Okay, here’s the deal: it’s the halfway point between the next Twilight movie and the new season of True Blood. What better time to read the original tale of vampire horror? Even though I adore vampire fiction, books, movies or television, I never thought to read Bram Stoker’s Dracula, because I always assumed that it wouldn’t be scary. You know, like how Edgar Allen Poe is supposed to be scary, but by today’s standards it’s just a story about a raven.
A Quick Summary
The story starts out strong and actually gets pretty creepy at some points. Written in 1897 and published by Bedrick/Blackie, the story begins with Jonathan Harker, a lawyer, traveling to Transylvania to meet the mysterious Count Dracula. Chosen by his boss to aid the Count in his recent London property purchases, he immediately notices that something is not quite right with his gracious host. He never seems to eat. He never sees him before sunset and doesn’t seem to sleep through the night. Also, the Count has no mirrors anywhere in his castle. Even if you had been living under a rock this past century, it’s pretty easy to tell that the Count is a vampire.
There are three subplots that eventually all merge together to make up the entire tale of Dracula. There’s Jonathan, trapped in the Count’s castle. There is Lucy, who falls victim to the vampire when he reaches England. And finally there’s Dr. Stewart who is treating a madman with a strange connection to Dracula. When Mina is bitten and begins to transform herself, the men band together to destroy the ancient evil.
What I Liked About It
Stoker does a brilliant job of building the suspense through Harker’s isolation within the castle. Harker discovers that most of the doors, including the ones that lead outside or locked, and he starts to realize that he is in grave danger. When Harker finally makes his attempt to escape, the reader does not learn his fate until later chapters.
The story is a little choppy at first, because it comprises of different diary entries written by five different characters: Jonathan Harker, Mina Harker, Dr. Stewart, Lucy Westenra, and Dr. Van Helsing (who is nothing like the Hugh Jackman portrayal). The idea behind this is that Mina and Jonathan have collected all the separate entries after the fact, and combined them so that they can share their story. Once all the stories come together, it gets easier to follow, though.
Stoker does a wonderful job and creating a real sense of intrigue and urgency to his novel. With the uncertainty of Jonathan’s fate, and the mysterious illness of Lucy, the reader is pulled into the chilling events. You can’t help but cringe with frustration, though, at Van Helsing’s futile efforts to save the ill-fated Lucy. (For future reference, if your friend starts waking up with bite marks on her necks, and someone tells you not to remove the garlic from her neck while she sleeps, for the love of God, don’t remove the garlic!)
What I Didn't Like About It
After Mina is bitten, though, the story seems to fall apart. What should have been a race against time to save the woman they love becomes page after page of just talking. They talk about their plans to save Mina, they talk about how much they care for Mina, and they talk about what to do if they can’t save Mina. But no one actually does anything until the last fifty pages.
Then Stoker manages to cram together a carriage ride to Transylvania, an encounter with Dracula’s minions, a Gypsy fight, the destruction of Dracula, and the death of one of the characters. All in fifty pages! It would have been so much more engrossing if Stoker had devoted as much time and description to the end of the book as he did to the middle. Instead, I found myself sitting down to it with the same attitude as I had towards algebra homework.
Final Verdict
What impressed me most was Stoker’s talent at creating a horror story that has lasted over a century by using mood and situations, as opposed to actual bloodshed. It would have been easy to simply use blood and gore to set the stage for Dracula’s evil deeds, but Stoker plays on the suspense of the unknown. The only reason the novel loses steam is because, once the vampire’s intent is revealed, Stoker doesn’t seem to know where to go from there.
Bram Stoker’s masterpiece, Dracula, is a remarkable accomplishment and carries just as much weight as any modern vampire fiction. Even though I lost interest halfway through the book, I would still recommend it for anyone jonesing for some vampire action while Sookie and Bill are on hiatus.
Source: Bram Stoker, Dracula, Bedrick/Blackie, 1897.
Leslie Dunnett - My husband and I recently moved to the Northwest Territories, when he was posted to a military detachment. I was unemployed, trapped ...
