Rashmi bookmarks “Dracula”

“Welcome to my house. Enter freely and of your own free will!” Bram Stoker’s 1897 horror novel Dracula turned out to be so much more than what I was expecting! Whether or not we have read the book (or watched the movie) of such stories as Tarzan or Frankenstein or Dracula, these tales are so ingrained in our collective minds, we are all familiar with the names and basic characteristics. But - as I realized after reading these books - there is so much more than just the basic plot points we think is the whole story.

That surprise was for me, the greatest pleasure in reading Dracula! Sure, I knew that Dracula is a vampire who sleeps in a coffin by day and sups on human blood by night. I thought this book would be a short story narrating a few blood-sucking incidents. But this story was so much more. I wasn’t even aware of the whole history of Count Dracula of Transylvania over the ages. (In fact, I had a vague idea that when the vampire does his bit, the victim is in a kind of a helpless trance, but even in that I was gravely mistaken!)

When the story starts off, and some very disturbing things are slowly introduced - the Count who casts no reflection in a mirror, who crawls down the side of a 100-foot castle wall; the three gorgeous “sisters” who appear in a cloud of hypnotic lights - it is all about entering the castle of Count Dracula and the world of the vampire. Slowly however, as Jonathan Harker leaves the castle, the story also moves on and becomes a tale of intrigue and investigation as we follow Dr. John Seward, Quincey Morris and Arthur Holmwood (Lord Godalming), led by the brilliant Professor Abraham Van Helsing, on their quest to find and destroy the evil Dracula. That quest, in fact, is what the majority of this story is all about. With the arrival of a ghost ship, with Swales’ inexplicable death, with Lucy’s sleepwalking, with children encountering the “bloofer lady” … we see the frightening threat that Dracula is, and that’s when the story reaches a whole new range.

Without question, the best character of this story was Van Helsing. A unique, slightly eccentric character, he leads a team through the twists and turns of the dangerous mission of stopping Dracula once and for all. I was also quite fascinated by the character of Renfield, a patient at Dr. Seward’s asylum who consumes flies and spiders and much more, in order to absorb their “life force”. Renfield’s role as some sort of a sensor, reacting to Dracula’s presence, added to his character’s air of mystery.

I also really liked the way this story is told: through a series of letters, and diary and journal entries made by the chief protagonists, as well as newspaper articles. That first-person narrative made the entire experience that much more personal.

There were a few parts where the story tended to lag at times; some detailed descriptions of steps undertaken by the team, and some of Mina’s more sorrowful diary entries could certainly have been condensed. That apart this was a refreshing read - culminating in a very exciting finale in the hunt for Dracula! Van Helsing’s idea of using the ‘link’ between Mina and Dracula was brilliant, and the search that started with the clue of “lapping waves, rushing water, and creaking masts” led through some very exciting searches from shipping boxes to abandoned houses, finally ending in a glorious climax.