bram stoker

BookBin2012: Lair of the White Worm

~ lobablanca

Once more to the Kindle! After re-reading Dracula and delighting in it as much as I did my first go-round, I decided that I wanted to read more by Mr. Stoker. Sifting through the free library, I found his 1911 novel Lair of the White Worm. I already knew about this novel and, in fact, had used a play on its title as the name of my first Web site, The Lair of the White Wolf. It seemed like a no-brainer that this should then be my second Stoker experience.

This is, quite possibly, one of the worst things I have ever read. I wish I could say otherwise, but I have nothing kind to say about this book. It’s discordant, rambling, unfocused, can’t decide what story it wants to tell or what genre it wants to be. Is it a battle of wills? Is it a cursed family? Is it a monster story?

The only bit of consistency that it had for a while was the consistent use of a particular racial epithet in regard to a Black servant to one of the primary characters. I was glad when he was killed if only to stop the appearance of this particular word on my Kindle screen, especially as I read a large portion of this book while sitting in airports or on planes. Had I known Stoker had such a propensity for this particular word, I would have chosen a different book to slog through in such public places!

Oh, by the way, sorry for the character death spoiler. Trust me, though, you don’t want to read this novel. It’s terrible. I tried so very hard to come up with a more balanced review, but it simply isn’t within me.

Upon doing a bit of research on the free Kindle version I read, I did learn that this is the abridged 1925 release of the story. Apparently, 100 pages were removed and there were some rewrites. I can’t imagine that this story was actually 100 pages longer; at its abridged length, it felt like it would never end. I also can’t imagine that those 100 pages made the story make any more sense or seem any less ridiculous. It was probably nothing more than another 100 opportunities for Stoker to write the N word.

Needless to say, I won’t be seeking out the unabridged version. I think if I tried to read this story again, I would lose all respect for Bram Stoker as a writer. I’d rather that not happen.

I know that Ken Russell made a movie based on Stoker’s novel, back in 1988. His Lair of the White Worm stars Amanda Donohoe and Hugh Grant. I might have to rent that, simply for the inevitable camp factor.

Final Verdict: I don’t think I have ever deleted a file more quickly or more gleefully.

BookBin2012: Dracula: The Un-Dead

~ lobablanca

No, denizens, this isn’t a reprint of my previous BookBin entry. See, there was a reason why I chose to re-read a book that I knew I had no intention of giving away. I wanted to refresh my memory and prepare myself for my first reading of the “official” sequel to Stoker’s classic.

First, a little bit of history. Bram Stoker’s orginal Dracula is considered to be part of the public domain here in the United States. It’s fallen under this classification since 1899. Why? Because apparently Stoker failed to comply with one requirement from the U.S. copyright office and…POOF. No more U.S. copyright. Open season was pretty much declared on the Dracula story by all interested American parties at that point, each knowing that they would never have to consult with any member of the Stoker family and each in turn slowly whittling away the dignity of the Dark Prince.

Swoop ahead 200 sparkling years later to the 2009 release of Dracula: The Un-Dead. Touted as “The Sequel to the Original Classic,” this is the Stoker family’s attempt to reclaim the rights to their ancestor’s legacy. The book is co-written by Dracula historian Ian Holt and Dacre Stoker, Bram’s great-grandnephew.

I’m not going to lie: Seeing a new Dracula book with the Stoker name on the cover? Gave me little chills and tingles, denizens. With all the insipid and uninspired nonsense that has come down the pipeline in recent years regarding the vampire mythology, I was elated to see that someone might actually want to put things right once more.

Yeah.

Where to begin. Were this in no way associated with the names Stoker or Dracula…if it were presented as its own original story…I might actually have nice things to say about it. It’s a decent enough story with characters that, if they were original to this tale, would be an intriguing (though decidedly miserable) melange of personalities, characteristics, and attributes. I would still have problems with certain aspects of the story, but not nearly as many as I have with it as the “official” sequel to Stoker’s novel.

As the official sequel, Dracula: The Un-Dead is a murky mash-up in which the real and the fictional mingle in oftentimes disturbingly meta ways (including interactions between Bram Stoker himself and his characters), and which ultimately devolves into a disappointing concession to the years of bastardization that our dear Dark Prince has suffered at the hands of far less talented writers than Stoker.

The real Stoker, that is.

At first, I thought that my only major issue with Dracula: The Un-Dead would be the “character” of Countess Elizabeth B

BookBin2012: Dracula

~ LobaBlanca

See? I told you that I would make the Dark Prince mine once and for all. Electronically, that is. One of the first truly squeelicious moments I had with my Kindle was when I discovered that Bram Stoker’s Dracula was part of Amazon’s free library. I already own a printed copy, but I decided that one can never own too many copies of a horror classic, especially when the cost is non-existent.

It seems a bit trite for me to review this novel, since I’m willing to bet that there are very few people who are not aware of the Dracula legend. In fact, that was one of the things that I found myself regretting as I re-read this novel: I regret that I was never able to experience this story from a fresh perspective, without the baggage of the myriad popular culture translations, references, revisions, and blatant butchery of the vampire mythology as introduced by Stoker.

Anyone who is a horror fan knows that Stoker’s tale is one of the cornerstones of the genre. You cannot be even a passing fan without knowing something about our favorite Transylvanian acupuncturist. But what must it have been like to have experienced this novel for the very first time? Truly the first time, rather than how most of us have experienced it: through the lens of predetermined knowledge forged by Bela, Buffy, Barnabus, Blacula, Blade, Louis and Lestat (couldn’t go on forever with Bs, could I?), Selene, Vampire Hunter D, and the sugary sickness imposed upon the mythology by She Who Does Not Deserve Naming Alongside Stoker?

Actually, now that I think about it, it’s for all these reasons that we should revisit the original. Or, better yet, visit it for the first time. After all, how many Dracula fans have never actually read the original novel? I daresay there are quite a few, which is admittedly their loss. There has yet to be a definitive cinematic interpretation of the original Stoker tale, and this most assuredly includes Francis Ford Coppola’s attempt back in 1992.

[Loba Tangent: I recently re-watched this movie (realizing as I did that I have not watched it in its entirety since its original VHS release). First, I was depressed to realize that this movie was released 20 years ago this year. Second, I was even more depressed to realize that time has severely blurred my memory of what I saw 20 years ago. In my re-watching, I came to the conclusion that this movie is actually quite terrible for many reasons, including an offensive reinterpretation of the relationship between Mina and Dracula, more of which I shall discuss…later.]

If you have never read Stoker’s novel, I implore you to do so. Try your best to forget all that you have seen and instead allow yourself to embrace the darkness of Dracula’s true literary form. It is not the quickly paced sensory overload that Hollywood has turned it into. It is also decidedly not a love story. Not the kind that TPTB would have you believe, anyway. Instead, it is a slow boil of terror and triumph, told from multiple perspectives, giving you a full and unsettling view of events that will transport you from Transylvania to England and back (with multiple disturbing stops along the way). I can only imagine the response of those reading this novel upon its original 1897 release. It must have been scandalous for its shocking depictions and descriptions. Even now, more than 100 years later, it’s still deliciously unsettling. Go ahead, take a taste…

Final Verdict: I’ve got my print copy stored with the rest of my horror classics, and now I’ve got my electronic copy saved on my Kindle. I will say this, though: While reading this electronic copy of the novel, I came across several typographical errors, which brought to mind another possible reason for my hang-up with the concept of e-Readers. I have a strong feeling (at least with the free copies of books) that a lot of these digital conversions do not go through the same level of editing that printed books go through. There isn’t the same level of quality control, and I find that highly distracting. Why? I’m a editr. That’z wye.