DRACULA - A SUBJECTIVE REVIEW

I kind of intended to finish The City of the Straight this week and report on my findings but I was distracted by my Gothic holiday reading. Yay for Popular Penguins at a Perfect Price. Last night I stayed up far too late finishing Dracula, an irrefutable nexus of popular culture. You see I didn’t want to leave a vampire at large in my head, he had to DIE. Do you know the difference between horror and terror? If you’re only vaguely aware, it is, put simply, thus; terror is the dread of what will happen and horror is the revulsion at what happened. And along with romance are both the staple of Gothic literature. I wouldn’t say that such is to my liking but I had read Frankenstein some time ago, and hoped it would be of the like; almost a classic and totally different to the current popular interpretation. It certainly was more gruesome than I expected. As I was reading it I began to pick up missing links in the world of stories. I imagined connections between the Hannibal Lecter films (I don’t claim to have seen those films mind), Faust, the delicately balanced Låt den rätte komma in (foreign language bonus :O), the Pre-Raphaelites, and thanks to that scatter shot of knowledge known as Wikipedia, the thinking of Gothic Revival, to quote; “The ruins of Gothic buildings gave rise to multiple linked emotions by representing the inevitable decay and collapse of human creations”,  such decay (or reclaim) of creations has always interested me, though in manner of positive/scientific emotions (is that possible?), and in no way anarchistic. (I think this book has caused me to affect an archaic accent, it’s written, for the most part, in the form of journal entries by the varied Victorian protagonists). I thought it odd, possibly even a mistake, that the lead antagonist was instantly introduced and for the first part so close and constantly revealed to the initial hero. But then the genius of it dawned on me as the dread of his unknown and murky movements haunted the better part of the following passages. Sadly the end seems rushed/pedestrian (:D) in my opinion, and lacks the symbolism of the first three quarters. I think the writer, cherry old Bram Stoker, lost his way, when, in the last act, Count Dracula lost the majority of his omnipotent like powers and the vital atmosphere disappeared. Yet, in short; great for late night reading and essential to pop culture junkies.