#55--Dracula

I’m usually not impressed with the horror classics.  I’ve read The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde twice and thought it was boring both times; and Frankenstein, while a good book, is far too philosophical to be truly scary.  Hollywood has done more to bring terror into that story than the book ever did for me.

I’m happy to say that Bram Stoker’s Dracula is an exceptionally great novel and deserves all the recognition as the horror classic that it is.

The first 50 pages were delightfully creepy and hold back nothing.  You have a haunted castle, man-eating wolves, succubi, crazy locals, and the great vampire himself, Count Dracula.  The narrator of this portion, Jonathan Harker, is a delightful companion to have as he finds himself trapped in a nightmare.  As he slowly realizes that a monumental business trip has ended with him becoming a prisoner, and then from prisoner to being on death row, the claustrophobia and suspicion of madness feels very real and very intense.

And then we leave Transylvania to London very abruptly and for the rest of the book, Dracula barely appears at all.  Instead of being master of the house, he becomes the monster under the bed; you can hear him, smell him, even catch a glimpse of him here and there, but only for a few shocking moments on a page do you actually get to see him as the great demon that he is.  He acts and behaves as a common criminal throughout, sneaking about, trying not to be noticed and yet the whole time, his presence is felt.  One minute it’s sunshine and roses, and the next, there’s an army of rats, mist arising from nowhere, him slipping through the cracks at the bottom of the door, commanding wolves, and of course, the drinking of all that blood!  That’s why vampires became famous.  It’s the soft version of why zombies are terrifying:  It’s all about good old-fashioned cannibalism.

Okay, that’s not all what it’s about.  It’s a draw, but the vampire is much more of a mythical figure.  Taken at face value, Dracula is supernatural tale of dread, and if that’s as far as you want to go, awesome.  It works on that level very well.  But if you’d like to go deeper, here’s some things you can look at as you read.

Dracula is actually a very—dare I say?—religious and, specifically, Christian story.  When we begin in Transylvania, we’re brought into a setting that is primitive, superstitious, and altogether terrified at every passing shadow.  The description is beautiful (Stoker has a wonderful talent for imagery; I felt like I was right there as I read and loved that moody, dark, yet wondrous terrain) and yet the whole time, you feel that there is an ancient being ruling over all.

Count Dracula is a gentlemen, very composed and intelligent, but he is also a king, an ungodly tyrant who takes pleasure in taxing his people by creeping in the night and stealing his citizen’s babies, haunting their every step; he is a being that knows he is master, has been for centuries, and time has seemed to stop.  Nothing of the modern world may enter there.

Then he goes to London, attempting bit by bit to establish a new kingdom there.  His plans begin to work, but he is quickly met by Abraham Van Helsing and his loyal band of friends: Quincey Morris, Lord Godalming, Dr. John Seward, and Jonathan and Mina Harker.

At first, Van Helsing tries to fight Dracula by using the same tactics that the superstitious in Transylvania use to defend themselves: garlic, mountain ash, and the like.  He puts up a valiant fight with those ancient, known defenses, but he’s stymied at every turn and Dracula only seems to gain ground; this is brought home by Van Helsing’s failure to save Lucy Westenra.

Although it’s not stated overtly, Van Helsing and company trade tactics; instead of using the folk remedies, they instead rely on holding the crucifix holy wafers from the Host instead to battle Dracula.  The constantly invoke God on their side, always praying and accepting that after all they can do, they’ll leave it in his hands.  And it’s once they use that that they actually repulse the monster and send him retreating to his homeland in Transylvania.

On the same note, you can make the observation that Dracula could be a commentary on modern versus the ancient.  In Transylvania, Dracula relies on transportation and methods that have stood for years; boats, caravans, and subjects with the crudest of weapons, like knives.  Van Helsing and Co. use trains, steamships, Winchester rifles; in short, the latest of all good technology, and they come out ahead in their war against Dracula.

I was going to make a comment on the use of money, but I don’t really need to say much.  Both Dracula and Van Helsing’s people have it, and a lot of it; the difference is how they spend it and that seems to fall under what I said in the prior paragraph:  Dracula invests in the tried-and-true, while Van Helsing invests in the here-and-now.  Guess which paid off.

As kind of a final note, I am neglecting to mention part of what makes the vampires a terrifying, but also somewhat sexual, monster.  There has always been a terrible sexual undertone with the vampire.  Dracula preys on women, the vampires in Dracula’s castle trying constantly to “kiss” the men on the grounds, and Lucy Westenra, after she turns, preys on the young and helpless.  There is much talk about purity in this story and how those touched by the vampire are “unclean.”

I could make much of the fact that part of the reason for Lucy Westenra’s downfall was that she was kind of loose.  While she technically remained chaste for the course of the story, she was a ridiculous flirt, getting three marriage proposals in one day, and during the blood transfusions, Stoker makes an interesting comment how all those who donated blood to her were somehow her husbands (read the book to understand; it’s really weird, but it makes a horrible kind of sense within the rules of this story.)  That she was kind of a wild woman could be part of the subtext of why she fell completely in Dracula’s clutches.

Mina Harker, on the other hand, was completely faithful to only one man in the whole story, and even when Dracula attacked and cursed her, she survived because she remained true to the end.

All fun things to think about when going through this story.  It is over a century old and was written in a time with a much different culture than the one we live in now.  Although maybe not as different as we think.  Otherwise, could this story last as long as it has and still be relevant?

Before I finish, I have to say that I loved the character of Renfield.  He’s the mad patient John Seward looks after.  While I found his madness intriguing—I’ve never heard of a zoophagous before, but the study was very cool—his place in the story was inspired.  I knew that he was going to play some key role in ruining things for the hero, but I didn’t guess what small part he was going to play in that.  When Renfield does help Dracula, it is one of the cleverer twists that I could have imagined, and shows an even spookier side of Dracula than I had pictured.  One of the powers Dracula has that is overlooked in many modern vampire tales is his power over the verminous animals, and one that has incredible potential few ever take advantage of.

Verdict:  Glad I read before I died.  Very, very glad I read it.