dracula. bram stoker. (4)

i never got on the vampire bandwagon.   i've never read (or have a desire to read) "twilight"; never watched "true blood" (again who has premium cable?), i will admit that i have sat through episodes of "vampire diaries" with my cousin erin but nothing in our vampire saturated culture caught my interest. i also never got caught up in the anne rice's work either. i was young when "interview with a vampire" came out and loved "queen of the dead" but mostly cos stuart townsend was hot. so "dracula" was my first vampire read and i mean where else does one start but with the original vampire book. (question: do all other vampire works acknowledge dracula as the og vampire? like does edward come from his line?)

the funny thing about reading "dracula" is that you have to read it with a clean slate.  you have to act as if you have never heard of edward, or buffy, even dracula himself (i mean you are meeting the guy for the first time, if its your first reading). if not, you will be frustrated with characters for their lack of vampire knowledge.  i first encountered this with jonthan harker, and what feels like his inability to instantly recognize the true nature of count dracula.  though i shouldn't be so harsh on jonathan, for someone who has never heard of vampires superstitions prior to his working with count dracula, he did well with recognizing that the lack of mirrors or his host's disappearance during the day and lack of appetite at dinner didn't add up to that of a normal human being.  i mean the weird group sex fantasies were a good red flag that something was up too, but he did well in trusting his suspicions. 

another character i wanted to kick because of her lack of vampire 101 was lucy's mother, i know garlic smells gross (i personally associate it with food so love the smell of it) but she should have never removed that garlic garland from around lucy's neck.  but i have to remember she didn't know better.  and in addition to this, why was mina the only one that noticed the two red marks on lucy's neck and in what world would anyone see vampire marks on their neck and think they pricked themselves with a pin!?!? (that is like girls trying to convince themselves that their hickey looks like a curling iron burn!) but i guess their lack of knowledge is in line with the tradition of horror, where we, as the viewer, always know better than the victim (and would have never ran in that direction.)

as much as i was upset with their naivete, i was impressed with their, well primarily, van helsing's medical knowledge.  (and yes, as i read, i totally envisioned huge jackman as van helsing.  swoon.)  what amazed me was that van helsing performed blood transfusions!  "dracula" was published in 1897 so i guess it isn't as old as i thought it was.  but still blood transfusions seem like a modern (granted "dracula" is turn of the century.) phenomenon.  maybe i'm biased because i'm a chicken (fear of needles) when it comes to giving blood and think the current way of giving blood isn't that sophisticated, so i can't imagine what people a hundred years had to endure. so when van helsing suggest that they perform a transfusion for lucy. i immediately googled on my phone and it turns out (thanks to wikipedia) that the first successful blood transfusion was performed in 1818 by british obstetrician dr. james blundell.  pretty impressive!  and how create of stoker to use it as a means to try to combat the dracula's converting of lucy to the darkside! 

blood, obviously is very important throughout all of "dracula".  that is his source of life, (it's our source of life too).  but there was one blood issue that i figured would arise especially with dracula's female victims, but it was never addressed.  (and if stoker really wanted to push victorian buttons he should have talked about this.)  but what effect does menstruation have on vampires?  a small amount of blood could provoke a vampire, when jonathan nicked himself while shaving, the count reacted with "eyes blazed with a sort of demonic fury" and he "made a grab" at jonthan's throat.  imagine what a woman bleeding for 3-7 days could cause a vampire to do? does twilight even address bella's cycle?  i mean it seems like a good deal for edward.  we, women throw out that blood each month, so bella could start using a diva cup and save it for him.  that sounds gross but i think it's thoughtful.  i mean did buffy the vampire slayer ever discuss that in the movie or in the series?  i mean at the risk of sounding like a perv, this could be the premise for a great twilight parody porn.  i know, inappropriate!  but is it . . .

it's not.  that joke would be in stoker's vein of humor, if he told jokes about oral sex, not sure if he did, but he did write about it.  i was shocked when i read mina recounting her interaction with the count:

With that he pulled open his shirt, and with his long sharp nails opened a vein in his breast.  When the blood began to spurt out, he took my hands in one of his, holding them tight, and with the other seized my neck and pressed my mouth to the wound, so that I must either suffocate or swallow some of the--Oh my God!  my God! what have I done?

when i first read it, i thought i was a bit of a pervert for thinking inappropriately about what i had read but after reading the intro written by brooke allen, it is to mimic fellatio. vampires were sex-driven creatures. and if one googles there are tons of essays on sexuality and "dracula". i came across one that explained how the two dots on lucy's neck were suppose to resemble a vagina?!?! that seems to be stretching it for me!

there are also tons of essays on stoker being sexist and his portrayal of female sexuality in "dracula" as well. but without getting too deep into the topic. i will say that i did not find "dracula" sexist. the sad reality for us women is that we have to be both the virgin and the whore, this dichotomy has plagued us throughout all of history and our current mass media only endorses. so yes we are the orgy loving vampire trio along and virginal lucy needing men to keep us safe. it's like luda says "he wants a lady in the streets but a freak in the sheets."

also i did not find stoker to be sexist due to the fact that mina was a strong female character. i would add her to my canon of amazing females. i found it interesting how she criticized the "new woman" and their unconventional views of marriage yet her own involvement to stop dracula was unconventional. it's her intelligence and brilliance that pieces together the accounts that lead to the exposure and ultimately destruction of dracula (sorry for the spoiler but for a split second when i was reading, i thought he was going to survive). in this light mina to me is a true feminist, one that is not embarrassed to hold on to conventional female roles yet still has the open-mindless to embrace new ones.

all in all, is dracula worth a reread? i enjoyed it, so yes. it's clever, and i enjoyed how it was told from different perspectives. and if it's a choice between this and "twilight", go for this!

ps i was also upset with "twilight" because in "dracula", dracula and the wolves get along? was there some great schism that stephenie meyer included in "twilight" to explain the team edward/team jacob hatred?

quotations:

"if ever a face meant death--if looks could kill--we saw it at that moment."

(is this where the phrase come froms?)

pss- i have included a little film
short by spike jonze that features mina from "dracula". enjoy!