Bram Stoker's Dracula: my take
Well, I finally re-read the original Dracula after, what, something like 25 years. I don't have the time to give it the treatment it deserves, but I will say a few things. (Warning: this gets long, people)
1) The book is surprisingly fast-paced for a Victorian novel.
2) I now feel that not one single modern adaptation of the story has EVER gotten the characters right. The obvious religious devotion of Van Helsing and the other vampire hunters is usually glossed over, if it isn't turned into proof that they're Deh Evil; Mina is rather more intelligent and strong-willed than almost any version of her I've ever seen (outside of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen graphic novels); Dracula is far, far more evil than almost any depiction of him -- he kills poor Renfield for no reason, he murders with abandon, he rapes Mina (it's made obvious when you actually read the infamous 'sharing of blood' scene, both by Dracula's mocking sadism and Mina's near-complete collapse, that this was a rape), hell, he kidnaps infants to feed to his three vampire brides! And then he has their mothers torn apart by his wolves. This is a romantic hero?
And poor Renfield is one of the most badly-interpreted characters in the entire story. He swings wildly from revolting and murderous lunatic to cunning servant of Dracula to a poor, broken soul. Certainly the usual sentiment towards him that comes through from Doctor Seward, Mina, and Van Helsing is one of pity, even when he's at his vilest. And when Renfield is killed by Dracula after an attempt to stop him from hurting Mina, an attempt that even Renfield later acknowledges as useless before dying, the feeling is one of remorse. In some ways Renfield reminded me of Gollum-Smeagol from LoTR, a broken creature aware of their own 'broken-ness' and fighting to rise beyond it. And though the struggle ultimately claims both, there is still a feeling that "Whatever he once was, this shouldn't ought to have happened to a man."
3) The book was written in a thoroughly Christian mindset, and it shows in the characters. The pity for Renfield has been mentioned, and the struggle against Dracula is as much the idea that if you're a man and a Christian, there are just some things you can't allow regardless of what it might cost you to oppose them. The destruction of Lucy, the brides, and Dracula is seen as a duty to humanity as well as an effort to save the innocents they would destroy.
For that matter, vampirism, being 'Un-dead', is not even remotely romantic in the story. The sole motivation Lucy and the brides possess after their reanimation is a lust to feed on others, even knowing that by doing so they will destroy them in turn. This plays out with Dracula too -- he wants to make other people into vampires not because he's bwa-haha evil, or because he feels lonely, and least of all out of love, but because the only way he can be content with his own damnation is by knowing that he's inflicted the same state on someone else. It reminds me of a conversation my father once told me he had at work with a man who told him, "I'll be happy even in Hell, if I know that at least one other person is sufferiing as much as I am." For that matter, Dracula seems to have done little with his undeath: he hides in his castle, he feeds, he terrorizes the locals, and that's it. These vampires do not live, they merely exist. Van Helsing says several times "Dracula is of child brain in much", which seems to mean that being undead eventually causes a sort of mental ossification or decay. Dracula repeats previous behavior without wondering if it will work this time (what with the changes in available tools between his lifetime and 'modern' Victorian England) simply because it wored the last time. Dracula is no great thinker.
Yet at the same time there is some respect for Dracula from Van Helsing and the others, an acknowledgement that "Once he was more than this. He was brave, a fierce enemy of the Turk and protector of his people, great in mind and strength." The hunters do despise him and bring about his destruction, yes, but at the same time there seems to be a feeling of pity for the man he once was, an awareness that (as stated previously) "Whatever a man may be, no man deserves this (to become a vampire)." It reminds me of something C.S. Lewis once said to the effect that "Great heroes and great villains come from the same basic stuff... Small and petty minds and souls can no more sink to the depths than they can plumb the heights." This pity is also felt for the brides, and even more so for Lucy. They were people once, with lives and thoughts and souls and joys. Even if they did evil, they could do good even if only at intervals -- but when they became vampires, they lost all of their humanity to become things that merely exist and do not live.
Really, for those people who are only aware of the film or pop culture version of Dracula, this book is an eye-opening experience, and a view into an attitude that no longer exists over most of the western world. It's also a great story of horror and heroism in its own right. I'm glad that I finally read it again.
1) The book is surprisingly fast-paced for a Victorian novel.
2) I now feel that not one single modern adaptation of the story has EVER gotten the characters right. The obvious religious devotion of Van Helsing and the other vampire hunters is usually glossed over, if it isn't turned into proof that they're Deh Evil; Mina is rather more intelligent and strong-willed than almost any version of her I've ever seen (outside of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen graphic novels); Dracula is far, far more evil than almost any depiction of him -- he kills poor Renfield for no reason, he murders with abandon, he rapes Mina (it's made obvious when you actually read the infamous 'sharing of blood' scene, both by Dracula's mocking sadism and Mina's near-complete collapse, that this was a rape), hell, he kidnaps infants to feed to his three vampire brides! And then he has their mothers torn apart by his wolves. This is a romantic hero?
And poor Renfield is one of the most badly-interpreted characters in the entire story. He swings wildly from revolting and murderous lunatic to cunning servant of Dracula to a poor, broken soul. Certainly the usual sentiment towards him that comes through from Doctor Seward, Mina, and Van Helsing is one of pity, even when he's at his vilest. And when Renfield is killed by Dracula after an attempt to stop him from hurting Mina, an attempt that even Renfield later acknowledges as useless before dying, the feeling is one of remorse. In some ways Renfield reminded me of Gollum-Smeagol from LoTR, a broken creature aware of their own 'broken-ness' and fighting to rise beyond it. And though the struggle ultimately claims both, there is still a feeling that "Whatever he once was, this shouldn't ought to have happened to a man."
3) The book was written in a thoroughly Christian mindset, and it shows in the characters. The pity for Renfield has been mentioned, and the struggle against Dracula is as much the idea that if you're a man and a Christian, there are just some things you can't allow regardless of what it might cost you to oppose them. The destruction of Lucy, the brides, and Dracula is seen as a duty to humanity as well as an effort to save the innocents they would destroy.
For that matter, vampirism, being 'Un-dead', is not even remotely romantic in the story. The sole motivation Lucy and the brides possess after their reanimation is a lust to feed on others, even knowing that by doing so they will destroy them in turn. This plays out with Dracula too -- he wants to make other people into vampires not because he's bwa-haha evil, or because he feels lonely, and least of all out of love, but because the only way he can be content with his own damnation is by knowing that he's inflicted the same state on someone else. It reminds me of a conversation my father once told me he had at work with a man who told him, "I'll be happy even in Hell, if I know that at least one other person is sufferiing as much as I am." For that matter, Dracula seems to have done little with his undeath: he hides in his castle, he feeds, he terrorizes the locals, and that's it. These vampires do not live, they merely exist. Van Helsing says several times "Dracula is of child brain in much", which seems to mean that being undead eventually causes a sort of mental ossification or decay. Dracula repeats previous behavior without wondering if it will work this time (what with the changes in available tools between his lifetime and 'modern' Victorian England) simply because it wored the last time. Dracula is no great thinker.
Yet at the same time there is some respect for Dracula from Van Helsing and the others, an acknowledgement that "Once he was more than this. He was brave, a fierce enemy of the Turk and protector of his people, great in mind and strength." The hunters do despise him and bring about his destruction, yes, but at the same time there seems to be a feeling of pity for the man he once was, an awareness that (as stated previously) "Whatever a man may be, no man deserves this (to become a vampire)." It reminds me of something C.S. Lewis once said to the effect that "Great heroes and great villains come from the same basic stuff... Small and petty minds and souls can no more sink to the depths than they can plumb the heights." This pity is also felt for the brides, and even more so for Lucy. They were people once, with lives and thoughts and souls and joys. Even if they did evil, they could do good even if only at intervals -- but when they became vampires, they lost all of their humanity to become things that merely exist and do not live.
Really, for those people who are only aware of the film or pop culture version of Dracula, this book is an eye-opening experience, and a view into an attitude that no longer exists over most of the western world. It's also a great story of horror and heroism in its own right. I'm glad that I finally read it again.