 |
| This book has sharp teeth. |
This book has sharp teeth.
Jonathan Harker, an Englishman, travels alone to Transylvania, Romania, in the hope to broker a deal with Count Dracula (a name, owing to the successful legacy of the true horror icon, one naturally doesn’t trust from the start) to purchase a house in England.
Attacked by wolves, and beset by strange glowing auras in the night, the journey proves arduous and tiring. Upon reaching Dracula’s castle, the all too welcoming, and creepily polite, Count Dracula insists upon Jonathan recuperating with food and a warm bed for the evening— an offer Jonathan is all too happy to accept. It doesn’t take long for things to get vampirey though, and for Jonathan to understand that one night turns into an indefinite imprisonment. We follow the story intimately through Jonathan Harker’s (and as the book continues, a few friends too) diary entries; a format, I believe, compliments the horror genre.
We all know the Dracula story in some format or another, whether it be through the Tree House of Horror, or some other animated Halloween special. One of my personal favorites: the Buffy Vs Dracula episode from Buffy the vampire slayer. Not to mention plays, puppet shows (the count from Sesame Street comes to mind), a chocolate cereal box character, and not forgetting my first stint with Dracula… Count Duckula! His story has been told and retold several hundred times since the book was released in 1897. A character almost ingrained in our human DNA.
So before picking up this book, my head was already filled with these misconceptions, it was nice to read and relieve my brain of the embellishments put there by TV, cinema, etc. Imagine my shock when the line “I vont to suck your blood!” was never uttered.
Strangely though, there were parts that shocked me. The ending, which I won't spoil, was different from how I pictured it to be. I always thought Jonathan Harker and Van Helsing were the main boys, but it’s Jonathan’s wife Mina who steals the show, and I believe the story belongs to Mina in the end.
I also haven’t seen many Dracula adoptions where he could crawl up and down walls in lizard fashion— that was new to me. But you have your fan favorites in here, sharp teeth, no reflection in a mirror, garlic, garlic, and more garlic. There’s also a surprising amount of decapitations.
It’s not a perfect read. There are a lot of pointless scenes and anecdotes. I’m pretty certain Van Helsing’s accent changes a third way through the book too; it’s almost unbearable when he goes off on one of his ceaseless explanations at that point. Also, in the last third, there’s so much planning before taking action. I felt like it could have been condensed to 300-odd pages, not 400. But hey, I’m no editor.
But the scene where Dracula’s boat makes it to Whitby, England is the most enjoyable description of a storm I have ever read. I loved that chapter. Also, everything that happens in Dracula’s castle in the first 60 pages was just fascinating reading. Bram Stoker was truly a genius, and it’s quite right we have an annual horror writers award named after him.
It sounds trite, but it truly is a must-read for any horror— and let me use another cliche: it’s a classic for a reason.
