Here we are in the Halloween week of the year. I enjoy adding suitably dark or spooky reads to the blog right about now, and having deferred Bram Stoker's vampiric masterpiece for years, I've knocked it off at last.
MY THOUGHTS:
This classic was first published in 1897, the late Victorian era when 'Invasion Literature' about monstrous beings converging on the British Empire had gained a fair bit of traction. Perhaps the Brits grappled with dread that the nations they'd colonized and subjugated might rise up in protest. Maybe it was a dose of conscience seeping out through the pages of the time period's fiction.
The story begins with a young solicitor named Jonathan Harker, on his way to a castle in Transylvania. He intends to act as estate agent to Count Dracula, a new client who wishes to purchase a London property. Jonathan's first impressions of his scrupulously polite host are a bit icky; pointy teeth, hairy palms, and rancid breath. But since the guy can't help that, Jonathan brushes off his misgivings until the creepy vibes amp up one hundred fold.
As well as banning mirrors from his castle, the count leaves no reflection in Jonathan's shaving mirror (gulp). He shuns daylight, slips lizard-like down the wall on gruesome moonlit errands, spends daylight hours concealed in a secret place, and it turns out he's keeping Jonathan prisoner (argh!) The young hero escapes in the nick of time, but not soon enough to prevent unleashing Count Dracula on the world. Jonathan's fiance, Mina, finds him a wreck of his former self, suffering from short term amnesia. But Jonathan has kept a journal of all that happened, so horrific memories soon come rushing back to him.
Mina's great friend, Lucy, (surely one of the most doomed female characters in Vic Lit), becomes the count's first English victim. Perhaps Dracula has chosen the wrong person to follow his footsteps into the realm of the Un-Dead, for those who love Lucy are determined to stalk the Count and finish him off for good.
It's an all-star cast, fully aware that separately, their strength is far punier than that of the hideous vampire who's been wreaking havoc for centuries. But together, with the aid of their garlic plants and holy relics, they're a force to be reckoned with. Plus, they each have what could be regarded as a 'super power' of their own.
There is Dr John Seward, a handsome young director of a lunatic asylum, who understands the deviant mind to a certain extent, and his charismatic Dutch mentor, Professor Abraham Van Helsing, expert in philosophy and metaphysics. Also on hand is Lucy's devastated fiance, Arthur, whose 'strength' is his family background. Strategically dropping Arthur's aristocratic name often opens doors, and not merely coffin lids. Then there's his American friend, Quincey Morris, who is big and brave, because he's a Texan.
Naturally the young Harker couple is eager to step up too. But a potential fly in everyone's ointment is Mr Renfield, one of Seward's most challenging mental patients. You'll get the irony of my statement when you meet him. From now on, I'll never hear the kids' rhyme about the old woman who swallowed a fly without thinking of this guy.
Mina Harker is a stand-out character for me, with her warm heart and super secretarial skills. Driven by her desire to help and armed with her trusty typewriter and shorthand pad, this girl is a legend. But she has to contend with a well-intentioned but sexist plan to shield her from danger when the crunch comes. Concensus rules that Van Helsing will be aided solely by his boy brigade (Jonathan, John, Arthur, and Quincey.) Yet we readers wait for whatever underhanded shot the count will take at Mina while their backs are turned.
(Being a Victorian novel, of course it's riddled with sexism all the way through. Near the very start, when Jonathan takes a fancy to a Chicken Paprika dish he tries in Budapest, his default reaction isn't, 'I'll try making that myself.' Rather, he adds a 'note to self' style observation that he must remember to tell Mina so she can track down a recipe and make it for him.)
I'm not really sure why I'm giving this doorstop four stars, since horror is not my favorite genre. It may be partly the scenic tour we get through the pages, which reminds me of a Ticket to Ride game spread out on its board. The great teamwork also gets my thumbs up, although you can probably smell everyone coming, with all that garlic they're forced to carry around. Jonathan and Mina's devotion to each other is lovely, and so is the paternal way Van Helsing treats all his proteges. ('And now, Arthur my friend, dear lad, am I forgiven?')
The unintentional Victorian comedy tickles my fancy too. There is something very droll about the idea of the Count flitting around doing castle drudgery behind Jonathan's back, to create the illusion that he operates a castle full of staff. Count Dracula gets caught making Jonathan's bed, so I guess he must've mastered the knack of perfectly tucked-in sheets, not a bad effort for someone who sleeps in a lined coffin.
I'll finish off with the sweeping praise of Mina from Professor Van Helsing, one of her biggest fans. 'She is one of God's women, fashioned by his own hand to show us men and other women that there is a heaven where we can enter, and that its light can be here on earth. So true, so sweet, so noble, so little an egoist - and that, let me tell you, is much in this age so skeptical and selfish.'
Wow, compliments have lost so much finesse since the Victorian era, and perhaps that's why I enjoy reading these classics.
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