dear, Watson.  At least in this Sherlock Holmes' mystery--in which Holmes' presence was felt more than seen--Watson is my favorite!  Even Sherlock Holmes holds him in the highest esteem:

‘If my friend would undertake it there is no man who is better worth having at your side when you are in a tight place. No one can say so more confidently than I.’

What I Hated...
was the fact that Holmes and Watson had little evidence that the diabolical Mr. Stapleton met his demise in a quagmire, yet they accept this theory without hesitation.  This is the first and only Holmes' mystery I have read, but I would be disappointed to find that Mr. Stapleton does not make another appearance to enact his revenge somewhere down the road.  If he does, then all is forgiven.  If not, I'm disappointed, Holmes.  I'm afraid we have a mass murderer on the loose.  What was it that Stapleton said?  

‘That is the great Grimpen Mire,’ said he. ‘A false step yonder means death to man or beast. Only yesterday I saw one of the moor ponies wander into it. He never came out. I saw his head for quite a long time craning out of the boghole, but it sucked him down at last. Even in dry seasons it is a danger to cross it, but after these autumn rains it is an awful place. And yet I can find my way to the very heart of it and return alive.'

 Yes, that's right.  He's an expert at finding his way through the mire...You let the villain escape, Holmes!!

What's Next?
Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers.  Isn't it sad when you've read so many books that you aren't certain if you have already read something?  I have a fairly decent knowledge of the plot, but this could be because I actually have read the book, or because I have seen these characters parodied in everything from cartoons to sitcoms.  Oh well, I will be sure to give you the verdict in about four days!