Dracula  by Bram Stoker
First published 1897
Category: Classics

I think the reason I never read this book is that I was so very, very bored by Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.  I mean, Frankenstein–Dracula–famous monsters–same era–had to be the same, right?  I never examined that assumption even though I knew full well that Mary Shelley was deliberately trying to Make A Point with her novel, hence the high levels of philosophizing.  And, yeah, I read Frankenstein when I was a teenager and still developing as a reader, so maybe I’d like it better now….

Anyway.  This review is about Dracula,  which is thoroughly enjoyable and cleverly written.  I admire the epistolary (is there a word for novels told through journal extracts?) method Stoker uses, which absolutely would have had his contemporary readers on the edge of their seats.  The story of Dracula is so well-known today that much of the suspense Stoker built through the mystery of the Count’s true nature is simply gone, and yet the book retains a high level of creepiness and horror.  Jonathan Harker trapped in the Count’s castle with the ghastly women, the final death of Lucy Westenra, the creeping transformation of Mina Harker…modern horror writers are free to use shockingly graphic details of violence, but Stoker’s quieter, insidious details still send a chill up your neck.  (There’s also the further engagement of the reader in the many, many times you want to reach into the novel and shake Van Helsing and crew by the neck, screaming "MOVE HER TO A WINDOWLESS ROOM!")

What impresses me is the unique regard Stoker has for his female characters, particularly Mina Murray Harker.  She organizes everyone’s records, puts together clues from different sources, and is basically the core of the entire group–Van Helsing gives her the backhanded compliment of having a brain "like a man’s", thank you Victorian sensibilities, and all the men look to her for direction.  Then comes the point where they all decide to protect her by keeping her in the dark about their hunt for Dracula.  It’s a completely unexpected and sexist turn on their parts, and one that directly leads to Mina becoming Dracula’s next victim.  This is where I have a huge amount of respect for Stoker, who uses this plot twist to subtly speak against that sort of reflexive sexism; the men’s attempt to shield Mina through ignorance actually puts her in danger, and not until they change their position are they all able to finally defeat Dracula.  Mina remains the strongest of the bunch, even partially under Dracula’s sway.  In some feminist circles, this portrayal of the feminine divine is considered a particularly nasty form of sexism, but I see Mina’s character as better representative of a rebuke to the prevailing Victorian attitudes about women’s strengths and (more abundantly) weaknesses.  I can see now why Alan Moore made Mina the leader of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (the real one, not the movie version) though the novel makes it unlikely that she would have joined under the circumstances that she did.

Very good book.  Very worth reading.  The prose is, naturally, as alien to modern readers as any 19th century novel, but familiarity with the story should make it easier for most people to get past that little stumbling block.  Though I did not read it for Halloween, I did finish it on St. Patrick’s Day, and since Bram Stoker was working in Dublin when Dracula was written, I call that pretty good symbolism anyway.