With the reading of Dracula concluded, the Guides will spend the week discussing the novel in roundtable format. This is the first of four parts.
What were your exceptions going in? Did the novel meet or defy them?
Matthew Baldwin: Having previously read a number of olde tymey adventure novels (Frankenstein, Man in the Iron Mask, and even Moby Dick to some degree), I expected there to be a fair amount of action embedded in long, florid, and somewhat dull (to my tastes) passages, along with occasional digressions that dead-end in a cul-de-sac of superfluousness. So I was kind of surprised that the story was mostly linear and focused. If anything, it was a bit too focused, with Van Helsing often using an astonishing quantity of verbiage and time to divulge even the most mundane of details. Sometimes it was like listening to a guy who is way too enthusiastic about a hobby go on and on about it.
Kevin Fanning: I touched on this a little in my first post, but this book really went against my expectations. I haven’t read a lot of Victorian literature, so I was expected something really sterile and dry, nowhere near the level of vampire gore I’m used to. So I was really extremely surprised by how quickly it gets genuinely creepy. When this book is good, it’s extremely good.
MB: The amazing qualities of the first four chapters almost worked against the novel, as their promise of a real potboiler was not always fulfilled. But I thought it was pretty engrossing through-and-through.
Claire Zulkey: I remember enjoying it the first time I read it which I think was in late grade school or early high school. Both times I marveled at the concept of having the story be told only in correspondence, memos, official documents and published stories.
I do remember not enjoying the last third of the book as much as the first two and a few people who had read the book recently also felt that way, so I was surprised to find that I actually was more into the book towards the end than last time, neverending monologues from Van Helsing not withstanding.
KF: But I will cast my lot in with those who are disappointed with the last third of the book. It was a bit of a slog at the end, but I was delighted that it wasn’t a slog all the way through.
MB: Yes, I don’t fault the many filmmakers who, in adapting the book for the screen, have felt the need to “punch up” the ending a tad.
KF: I tried to rent Bram Stoker’s Dracula this weekend but it was all rented out. Super sad. I really cannot wait to see it again.
CZ: In case you were wondering what happens in “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” that does not happen in the book, here are a few:
- Mina hooks up with Dracula.
- Mina hooks up with Van Helsing.
- Dracula cries like a baby when Mina gets married although you’d think that since he is already the undead evil conventions like marriage wouldn’t matter to him.
- Dr. Seward hooks up with Lucy
- Lucy gets boned, big time, by Dracula as a wolf-man.
There are more but those are a few standouts.
“Bram Stoker’s Dracula” is available over at hulu right now: http://www.hulu.com/watch/104930/bram-stokers-dracula
Excellent.
Thanks, Martha! My DVD player broke and I haven’t got a new one, and all this week I’ve been wanting to watch the movie. While reading the book I kept waiting for Dracula, wearing super cool sunglasses, to have his absinthe date with Mina.
Matthew, I agree: the first four chapters were so creepy I was a bit disappointed in the rest of the novel. But it was entertaining.
You are all getting at something I couldn’t get over as I read the last 2/3rds of the book … that had this been a movie, we would have seen writer credits for Bram Stoker and then like three other writers brought in by the producers about halfway through first shooting to holy things up a little.
Through Harker’s writings, Stoker begins writing a compelling tale of how what we fear, who we love, and what we do are inextricably linked to each other. But then as we draw on to a conclusion which could have been much more ambiguous (and in my way of thinking rewarding), we get the spirituoquackery and pontification from the hired gun. After the creepfest that was the first four chapters, Stoker must have really changed how he felt about Harker to place all the story’s momentum in the hands of the pendantic deus ex machina that is Van Helsing.
Do I really think Stoker had to submit to re-writes to get his piece published? No. But what if Stoker showed the first four chapters to his employer/braughheem Sir Henry , who suggested he might butch it up a little with the addition of a boorish Dutchman?
Yeah, the book definitely felt like it wandered off a bit. Fun read though.
I think it’s safe to say that the films are more interesting than the book. Not that it isn’t a great piece of fiction, but since we all knew about Dracula through zillion of interpretive portrayals, when getting to the original source, the whole idea about Dracula as an anti-hero isn’t as fleshed out as in films. It was kind of like reading the Bible’s New Testament and realizing that there isn’t that much info in there about Jesus. At least not as much as one would think. But it started a dominant world religion. Also see Star Wars Boba Fett.
MB: The amazing qualities of the first four chapters almost worked against the novel, as their promise of a real potboiler was not always fulfilled. But I thought it was pretty engrossing through-and-through.
I was looking forward to the rest of the novel continuing at this pace as well. I tore through the first Harker sections in no time, then felt like I had to force through the rest.
It was still an immensely enjoyable read.
So what’s next for Infinite Summer? People have been asking on the forums, but, strangely, no one’s replied.
I was going to ask the same thing. May I suggest Great Expectations by Dickens, which is (1) generally considered a classic (2) relatively short and, as coincidences go, (3) on my reading list anyway?
[...] great David Foster Wallace. They followed that up with reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and that’s just wound up too. Anyone across the world who wants to join in can, reading a set amount of pages each day, [...]