Down For The Count ?

Are we really done already? I should think not.

1) Mina Harker really does kick ass. She's some kind of crazy riot grrrl and I just dug her. Every time the guys think she's too weak or not worldly enough to handle the "man stuff" they suffer for neglecting her. It seems awfully progressive.

2) Wasn't Renfield just the best? Although I never imagine Keanu Reeves as Jon Harker I always see Tom Waits as R.M. Renfield. Always. I can totally imagine Seward sitting in his office hearing Renfield down in his cell singing "The Earth Died Screaming" or "Clap Hands." But that's just me.

3) also just me (in a Crisis Intervention Team member sense) was the irritation I had with the appalling condition of the mental hospital. Sure, it was probably a lot more fact than fictional but still. We've come a long way. Then again today Renfield would have been chemically restrained with Haldol and Ativan then discharged later with some Risperdal or Zyprexa. Chances are he'd stop taking them and he'd be back into the story at about the right point. Oh well, six of one…

4) When in Dublin you have to visit St Michan's Church. You can tell folks you want to see the organs that Handel composed "The Messiah" on but really you'll want to tour the basement vaults which contain mummified remains, one of which you'll be allowed to touch for luck. I think the guide dude (imagine a cross between the Lucky Charms leprechaun and Arthur Fonzarelli) told us that Bram Stolker took his more gruesome imagery of the Count from the remains there but that may well be a big fat lie for the tourists. Still, any chance to see dead people, that's my motto.

5) I sort of had this moment when Lucy was writing to Mina about all of her proposals where I wondered what Lucy's mom was thinking. I can image her telling Linda Richmond on Coffee Talk something like "Oy, I said 'Lucy, bubele, you turned down a proposal from a doctor? Don't be meshugeneh., you're killing your mother."

No, it never said Lucy's mom spoke broken Yiddish but we all take our own bags on this trip, right?

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Good to the Last Drop

I read Dracula as a teenager for entertainment but this time I got into the language. Although Dracula wasn't the first vampire story around it's definitely the most influential and its characters have shown up so often in other literature, movies, television shows, art, music, fashion, and breakfast cereal that I had forgotten how the whole thing played out.

This is a terribly clever story.

As Joc has mentioned, you think you are getting a simple "guy falls down a well into evil" story with Jonathan Harker but then leaves his tale as a literal cliffhanger.

Then it turns to a whodunit locked-room murder mystery involving Lucy and all her men.

And then… it turns into a horror story about vampires (with a little serial killer action thrown in by the recently-late Lucy). But it's not all about pure horror since Stoker threw a bunch of current science and technology at us. Call it sci-fi then. Enter Jonathan again but only as Mina's sidekick. Mina is the real star of the show.

And then... it turns into the equivalent of an action-adventure story with the big car-chase at the end.

Yet… and here's where my first thoughts led me after the ending… it doesn’t end with a big dramatic fight scene at the end. Remember - I had already read the book, I should know exactly how it ends but I still expected a huge Jerry Bruckheimer ending.

But Dracula doesn’t die with a roar but with a whimper. The end was another changeroo.

Mina makes the point that while all the guys think Dracula is evil, Evil, EVIL, he's as trapped as she is and he appears grateful at the end that he's finally going to die.

So really it's a win-win. Except for Quincy who might as well have been wearing a red Star Fleet shirt from the get-go.

I really enjoyed the book and I liked the clever ending with the "hey, this is all true but we have no proof so you decide for yourself," but did anyone else get that feeling of "um, wait, so that's all?" with regard to the death of the Count?

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sex and the vampire

#4 Discuss the role of sexuality in Dracula. Would you say that Dracula attempts to reproduce himself sexually or by some other means? In what ways does the figure of Dracula subvert conventional notions of heterosexuality? Consider, for instance, his predilection for drinking blood and his habit of making his victims feed from his chest.

this is one of the reading group questions from the back of the book. maybe i'm a dummy, but this one seemed to have some obvious answers to me, so i'm attacking it (pun attended). when i was typing this into a draft post, i was looking forward to what this question might lead to as far as plot points. at this point, it was just jonathan harker hanging out(1) with old creepy mccreeperson dracula, and i thought for sure it was going to be *his* life hanging in the balance while everyone ran around trying to save his ass.

but no. it never turns out that way. i don't know how dracula ever subverts conventional notions of heterosexuality in this particular book. i've heard that dracula is totally sexy (2) and will basically charm the pants off (the blood out of?) anyone, regardless of their sexual orientation, but he's pretty much only hitting up the ladies in this book. am i wrong? i tend to read really fast, but he taps lucy, mina and he's got the three vampy ghost broads in the drac-house.

i guess he makes a run at jonathan, but that doesn't really last. in fact, he obviously gets let go (1) and ends up back with his peeps. so when else is he trying to hit up on some guys in this book? the only other time he deals with a dude, he fucks renfield UP!

as far as drinking blood, why is that fucking with heterosexuality? again, we only ever get allusions to it in this particular version. there's not really even too many good descriptions of teeth to neck or sexy bites or kisses, as far as i can tell. there's more god and religion talk, if anything. or husband and wife-ing. oh husband this, oh lover, that. oh good wife, this, oh forever, that.

i didn't do the 'anne rice thing,' but i'd guess she's got some good boy on boy neck sucking. oh, and i didn't know the thing about him making people feed from his chest. i thought he just sort of drained people dry(ish).

(1) what was the point of the jonathan harker visit? to establish how creepy dracula is/was? cause he just ends up getting out with no damage done? and how does *that* happen? there's no mention of that, either. he just skips out of there? and why? why doesn't dracula vampire-ize him?

(2) this dracula doesn't seem sexy AT ALL. at all. he seems more like count chocula than sexy sexy.

thoughts?

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it's really not all about me ...

but i'm done with that book. where's everyone else? man, i swear my life has been overtaken with bats, vampires and the like lately. i'm sort of ready to move on. unless of course, the next book is bat related, and then i'm in!

so, i'm interested to hear what eric's last chapter thing is, and there were reading group questions at the back of my book ... i don't remember if they were that good -- i typed them into a draft post.

anyone is welcome to throw up a post with a topic of discussion. so go to it. we can ring in here to see who's finished, and if we're mostly done, we can go. so far we have margaret, jen, eric, crowley, julene, and adrian (adam is sitting this one out), right? am i missing anyone? there are other authors, but i don't know if anyone is officially participating yet.

so, that's that.

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spiffin' it up

i added great expectations to our 'books we've read' list on the sidebar. also, just to get things rolling, i added "chicagoist" to the "things we're interested in" list on the sidebar. if you need help knowing how to add to those things, let me know. i want full group participation on the blog ... feel free to add things to the lists and stuff!!

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the hits keep on coming

welcome to adam! another new member of the blog! was talking about it last night, and he's in. don't know if he'll join for the ancient bat (we're all about the new dark knight bat), but probably for the next go-around. how are we all doing on dracula? i'm kind of nearing the end.

eric, your last comment was AWESOME.

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welcome to adrian!

i was mentioning the book blog to a friend tonight, and she was interested. so, welcome to adrian. she is going to get cracking on dracula tonight. i am on page 183 or so. it's so chewy. but now i'm kind of getting interested. much like great expectations, it's a slow start for me.

one thing that she asked, which i found interesting was if we read and then talked or if we talked as we went along. i said we read and then talked. she is an avid reader and does a lot of book forums and stuff. if you guys want, we can talk as we go along, and i can put in the post format the thing that i do with the jump and everything. and then if we have spoilers, we can put the spoilers after the jump.

although, if you're like me, i'll be really tempted to read the spoilers anyway. tell me what you think. group conscience.

olay!

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just wondering

Pip chases this dream of being a gentleman and winning over a girl above his station. I see the romance but ultimately he doesn't find either love or happiness.

i was looking over some of the other posts and bumming that we didn't talk more about 'great expectations,' and i saw eric's comment above. i was ruminating about hixx's thoughts about GE being a romantic book. and then i put the two together and thought "is a happy ending necessary for something to be romantic?"

i don't know. really, i'm probably not the first person to go to about romance. but as i type this, i realize that most people think 'romeo and juliet' is probably one of the most romantic stories evah, and that things is also depressing as hell.

i don't know what i really think romance is. i guess i've always considered it somewhat of a fantasy, an infatuation that by its own device has to have happiness or some sort of dream of happiness wrapped up into it. i don't even know what i'm trying to get at other than ... what IS romance? what makes something romantic? what is *a* romance?

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vampiro city

the next book we're reading is picked by mr. crowley. it's bram stoker's dracula.

i believe that it's another 'classic,' so that's a little surprising. or not. one of the things that i love about my readers is that we can throw down down and dirty, we can riff on pop culture and we are also wonderfully, terribly smart.

yay!

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are we done with this already?

i worked too hard on great expectations just to leave it alone already.

this is a great site. i'd like to explore some stuff here. you guys still up for it?

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