Digging Dracula

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One of the perks of grad school is that I wind up rereading books I first encountered, say, 20 years ago. You know, the ones that have gone into into the fuzzy ‘Oh, I read that’ file in your head. My latest rediscovery is ‘Dracula.’

Sure, I read it way back when. Sure, I’ve since seen many movie versions, including ‘Nosferatu’ (pictured), ‘Andy Warhol’s Dracula,’ ‘Love at First Bite,’ ‘Blackula’ and who knows what else. Creepy guy, pointy teeth, he vants to suck your blood, yadda yadda.

But that Bram Stoker was some writer. And his ‘Dracula’ is one delicious book.

The entire premise plays out in 50 pages, which ends with the narrator left for dead. Horror! Tension! What on earth can happen next? Where is there to go? Suddenly, a new narrator, and several epistolary/journaling voices come into play. There is more horror. And more! Creepy bug-eating Renfield! A head gets sliced off! Where to go after that? Fingernail-chewing tension! More horror! A chase!

I had thought Truman Capote a genius for playing out all the horror and evil of ‘In Cold Blood’ in its first 50 pages yet still maintaining a terrible tension throughout the rest of the book. If you tell me that Capote had read ‘Dracula’ circa 1964, I wouldn’t be surprised. Bram Stoker did it first.

So please, I beg you: Don’t stop at the the Gary Oldman/Winona Ryder/Francis Ford Coppola version, or even the Mexican ‘Dracula Saga’ out today in special-edition DVD -- the true and magnificent ‘Dracula,’ as written by Bram Stoker, must be read to be appreciated.

Carolyn Kellogg