Dracula
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| By Adymark (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0-ro], via Wikimedia Commons |
Is there anyone who hasn't heard of Bram Stoker's gothic classic? My first real introduction was the book Sherlock Holmes Versus Dracula, which I enjoyed and plan to re-read. (Fortunately, however, the story did not leave enough impression upon me to give me any spoilers.) My tendency to avoid ghost and vampire stories, as well as my preconceptions of the character, made me wait so long to read Dracula proper. Which, as I've found out, is a real shame, since I liked it so much I'm giving it 4.3 out of 5 stars.
This is a quite a page-turner of a book, formatted in letters, diary entries, newspaper articles, and telegrams. It takes place in the same era and setting as Sherlock Holmes, and the protagonists use such technology as portable typewriters and phonographs to make audio recordings. I thought that was pretty cool. Suffice it to say Dracula is pretty contemporary for its day, and you get that feeling even as a modern-day reader.
The characters were really good. Jonathan Harker, young and initially naive; John Seward, the doubting man of science; Quincey Morris, the good-natured Texan; and Arthur Holmwood, who finds out he has more courage than he could have fathomed. For most of the book, I also liked Mina, Jonathan's wife. Mina is very intelligent and analytical, "not of a fainting disposition", and even more fearless of death than any of the men, but when they insist she stay home and rest, she humours them.
And Dracula? Oddly enough, he is gets very little "screen time", though when he is around he is certainly sinister enough to make up for it. In case you were wondering, there is no conceivable way to have a crush on the real (book) Dracula. He is nasty and repulsive from beginning to end. He is not at all attractive. He does not sparkle in the sunlight, and when he has eaten he's hideously bloated. Pop culture would tell us there are romantic connotations to vampires, but in this book, Dracula himself isn't much like that. He's chiefly interested in survival and gaining/keeping power. This is one reason I liked this book--vampires are not good guys or romantic interests.
Another reason--Van Helsing. Most of the book, he is a truly great character. He appreciates science, but he never puts all his faith in science. "For in this enlightened age, when men believe not even what they see, the doubting of wise men would be his [Dracula's] greatest strength." Van Helsing understands that man can't make it on his own, that evil will inevitably overpower our puny science and we must trust God to save us from spiritual disaster. Van Helsing is willing to give his life to stop the spread of vampirism, and yet he's still human, dueling with temptation and prone to hysteria. He's got plenty of nerve, but it's fragile nerve. And, as a somewhat frail, elderly character, he's the perfect antagonist to the unnaturally energetic, artificially youthful Dracula.
In short, Dracula is highly symbolic fantasy to be read with a grain of salt. The first 2/3 of the book were epic and hard to put down. None of the book was really scary, but it does keep you wondering what Dracula, a kind of serial killer, will do next. There were some really great scenes, and perhaps the most nerve-wracking were the blood transfusions. Probably my favorite part--it was a very eerie way of showing Dracula's power.
The last 1/3 of the book, as I half-expected, was not so great. I attribute it mainly to Stoker's addiction to milking the pathos for all it's worth. He couldn't seem to be satisfied with the brilliance he achieved in the first 2/3, so to take it up (or down!) several notches, he went way too far (in my opinion). The good guy started to take the "end justifies the means" approach, which was cheesy and bothered me a lot.
Then the thing that bothered me the most was how one of the characters, having been forced into slowly becoming a vampire, was supposedly "unclean" and "outcast from God", even though they still maintained their faith and were not a vampire yet. Even taken symbolically, this doesn't seem very Biblical, the idea that being the weak, unwilling victim of some evil still separates them from God. Now, if you really want to get analytical, you could interpret this as an allegory of original sin and say that the ending/climax of the book--in which the character is freed--can be viewed as symbolism for salvation. Even that's doubtful, though, since the victim was a victim, not a rebel; and apart from that, it's still a stretch, especially since up until then Dracula reads as symbolic of temptation in general, not a large-scale allegory. Hence, read with a large grain of salt and don't look for accurate allegory.
How, then, can I rate Dracula so highly? Because I found it, overall, unexpectedly inspiring and deep. It was not the twisted romance story or questionable ghost story one would expect. It's a book about loathsome evil that is portrayed as such. It's about men and woman who love each other as brothers and sisters and will fight to the death to protect each other from a vampire's possession. It's about "the curse of immortality" and how natural death is favorable to an "undead" prolonged life. And it's about trusting in God and bracing yourself against temptation, even if you must brutally distance yourself from someone you love. I don't know if I've ever read a piece of literature which emphasized that so forcibly.
The sentiments behind the book and the characters' undaunted trust made Dracula worthwhile for me. From a Christian perspective, what faults I found in the book also worked to inspire me, because they made me think. Yes, the protagonists' great fear is to be attacked by a vampire and become, as they think, spiritually outcast. But the real world isn't like that. I believe we have free will; we don't have to live in fear of being forced to do evil, and when we do our utmost to follow God, He will protect us. There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. (I Corinthians 10:13) Fantasy's limits can never do justice to our beautiful reality.
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