so i have to admit that it was urban outfitters that inspired my rereading of "bunnicula". sue me, i have hipster tendencies. so their site was selling the book for halloween and i decided i should reread it for halloween. being a kids book i saved it for actual halloween to read and to celebrate. (it took me like 2 hours to read.)
i remember reading "bunnicula" as a kid, i remember loving how clever the title (and name of bunny) was. being a gemini, i have always had an appreciate for word play. and i mean a bunny vampire, too cute. (ps i am thinking a bunnicula costume next year!)
rereading as an adult, i feel even more in love with "bunnicula" because of its cleverness. i had forgot how the book is "really" a manuscript the authors found on their doorstep, so cute! as an "educator", i think this book would be great as the basis for so many lessons: parody, character analysis (which is mentioned by name and given an example), homophobes, foreshadowing, and prediction. it's almost as they wrote this book with these lessons in mind!
and back to the homophobes, i was very disappointed with chester confusing stake with steak. he was such an intelligent cat, as demonstrated in his parrot definition that he would have not been an error he made. also how sad was the image of him beating that poor bunny!
i also appreciated how harold, acted as a means to define words that kids could not understand. this was very clever since it is a kids book. often times i forget students do not have the same vocabulary as me, so i appreciated how howe used high-level words but also gave definitions. (note: add context clues to the list above.)
if you didn't encounter "bunnicula" in your youth, he is a vampire bunny. he sucks the juices from vegetables leaving them white. i have to add i was impressed with the howe's call for eating organic back in 1979. since the organic trend is so 2010's, i was a bit caught off guard by their discussion of buying organic but way to go "monroes" and howe. (i don't necessarily buy organic but i would if i bought grocery regularly and cooked.)
the family and harold is obliviously to the fact that bunnicula is the source of the white vegetables. but chester who is a bookworm and has a wild imagination starts to put two and two together. the story is told from the perspective of the dog, harold, and through his eyes we see all of the wildness that unfolds as chester sets out to stop bunnicula.
in the end, harold, realized bunnicula is harmless, sure a tomato and cabbage are harmed but they are just vegetables. chester goes overboard and tries to starve bunnicula, but the family intervened and put chester in therapy and bunnicula on a juice diet (which he stayed on, so no more weird veggies). and they all lived happily ever after, until the next adventure. this book is apart of series, which i will prolly read every halloween. can't wait til next year!
ps how cute is this book club page that james howe wrote:
WARNING: THIS BLOG CONTAINS SPOILERS!!!! (you have been warned so save your bitching.)
(yes, hell did freeze over and i saw a twilight movie at a movie theater!)
i debated about blogging about this movie but figured:
a) it is based on a book and i did blog about "the perks of being a wallflower"
b) with the movie versions of "life of pi", "les miserables", "anna karenina" and "on the road" coming out, i should start the trend of blogging about movies based on books
c) it was a PDC dance moms book club event (though we didn't read the book)
i have never been interested in the "twilight" series, books or movies. my grandma said it was a bunch of teenage fluff and no offense but not interested in reading about a love triangle consisting of a girl, a vampire and a werewolf and their teen angst and sexual frustration. so never read the books. i did see part of the first movie, but had no desire to watch the movies. the movie franchise got too out of control for me to get on the bandwagon. i can admit that robert pattinson is hot, pasty and tall, swoon. i think taylor looks prepubescent so feel like a pervert when i look at him. yes, abs are hot but not on a 12 year old. and seriously kristen stewart???! ever since i saw her first vmas appearance, i can not stomach her. she is not an actress, girl is not acting. she is that weird and awkward in real life and luckily finds roles in which she has to be the weird and awkward girl. (for the record, yes i am sad that she is "on the road".)
however, i decided to break my no-twilight-rule when the PDC dance moms book club decided to see "breaking drawn part 2". i could be a team player plus i owed robert pattinson one for drunkenly harassing him at an adele concert, for this photo:
as much as it pains me to admit this, it wasn't that bad. it was actually entertaining. i enjoyed how they gathered up the different vampires from all over the world. i found it interesting how some of the vampires had special powers, even the evil ones. and that british vampire was dreamy and eye candy always makes everything better.
but here is my laundry list of what i did not enjoy:
-the "war" being a premonition. what a cop out! i got caught up in the battle, i was sad when carlisle died, and cheered when the bad guys died (btw, loved dakota fanning as a villain). and instead of rejoicing when it turned out that it didn't happen, i was disappointed. it was like meyer didn't have the balls to have a real battle. in harry potter, we (yes, we, i loved this series) lost so many amazing people in the battle against evil: sirius, remus, tonks, dumbledore, dobby!!! because guess what, life is unpredictable and unfair and sometimes we lose the ones we love so that good can prevails over evil. furthermore, the kid seemed to be okay with dying. they should have given her up. i mean harry potter sacrificed himself and that aspect is what made that story so powerful. i think the just-kidding-it-was-all-a-dream-ending prevented "breaking dawn" from being great. it lost its heart. instead it was a lame hollywood ending where everyone lives happily ever after.
-in regards to this happily ever after ending, everything cleaned up waaaaay too nicely. seriously jacob and their kid ending up together?!?!? that was gross and the story should not have gone there. in what universe would this be okay?!?! what about an ending showing jacob okay with being single the rest of his life and hooking up with chicks for all of eternity? wouldn't that be more realistic for a werewolf in a vampire movie? lol
-the sex scene 30 minutes into he movie?!?!? i could have lived without watching them christian their house. and the talk about, "wow you were holding back" and "how will we stop ourselves from going at it all the time". seriously, spoken like someone who has been sexually repressed their entire life. (see: meyer is mormon. this sounds harsh but i was raised mormon, i know). people having sex when they want and for as long as they want?!?! these concepts are neither ground-breaking or revolutionary, in real life or the vampire genre. i think twilight's original message of abstinence is important for teens but it does send the wrong message that once married, the lead character turns into a sex fiend. bella was first the virgin temptress and then the horny sex addict. women should not be restricted to only two sexualities the virgin or the whore. we can have healthy sexual appetities without feigning innocent or craziness. we should try to break the virgin/slut whore versus reinforce it!
-instead of abstinence, safe sex needed to be discussed. if half-breeds could potentially pose danger to the world, shouldn't they have been more careful in terms of birth control?!?! edward should have wrapped it up or bella should have been on the pill. just because you are married doesn't mean you are ready to have kids or that you should have them, so you should still take precautions. again another indication of their sexual immaturity.
-lastly, how did the writers let that loch ness monster line remain in the movie?!?!??
so those are my complaints and oddly enough i might read the series but that is just so i can have proof for my avoidance of this series instead of just my snobbiness.
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!
