But speaking to Baldwin’s point about The Bomb Theory, I was thinking how utterly terrifying this section would be, if we didn’t know anything about vampires.

I think this knowledge defuses the dread and enhances it at the same time. On one hand, we all know what vampires do so it’s more or less a foregone conclusion, but on the other hand WE ALL KNOW WHAT VAMPIRES DO, SO SOMEBODY NAIL THE FREAKING WINDOW SHUT! I agree, it’s a shame we can’t experience this revelation for the first time.

But speaking to Baldwin’s point about The Bomb Theory, I was thinking how utterly terrifying this section would be, if we didn’t know anything about vampires. There are holes on her neck and she keeps losing ALL of her blood? WTF? I mean we don’t actually know that’s what Dracula does yet, right? What a horrifying revelation that would be, the first time.

So I agree somewhat with the Bomb Theory, in the sense that we know he’s a bad guy, but I don’t think we really know he’s a bomb, or how destructive of one, apart from all the vampire baggage we bring to the novel.

However, I have become so maddeningly irritated at Van Helsing’s refusal to tell anyone about Lucy’s condition. Why must everyone stay in suspense? We know he couldn’t tell her mother because of her heart ailment (which seemingly everyone in the Kingdom knew about except Lucy), but why not Dr. Seward and others.

It seems that had others known some simple theories and thoughts of Van Helsing, some of the harm that befell Lucy could have been prevented. Knowing that Lucy has a sickness and knowing that someone is coming into her room every night are two quite different scenarios.

This fact bothers me to no end. Is this Stoker using “suspense” on us again, or is this more a feature of Victorian behavior?

Horror is often given the short-shrift by the literati, but many of the ideas explored in the genre are among the most profound. … If Harker’s discovery had been more along the lines of “oh god I am forty-seven and haven’t achieved my life goals” rather than “uhhh the dude who served me dinner is crawling down the castle wall”, maybe Dracula would receive a bit more respect.

I agree with you in one sense, but disagree with you in another. I think that on some level all good literature aims at confronting our most profound fears; it’s just that the horror genre goes about doing so in a more naked and direct way. The risk, of course, is that the author may go too far over the top. Consider horror films as an example. In a make-believe world where office-worker-by-day-secret-cannibal-by-night-types perform unspeakable acts on human corpses in subterranean lairs while skinning and lobotomizing their victims alive in order to provide themselves with new winter attire, the viewer’s credulity gets stretched so far that s/he’s left wondering whether in fact a comedy hasn’t been rolling the whole time. (Just think: when was the last time you watched a horror film but didn’t laugh?) It just isn’t believable.

Indeed, it’s the mundane and the banal that makes the best material for true horror. I mean, really, what could be more horrifying — and I mean that in the most literal sense of the word — than your first scenario: facing the prospect that one’s life has been a total failure?

ha! (snort)