Re-Read: Dracula, by Bram Stoker

I listened to the audiobook of this one. It was pretty good-- had a full cast and everything!

This is the first re-read I'm featuring on my blog, and I'm two days overdue. Usually I pound these out the day I finish the book, but I've been at a bit of a loss as to the best way to structure these. I don't want to do my usual rating and review, because if I'm re-reading a book it's already got 4 or 5 stars (or whatever other emoji I chose to scale it with 😬). So what am I to do?

Perhaps we should start with Why I Wanted to Re-Read: It's spooky season! Halloween is just around the corner, and while I've been busy working my way through an assortment of slashers, ghost stories, and other assorted horrors, I wanted to round out my reading with a classic. I considered Shelley's Frankenstein, but couldn't find it in audiobook at my library-- so Dracula it was!

What Stood Out to Me This Time Around? (There's gotta be a better way to say that.)

When I think of Dracula, I always think of Johnathan Harker, trapped in the Count's castle, desperately trying to escape as the Brides of Dracula harass him. This is the strongest portion of the novel (in my opinion); but this time around I was struck by just how little of the narrative it takes up. The novel opens on Harker traveling to the castle (and while I'm sure the original audiences of 1897 found this travel narrative riveting, I found it incredibly dull); but after his extremely foreshadow-y journey, he only spends 3 chapters with the Count before the narrative shifts back to England for it's primary narrative.

I think if I hadn't known Dracula was a vampire I would have been able to feel the tension of the main narrative more fully. I guess Dracula has been a victim of it's own success in that sense, because so much of the story is caught up in the "what's happening?" of it all. Watching Dr. Seward (who is the main narrator of the book, but more on that in a second) and co. bumble their way through 4 blood transfusions (none of which account for blood type, but it was the 1890s, I guess...); a series of grave visits, and ultimately the staking of Lucy Westenra (spoilers for this 130 year old book, I guess 🙄) didn't come across as particularly entertaining-- just incredibly tedious. There was a lot what I want to call "information game" happening in this book. The "info game" centers around a character presenting information that will convince other characters of their particular viewpoint. In this book, it's mostly Van Helsing (the guy who knows everything about Vampires) presenting circumstances and evidence to convince Dr. Seward and co. that Lucy is indeed a vampire.

Now, hear me out: every book involving the supernatural intruding upon the realistic should have some degree of the "information game" in it (the only exceptions being genre-specific in nature, such as magical realism), especially if those characters are scientific by nature (as Dr. Seward is). My problem with this particular book's approach to the "information game," however, is that every single character has to be convinced-- which leads to a repetitive, tedious re-enactment of similar plots and circumstances. The scholar in me wants to draw connections to the fairytale, where such repetition is commonplace, but the basic reader in me just found it tedious. (Yes, I know I said 'tedious' an almost unconscionable number of times in the last two paragraphs. But if the tedium of reading 'tedious' is starting to try you, just know that's how I felt listening to certain sections of this book.)

The other thing that really stood out to me on this read-through was the fact that Dr. Seward seemed to be the primary narrator. The story starts and ends with Johnathan Harker's narrative, but most of the book seems to be Dr. Seward's. I find this intriguing for a number of reasons.

Firstly, Dr. Seward is a man of science. A medical doctor specializing in diseases of the mind, he runs the asylum where the infamous Renfield (who does surprisingly little in the book, for all the infamy he's received in the culture around Dracula) is housed. As a man of science, he represents the voice of the skeptic, and is the character who needs the most convincing to believe in the supernatural. Furthermore, his diary (as Dracula is an epistolary novel), while presented as text in the book-as-published, is actually kept via dictation to phonograph.

These facts become interesting when one begins to consider Dracula's position in the Imperial Gothic subgenre of Victorian literature. Dr. Seward, a man of science and technology, narrates the majority of the narrative in England because he is a stand-in for the British Empire, supposedly safe in it's superior scientific and technological advancements at the end of the nineteenth century. The tedious 'information game' that Van Helsing has to play to convince him of Dracula's vampiric nature could almost be read as a metaphor for imperial bureaucracy; and while Bram Stoker was himself a protestant, there is something to be said for the Catholicism of Dracula's weaknesses (with Catholicism being a foil to the protestant English church of which Harker (and presumably Seward?) is a member).

I'm sure there's more that could be said on this topic-- perhaps there's even a Paper to be written on it. But as Writing a Paper would require Doing Research-- and I don't particularly feel like Doing Research-- I'm going to leave it at this.

I want to end with a Comparison to My First Read (which was also the last time I read it... I think? I think this is only my second time reading it... 😬):

The first time I read Dracula, it was a high-octane experience. I was in college, but still living with my parents; and I hadn't quite come into my adulthood the way I have now. I only read it in my bedroom or while out on campus, and snuck it in and out of the house buried in my backpack. It was a thrilling read not so much because it was good, but because it was obscene. Vampires, werewolves, witches-- dark fantasy and horror of any kind was banned in our household (I once spent a few days convinced I was going to Hell because I read a few paragraphs of Harry Potter over my friend's shoulder at school before I realized what he was reading); and the thrill of stepping out into something so culturally influential, yet forbidden-- was thrilling.

This time around, I'm over a decade removed from that first read, and the book was just... fine. Nothing too special, I'd say, and maybe even a little troubled in it's telling. Dracula has outgrown itself in the almost 130 years since it's first publication, evolving through stage and screen, and subsequent novels inspired by it's imagery, lore, and eponymous Count; and in a way, I think I might have outgrown it too. It was a fun introduction to Gothic literature and vampire lore, but I'm not sure if I'll read it again anytime soon. There's just so many better (or, perhaps, more recent-- and therefore more written in a more palatable style) vampire novels out there. I think everybody should give it a chance-- those first four chapters are incredible, and there's a reason their imagery has endured as long and as strongly as they have in the cultural imagination; but next spooky season, I think I'll try for a different classic to round out my reading list.

Perhaps Carmella.