Chapters 9-12: Who you gonna call? VAN HELSING!

I think it's safe to say these are the best chapters of Dracula I have read since I started. Admittedly, that's not saying much, but believe me, it gets a lot better here.

Ok, so Lucy has been bitten by a vampire. She is terribly ill and nobody knows why. Mina decides to call on  Dr. John Seward (psychiatrist guy, got rejected by Lucy) to help diagnose her illness. At first, he was about as helpful as a colour-blind interior decorator. All he could do is call upon Abraham Van Helsing, a highly acclaimed professor who is very tolerant of supernatural ideas.

Van Helsing is a pro. He did everything possible to save an impossible situation. He sorted out several blood transfusions on Lucy (although it made me wonder how they all had the same blood type). He conjured up several bouquets of garlic flowers and decorated the whole of the bedroom with it (it obviously worked). He's the bloke for an odd and confusing situation which makes no sense. Top guy.

Abraham Van Helsing, M.D. D.Ph. D.Lit. B.O.S.S.

On with the story. Van Helsing spends most of the next two chapters trying to stop vampiritis from developing and killing her. We get this constant limbo between her getting better and then getting worse, and this spreads to Seward and Van Helsing, who almost go through the fight with her. Blood from Seward, Van Helsing, Quincey Morris (the yank who also proposed to Lucy) and Arthur satisfies her temporarily, but only for a day or so. The garlic thing works well, mainly because it's common knowledge that garlic helps ward off vampires. Despite their best efforts, she remains in this state of purgatory.

I felt really for Lucy. It must be so scary watching your body get beaten to a pulp by something seemingly invisible and having to deal with the pain. All this false hope she would get better; she 'dies' without really having a clue what's going on. There's millions of people every day that goes through this problem, but it's not the transition into a vampire. It's cancer. It's AIDS. It's starvation. We all know of this tragic truth.

Lucy does die, with her friends by her side on her bed. Van Helsing ends Chapter 12, however, with an awesome cliffhanger: 'It is only the beginning.' Brilliant.

The sub-plot of these chapters are Mina and Jonathan's love trials. Jonathan was not dead, just mentally ill. How he managed to escape Dracula's mansion I'll never know but he does and Mina travels to Transylvania to see him. (I actually wanted to him to die personally, too stupid for his own good). They get married and, when he finally recovers, returns to England which must be of great relief for Jonny, certainly not a great holiday for him.

Also, it's the same old story in the Psychiatric ward. Hannibal Renfield is up to his normal antics: escaping a very flimsy psychiatric ward and returning home. He did try and kill a few of the doctors in there. No more animal-housing though.

Well, that's just about it. I don't think I've given these pages justice; they really do make for great reading. I only hope that this really does set the trend for the rest of the book. I may actually finish it then!

Chapters 5-8: The Gothic Horror has turned into a Chick Flick!

And my 'adventure' continues...

So, we moved on, assuming Jonny Harker succumbed to a gruesome death. We are then transported back to England and to the focus of two women: Mina, Harker's fiancé, and Lucy Westenra, who I'm guessing are about the same age. They are good friends and they write to each other on a regular basis, exchanging their many experiences and their feelings.

In Chapter 5, the main event is the three proposals Miss Westenra receives from three blokes. I couldn't help but think this was a very typical storyline from a poor soap opera or maybe even a chick-flick (Three's a crowd' could be a decent name) and thus it bored me to tears. The three blokes, one's a shrink, one's a yank and the other is... Arthur. They are all mates (note the connection between all the characters) and they all gossip.

All I was bothered about was that Mina had received the three final letters from Jonathan and her continuing worry at his lack of correspondence, which continues all up until the eighth chapter.

Chapter 6: Mina travels up to the charming town of Whitby to visit Lucy. There she meets an old codger named Mr Swales. Now, as much as I'd like to talk extensively about Swales and his opinions, I couldn't understand a thing he was saying. I'd like to congratulate Stoker on his efforts to perceive accent and dialect (he did well with the American) but he has made it near impossible to understand in the written word!

The most interesting part of the four chapters I read was from the journal of John Seward, the shrink. He tells a very in depth account of a patient named Renfield. He notes Renfield's unusual behaviour, including his love of animals and his lack of violence. He describes heavily a ritual Renfield keeps of collecting an animal, growing its numbers to an absurd level and introducing a predator to eat it, continuing the phases. He calls him a 'Zoophagous' and says he lives off of the lives of other living creatures, absorbing its power per-say.

I found that part very intriguing, not because I have any affiliation with Psychology but just because of my love of Psychological horror (i.e. The Shining, Silence of the Lambs). Is it bad that the part about eating live Sparrows made me LOL?

Perhaps Renfield should eat his raw Sparrows with some fava beans and a nice chianti?

As you may have guessed, I do not find Dracula thoroughly entertaining. This is the case for Chapter 7. I felt the way in which it was written was way too expansive for a newspaper article. I felt the urge to just skip the whole section at one point.  What we learn from the article is a ship called the Demeter was found shipwrecked with none of its crew on board apart from the captain, who died at the wheel. The journal of the Captain describes the slowly dwindling numbers of the crew. Funny what one man/supernatural being can do to a ship. Dracula reduced the ship down to the captain, who chained himself at the wheel so he wouldn't suffer the same fate.

Ok, now it gets interesting.

Mina discovered Lucy had accidentally walked out of the house and into the town, as you do when you sleepwalk. Mina finds her, all delirious, with two puncture holes in the neck. The dramatic irony here is that I know she's had a little encounter with Count Dracula, who has finally found his way to England (good for him, he could do with a holiday!).

We go back to the asylum where John finds Renfield had escaped. He quickly finds him and wraps him up in a straghtjacket, proclaiming nonsense about his master coming to visit him.

So, getting better, but I fear this book's entertainment will alternate as it has done in the previous chapters. Damn.

Chapters 2-4: Trapped.

I continue my venture into the novel 'Dracula'...

Ok, so Jonathan Harker has entered Count Dracula's humble abode. The story has moved on a bit since then. He becomes heavily acquainted with the Count, having frequent chats with him about everything from his desire to visit London to his 'boyar' status. I quite like this 'getting to know' of the main character, which I thought was long overdue in the piss boring first chapter.

It doesn't take too long for Jonno Harks to realise something is up. First thing he notices is that he has never eaten with Dracula, only on his larry. He also notices the lack of natural light in the place. He also notes the Count's 'protuberant teeth'. After a lucky dip of, let's say... unusual characteristics, he notices his lack of reflection on the mirror and an attempt to bite his neck after cutting himself with a razor blade. The story follows on to seeing Draccy crawling down the house like a 'lizard' and escaping into the twilight.

I find this both hilarious and irritating. Not at one point does Harker realise that the Count may not actually be human,despite noticing his constantly pallid and cold body, his fangs, his red eyes, his ability to matrix down walls and, quite simply, his lack of company. It doesn't make me think he is stupid, quite the opposite. I think he's too smart for his own good. Any idiot would pick up on his appearance and assume "Yep, he's a vampire". He does make the decision to get out of there.

After meeting these lovely vampire women in the third chapter. Harker is officially shitting himself at every moment in Chapter three and four, almost so it becomes uncomfortable. He spends the rest of his time trying to get out of the castle as quick as possible.

The ending is good. It reminds me of the scene in 'I Am Legend' where Neville is trapped in the lab, with the infected pounding at his door. The difference is that Harker doesn't have a grenade to run in to them with; he only has his will. The journal ends with him declaring his last efforts to climb the walls down and escape. I assume he fails.

I quite like this scene. But I think it's missing a cry of "LEEEEEEEEROOOOOYYY JEEENKINS!"

So, to that, I carry on reading this odd novel. Wish me luck, I bloody need it.

Chapter 1: Meh

Ok, as much as reading this novel presents no form of entertainment for me compared to FIFA or CoD, I have to do it, so I do with some 'enthusiasm'.

I read Chapter 1, apparently a journal entry from Jonathan Harker (woo namesake), who IS fictional, so yeah. First page is complete dribble about god knows what. We get a little mention of Count Dracula on the next page; he's just presented as some bloke who invited Jonny to stay for a bit in the mountains. The dribble continues for a while, talking about what my teacher ambitiously calls the 'sublime'. Honestly, it is just setting the scene (Don't bite my head off, this is just my opinion!).

Anyway, moving swiftly but drearily on, we finally a get a bit of interest. He arrives at Bistritz, a settlement in the heart of Transylvania, greeted by the people intriguingly with little optimism. At the mere mention of Dracula, they cross themselves. One woman in fact begs Mr. Harker not to go, handing him her crucifix in the process. All very intriguing and one of the few points of interests in this opening chapter. What I find completely moronic from the character is that he ignores the warnings completely. Imagine if you were driving along and you saw a sign saying "DANGER - ACTIVE VOLCANO AHEAD", but carried on thinking "ah, probably just one of those vinegar things": this is basically what Harker does.

Then, our mood drops straight back down to coma-level when he starts describing the landscape again. Sadly, Gothic literature is associated with going on and on about the countryside like an obsessed geography teacher, calling it 'The Sublime'. "Eurgh," I remarked at the thought of such exciting and dramatic features I'll soon be reading about.

So he describes his journey with impeccable detail till he has to change carriages to reach Count Dracula's crib. The driver was another thing that intrigued me kinda: 'Great black hat that seemed to hide his face from us'; 'Eyes that seemed red in the lamplight'. Is he not human? Is he a mutant? Why is he so secretive? I'm looking forward to finding out I guess.

The journey there is supposed to be this really tense and scary build-up to entering Dracula's place. I can understand why people think this. It's all very dark and negative, the descriptions of the setting goes from this really shining place to this threatening atmosphere. He shows quite clearly the guy is distressed by what's happenign outside. To me, I just wanted to skip the page. Not because it was scary, but because it was just - so - dull. It doesn't make great reading truth be told.

Sadly, we don't get a welcome from the Count in this chapter, but we do get a bit of an insight about what's to come. Lots of description. Lots of geography. Lots of hints about the nature of the host/Count. All in all: meh.

Signing out,
The Dragon.

Introduction

So, if the title didn't give you a bigger enough hint, I will be entertaining you with a series of updates on my reading of Dracula by Bram Stoker.
It is 377 pages long, with 27 chapters from the viewpoints of several fictional characters: I do not expect to be enthused...
Nonetheless, this is a task I am DETERMINED to complete. I will rant to my heart's content, regardless of the hate or critiscism I may (or may not) recieve haha.
Be warned, I can rant for Team GB, so don't take my thoughts too seriously.

With much love and affection to all you readers,
The Dragon.
P.S. If you are reading this and do not know who I am, you are a very sad person, even more so than me, who is nicknamed 'The Dragon'.

This is either Dracula's normal face or he is stoned off his arse