If you were thinking "that's enough of this s*** Dracula, Dracula" -as I kind of think myself- sorry, I have something else to say today. First, rule of gold: I am convinced that the commentators that write on the flaps of the books we read or in their back-pages usually do not know what they are talking about. It is like they had not read the book or, at least, let's be modest, we dare say that their observations are not very precise. My edition of Dracula is certainly not an exception: "Vampire expert Professor Van Helsing convinces Harker and his friends that if Mina is not to share the same fate as poor "un-dead" Lucy, Dracula must be caught and ritually killed"... Well, it is not exactly like this, is it?
Secondly, being as I am on page 300 (50 more to go), I suspect of an unexpected twist of the story, which is neat: Dracula really is a love story. Think about it. On the eve of the final events, Jonathan Harker, Mina's husband, writes in his diary: "To one thing I have made up my mind: if we find out that Mina must be a vampire in the end, then she shall not go into that unknown and terrible land alone". Love is the important stuff for this man, more than Life. He is willing to follow Mina and love her in the shadows of Death. That is what I understand. However, Count Dracula is on the other side pulling at the other end of the rope.
Harker shivers: Going alone in the terrible land! Here it lies this twist of the story I glimpse a few pages to the end. Mina is being attracted to the monster by the power of pity (is pity love? Can pity become love?). She says to all the men right before sunset: "I know that you must fight (...). But it is not a work of hate. That poor soul who has wrought all this misery is the saddest case of all (...). You must be pitiful to him too, though it may not hold your hands from his destruction". And it is not the first time Mina brings out excusatory arguments in favor of the monster, a creature who is going through the land alone. Annie Lennox's song captured the idea: "Oh loneliness, oh hopelessness, to search the end of times".
The spinal cord of the novel is blood, an element that match all the requirements to be a legal substitute of sex in it: passionate, dirty, unclean, unfaithful, weird and wrong. Mr Renfield, awfully betrayed by Dracula, highlighted the role of blood clearly: "blood is life". For the alive and also for the un-dead in the shadows of Death.
A final remark has to do with "unfaithfulness". The five men struggle to destroy all the places where the Count could possibly rest... But hide all their errands from Mina, on the fictional grounds of not disturbing her (after dinner the first night they send her to bed, even though she is not sleepy, which seems implausible in a woman like her). Jonathan feels a little awkward about it, but it is specially Mina who feels bad. And she hides back from them her dreams on the same grounds, which are, indeed, not dreams, but a point of unfaithfulness: Dracula is weaving his alliance with her. Interesting. This familiar fable of "I-am-not-telling-in-order-not-to-hurt" seems a plot for one of O. Henry's stories. Of course, it never does right. This is one of the first lessons one learns in business: the customer might not like it, but one must tell her.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
Secondly, being as I am on page 300 (50 more to go), I suspect of an unexpected twist of the story, which is neat: Dracula really is a love story. Think about it. On the eve of the final events, Jonathan Harker, Mina's husband, writes in his diary: "To one thing I have made up my mind: if we find out that Mina must be a vampire in the end, then she shall not go into that unknown and terrible land alone". Love is the important stuff for this man, more than Life. He is willing to follow Mina and love her in the shadows of Death. That is what I understand. However, Count Dracula is on the other side pulling at the other end of the rope.
Harker shivers: Going alone in the terrible land! Here it lies this twist of the story I glimpse a few pages to the end. Mina is being attracted to the monster by the power of pity (is pity love? Can pity become love?). She says to all the men right before sunset: "I know that you must fight (...). But it is not a work of hate. That poor soul who has wrought all this misery is the saddest case of all (...). You must be pitiful to him too, though it may not hold your hands from his destruction". And it is not the first time Mina brings out excusatory arguments in favor of the monster, a creature who is going through the land alone. Annie Lennox's song captured the idea: "Oh loneliness, oh hopelessness, to search the end of times".
The spinal cord of the novel is blood, an element that match all the requirements to be a legal substitute of sex in it: passionate, dirty, unclean, unfaithful, weird and wrong. Mr Renfield, awfully betrayed by Dracula, highlighted the role of blood clearly: "blood is life". For the alive and also for the un-dead in the shadows of Death.
A final remark has to do with "unfaithfulness". The five men struggle to destroy all the places where the Count could possibly rest... But hide all their errands from Mina, on the fictional grounds of not disturbing her (after dinner the first night they send her to bed, even though she is not sleepy, which seems implausible in a woman like her). Jonathan feels a little awkward about it, but it is specially Mina who feels bad. And she hides back from them her dreams on the same grounds, which are, indeed, not dreams, but a point of unfaithfulness: Dracula is weaving his alliance with her. Interesting. This familiar fable of "I-am-not-telling-in-order-not-to-hurt" seems a plot for one of O. Henry's stories. Of course, it never does right. This is one of the first lessons one learns in business: the customer might not like it, but one must tell her.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
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