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?
7 comments:
i read too fast. i really do. but yeah, i was COMPLETELY bummed at the ending. especially when you said you wanted to discuss the last chapter. i thought, 'oh, this is going to be great.'
and then i was like ... seriously? this is how this ends? really? laaaame.
interesting point with the "this is all true but we have no proof so you decide for yourself" thing. i think that's a cool way to be a christian, actually. there's no way to prove it, but this is how we believe and how it happens/ed in our lives. but you have to make up your own mind about stuff. not, I WILL SHOVE THIS DOWN YOUR THROAT.
what's a red star fleet? something from star wars or star trek?
mina really IS a bad-ass, hey?
Again there is no right or wrong here, but if I had to pick a winner, other than in my nose, I'd vote for Eric. He has it right as does Jen. I am really pleased people liked the book. Count Chocula Joc? C'mon.
i'm talking about what i think he LOOKED like. did i say i didn't like the book? did you read anything else i wrote?! *you* c'mon!
Yeah, I was really expecting a major showdown. I kind of suppose that the way is was presented to the reader was in keeping with the epistolary narrative.
The thing is "aqualine" was considered the classic Eastern European look. In modern times models that have an aqualine or roman nose are considered classic Goth.
joce: on star trek, the crew member wearing the red star fleet shirt does not live to see the end of the episode. they are doomed from moment one.
eric: this is a great post and you have really made me think about the ending. it never occurred to me that the story wimps out at the end, but i guess it does.
perhaps this story is really more of a romance (albeit a tragic one) than any sort of true horror fiction (especially as we have come to know it in later generations).
I think the gypsy group attack was pretty exciting, yeah, the Count's death is not that exciting - but how exciting is death? (It actually reminds me of the ending scene in Idle Hands where Seth Green ends the movie with "that's it? that's the end?" Death is normal for all people and we learn that the Count is human after all and he is "saved" by this small group of believers in a world of superstitions before he is taken out of his purgatory/undead state and sent to Heaven, perhaps? (see I'm telling you, I should have never read that Christianity/race bent in the foreword).
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