Dracula by Bram Stoker

Hello and welcome to Fiction Fans, a podcast where we read books and other words too. I'm Lily,

And I'm Sarah, and tonight we will be talking about some good, good vampires. And by that I mean we are reading Dracula by Bram Stoker.

the OG. Except not really, but you know,

Kind of.

kind of. But before we get into that conversation, our quick five minute introduction. Sarah, what is something great that happened recently?

I did a little bit of gardening this weekend. Not a lot, it was like half an hour of weeding, but that still counts.

Still counts. I took another step on my gnocci journey, in that I made gnocci. It wasn't super successful, but, you know, every failure is a chance to learn. So that's my good thing.

I really believe you when you say that. You sound very sincere.

I don't know why it's like, my own personal Mount Everest, but I really just like, wanna be okay at gnocci. I'm

I believe in you.

Thank you. What are you drinking tonight?

Because we are reading Dracula, I'm pretty sure I am legally obligated to be drinking red wine.

I had the same thing! I even picked out a Cabernet Sauvignon from Ménage à Trois that is called Decadence because the description is Luxurious, rich, seductive.

I did not go so far as to pair my wine that closely. I'm drinking whatever bottle was next on my list of bottles to be drunk. I,

That's fair. I will say though, there's not actually any red wine in the book. There's a lot of brandy.

did feel like I was not actually drinking a book relevant drink. It is just culturally relevant.

vampires equal red wine, for sure. No arguments there. But if we were legit, we would have gone for brandy.

Yes. Or whiskey. I feel like whiskey would have been acceptable too.

Yeah, probably.

I mean, Maybe not, like, specifically in the sense that they drink it, but it would have felt appropriate to the time.

Yeah, I can see that. you read anything good lately?

I have been continuing my obsessive Tolkien academic so I am still reading there would always be a fairy tale which is a collection of essays by Verlin Flieger about various aspects of the Lord of the Rings and Tolkien's body of work in general. And it continues to be really good.

Lovely.

about yourself?

I just barely started, I'm four percent in, my ebook loan from the local library of salt, fat, acid, heat. Bye. Oh. Salmon Nosrat? Nosrat? Samin? I don't know. I should have looked it up.

I've heard really good things about that book though.

Yeah, I'm pretty excited. It is a cookbook, but more about like the theory behind cooking rather than just And actually, in the intro Nostra says, Cookbooks are so condescending. They just give you instructions and say, Do this and don't ask questions. And I was like, I love that vibe. Let's get into it. I did not realize how cooking centric my answers were going to be today, but I guess that's just where my head's at.

I mean, valid.

Yeah. I do have to eat, like, often.

Food is good.

Yeah. Well, we are here to discuss Dracula, and dear God, do we have some opinions.

I feel like it's mostly you that has the opinions, to be honest.

have opinions.

I, I do, don't get me wrong, but like, 90 percent of our notes, which are more extensive than usual, Are from you.

Yeah, but then you filled in your response to them. Okay, I think my very first question though, I, we're not going to do a spoiler section for this book. I think everyone is familiar with The Broad Strokes of Dracula, it is a classic novel, but that does mean we have sort of a different experience reading it than contemporaries when it was published, right? No one is really going into Dracula blind at this point.

Correct.

And I'm so curious, I wish I had had the time to try to look it up, but I sure did not. So instead I will just phrase the question into the ether. How obvious was it, or well known was it, that this was a vampire story? Because the book doesn't actually say vampire until like halfway through.

Yeah, I mean, I have no idea. I could certainly see it being the case that people didn't realize it until the reveal. And that it was a big reveal for people.

Or that there were, there were hints. It was a mystery. So much of this book is a mystery in a way that I don't think I really remembered. Because I, I have read this once before. I think I might have been in like 8th or 9th grade, so 13, 14 years old. A very long time ago.

I didn't realize it had been that long since you'd read it.

Yeah, it's been a very long time. I, and I have dated it so perfectly because I have some old flags in my copy of the book. That I left in it. That was just for you, you're welcome. And one of them is Did I pull it out? Oh no, it's not one of my flags. My flags were really bad. They were just like, Oh, this is Lucy Westenra's first entry. This is Dr. Seward's first entry. Like, why did I flag that?

Yeah, that sounds about right.

Yep.

I had also read this book before, but I'm pretty sure that it was only, like, somewhere in the range of five to seven years ago, because I think it was right as I moved into my current place.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah, I'm fairly sure.

So definitely adulthood though.

definitely adulthood, yes.

Yeah. I remembered being a little baffled by this book. And I remain a little baffled by this book. Not confused by what happens or anything, but just the, it feels like it is taking a strong stance, but I could not tell you what that stance is on.

Interesting. I'm not sure if that's the effect that I get from it.

I was a little bit vindicated when I read the introduction, my copy has an introduction by Brooke Allen, and she writes sort of in response to some of the criticisms. There's a lot of feminist criticism around this book, which Sarah will not shock you, because, oh boy, yeah.

I have read this book.

But Allen sort of addresses that, not to say that it's wrong in any sense, but that it's a little bit of an oversimplification, and the book is dealing with Victorian sensibilities in a way that it's, like, very foreign to modern readers. And so I think that maybe it was pushing more boundaries at the time than we realize.

My instinct is to push back on that. But my instinct could be wrong. I mean, obviously, I don't know what Victorian sensibilities really were. I have not studied them. Like,

That's, yeah, right? Like, that's not one of the eras that I've read too much about. So not one that I can speak on at all, really.

Yeah. But my impression reading this book, granted, as a modern reader, left me feeling like He was not pushing boundaries, Stoker was not pushing boundaries. He was not doing anything unusual or progressive with his female characters. I, I know very little about, you know, that time period, so maybe I'm wrong.

Yeah, and I only read the introduction to my Barnes Noble Classics edition of the book. Also she writes about how In this age of AIDS, the blood drinking and transfusions hits very differently, and I'm like, ooh, that is also very dating. Thanks, Brooke Allen. Now I know when you wrote this introduction. Let's see, originally, the novel was originally published in 1847. Oh, actually, Brooke Allen wrote her introduction in 2003. Later than I thought. Just that call out felt so specific.

Yeah, that call out does feel like something from a little earlier than 2003. Very

Just, but like, so hyper specific. Anyway, there's a lot going on in this book. I tend to agree that it feels Very condescending towards women as a whole, but we're not there yet. So we aren't going to do this as a spoiler free and then spoilery section. Instead, we're going to talk about general things that we liked, things that we didn't like. There's a couple. And then we have a conversation around sex, because this is a book about vampires. How could we not?

true.

But let's start on a high note. what's something that we liked about this book? Both of these notes are mine. Do you like how I said we?

Yes, I was

that you specifically liked about this book before I start a rant? Oh,

mean, there's, there's not one thing that I would call out specifically. I did enjoy the novel but there's nothing that stands out as like, I loved this about the book. I like how it has inspired so many adaptations. Does that count?

what a, what an artful dodge. You liked it though. Okay, I think that is. Important to say, all of the conversations and critiques that we have about the themes in this book, it is a very well written novel.

Yeah,

good book, just like, from a craft perspective.

I thought it was really enjoyable. this is a critique that I have that we'll talk about a little bit in the things that we didn't like as much section of this discussion. I did think it was really dense. It was hard to read. Like it's not, it's not something that I could sit down and get through in an afternoon. But it was still very well written. I found the characters compelling even if I was frustrated with them and their characterizations at times. Overall I enjoyed it.

earliest written book that we've read for the podcast, because we've read Frankenstein. Which came out before this,

Which I think was a much faster paced, not faster paced in terms of action necessarily, but easier to, easier to read.

Yeah, the prose didn't feel like I was fighting with it the whole time.

Yes.

so I assumed that they were published around the same time, and Mary Shelley was just a more modern author with her verbiage, but no I'm gonna not, I'm gonna Google this to make sure I'm not misquoting. Yeah, Frankenstein was written in 1816. 30 years before this book.

That is a big difference. Also, more than 30 years because this book was published in 1897.

Oh, really? Maybe your version?

Wikipedia says it was mostly written in the 1890s following its publication in May 1897.

The front page of my paperback says Dracula was first published in 1847.

You did say that your paperback had a lot of typos.

do you think they typo'd the whole ass year? That's crazy. I mean, I wouldn't put it past it.

Wikipedia could be wrong. Wikipedia is not the bastion of correctness, necessarily. But Wikipedia definitely says 1897, and that it was mostly written in the 1890s.

Where else would I even check? That's not Wikipedia.

World cat? Oski cat?

Whatever, anyway That's a mystery that I'm gonna spend some time on. That is like in ink, like, printed in this book.

It is.

That's kind of nuts. There were some other weird typos, like, the one that I actually wrote down was Instanat, instead of instant. So, I don't know what was going on with my copy. I'm kind of shocked, because you'd think a book that has been republished so many times, they would have caught that shit by now.

You would.

I don't know what's going on.

That is indeed a little shocking.

now I don't trust anything Brooke Allen says.

Brooke Allens didn't necessarily write the copy page.

Yeah, but so many of my fun weird easter egg information slash sexism rebuttals were highly dependent on her wink wink nudge nudge introduction. And so, I guess take everything with a grain of salt.

So my edition, which is the Project Gutenberg ebook of Dracula, says copyright 1897 in the United States of America.

Oh, US publication maybe? Stoker was Irish.

Right, I mean, maybe it was published differently, but Wikipedia again says United Kingdom, 1897.

Yeah. It does. Hold on, there's a whole ass timeline in this book that I skipped because I couldn't care less. But now suddenly I do.

Funnily, this was not something we had in our notes whatsoever.

No, this is gonna be such a long episode.

May 26th, 1897.

he was born in 1847. What the fuck? Look! On page nine of the intro stuff. Is this backwards for you and therefore not helpful at

No, no, I can read it. It does indeed say that he was born in 1847.

what is happening? I do love that this timeline includes like, Sigmund Freud was born. Sigmund Freud published his first work because there is some bonkers psychology in this novel. Yeah, this timeline has Dracula is published in 1897.

Yeah, May 26th, apparently.

I, okay, well that was a tangent, but I feel like my whole life is a lie.

But it means, it means, it means that there's what, 80 years in between Frankenstein and Dracula? The publication of Frankenstein and Dracula? And Frankenstein felt so much more modern to me,

I agree completely, and I'm actually going to curtail this conversation because I think we should do a full in the Alien vs. Predator style, a Frankenstein vs. Dracula episode. I think, like, there's enough meat there for a whole conversation.

okay? I mean, I didn't have anything else to add beyond that,

I do. So, back to the section we're actually on, which is things we liked about this book. This book has ruined me for all other first person perspective.

This book probably is the reason why you were so picky about first person perspective if you read it when you were 13.

100 percent yes. It works for me. The way that it is, journal entries and letters and newspaper clippings just kind of all chronologically interspersed together is so enjoyable. Like, I don't know, it hits me just right and I love it. And I don't think much of it overlaps. Like, you don't see the events. one moment of events from two different people's perspective. It's very much like it picks up from one character to the next, but I just love it so much.

what you're saying is that you need all first person perspective novels to be epistolary.

Yes. And there's even an in book reason for why it has been compiled! Because while they're trying to figure out what's happening with Dracula and all that shit, Mina goes, Oh, let me just type up everyone's notes and put them in chronological order, because despite all of my issues with feminism, I'm actually a secretly a huge badass. It is a little silly how many word for word conversations are memorized.

Yes, I mean, that's just what you get when you're trying to write a novel that purportedly takes place or is described through journal entries.

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's fine. There's even an attempt to explain it, because, or at least for Mina, not that she wants to become a journalist, but at one point she's like, oh, I was talking to Jonathan, her, at the time, fiancé's friend, who is a journalist, and he was talking about how you have to remember events and conversations perfectly, and I think that's really cool, so I'm gonna practice it. Which is kind of Really stupid but, It works for the narrative. I like it.

It does work for the narrative.

This also, I would say, is, in my opinion, a gothic novel.

gonna disagree.

Yeah, I mean, I hesitate because I want to say probably one of the defining gothic novels, but Might, maybe not, but in my opinion probably,

feel like it probably

is, right? I mean, the setting, the huge castles, the dreary weather, it's fucking gothic. Plus, we have an untrustworthy narrator. A lot of Jonathan Harker's early entries, he doesn't trust himself, and he's like, I'm writing this down because I don't think this really happened, and so I need a record of what I think I saw.

Which, given what he's going through, pretty reasonable.

Yeah! Oh, the beginning felt a little slow, but it also, like, built Dread really well.

Yeah, I mean, I would say the whole book up until maybe the like, 80 percent mark felt a little slow.

Yeah, it's a slow book.

it's a, it's a slow book. It, it does build dread. I mean, and we, this is getting back to the question about how readers Perceived it who did not have all of the cultural context of Dracula because I do feel that that changed my reading experience like nothing is or was a surprise in the book. Because of how prevalent this idea of Dracula is in modern culture. And I feel like that does impact the horror aspect, like that dread aspect of it in the beginning.

Well, Google seems to think that people generally knew that it was about a vampire.

But how early on did they figure that out?

So that was my question, right? When you don't go into it knowing There are actual jokes about calling vampires Draculas today. Like, he is the Kleenex, or Band Aid of vampires. He's the brand name that has become synonymous with the thing. If you're reading the book without that, there are a lot of hints early on. the bats. There's so many bats. He's only around at night. He doesn't eat food. Like, there are are hints that makes it feel like a mystery if you don't go in knowing the twist.

Yeah.

I think that, I don't know, that's interesting to me, and it is just not an experience that anyone will ever have, ever

ever again, anyway.

yeah, no, like it's that, the door on that has shut, firmly.

Yes.

Anyway, and that's why I didn't want to say this is the OG vampire, because vampires have existed in folklore across many different cultures for a hell of a long time. think there's ancient Greek vampires, like it's so old. I also think it's one of the myths. that have jumped, not jumped continents, but come up on different continents in a way that some, like, there's always a lightning god and there's always a vampire.

I, I feel like Dracula, well, it's, you're right. It's not the OG because there were vampires before him and there's going to be vampires after him. Dracula is, I think, the one that really brought vampires into popular culture. And in that sense, He's the OG?

I, yes, thank you. Because it is the OG, but also it's not, but it definitely is. The movie Nosferatu recently came out, which we're not going to talk about, but it's a remake of Nosferatu, a German film, that the kind of fun little drama did not credit Bram Stoker at all, even though it is Almost identical to the novel. And that's why it's called Nosferatu. Because it's, it's not about Dracula. It's about some other vampire.

Wink wink nudge nudge.

Yeah. And Stoker's widow tried to get it destroyed and she failed. Which is good because it's like a really important part of cinema. But also, she was right. I don't know, copyright's weird. Okay, other reasons why it's a Gothic novel. There are sexy, sexy vampire ladies.

I feel like that's not a requirement for it to be a gothic novel though. There are plenty of gothic novels that don't have sexy vampire ladies.

No, yes. Yes, no. But having sexy, sexy vampire ladies does. Push it towards a gothic novel. I mean, it's firmly a gothic novel. The sexy danger. Dangerous sex. That's gothic.

Okay, if you say so.

So it's super gothic, and then it also is kind of this like, supernatural crime drama, in a fun way. I like, in the middle They're the second half of the book. We have our group of heroes who are like, trying to figure out what Dracula's scheme is, trying to hunt down his different lairs. They're looking up real estate records. I would watch a crime procedural TV show about this.

That's called supernatural.

Yeah, but a good one. I would.

Excuse you. Supernatural is great. What are you talking about? No, I, I do understand what you're saying though. But the way that you've described that is basically supernatural.

I mean, and that's why the show lasted as long as it did, because it's a solid concept.

Yes

did really love, so the, the main, not the main conceit, but Dracula's plot is that he is shipping, is it 50 boxes of grave dirt? I think it's 50. It doesn't

I think it was 50

I mean, it matters to the characters, but it doesn't matter to us. There is a specific number.

Definitely don't deal with 50, I don't think.

Well, all of them are in the first place, except for nine that are actually missing. So, why were there that many? I guess to imply that he was trying to spread his area of influence. Even though we don't have to deal with that, because they're like, Great! All of them are here, except for nine. Because part of the vampire lore in this book is that Dracula can't really go too far from his grave.

it's a very rules lawyering kind of thing to

It is! And that's not real, I mean, it's not addressed in the novel. Like, this is the scheme that we find him in That he has basically accomplished at the start of the novel, or at least he has set up. And our heroes end up thwarting him because vampires are actually evil and we don't want them to take over the world, okay? But just like, as a concept, it's solid.

And he would have gotten away with it if it weren't for these meddling kids.

So, we couldn't help it. We've already dallyed in things we didn't like. There are a lot,

There were a lot. A lot of it probably is cause of, you know, it being written in the 1890s. Not the denseness of it, necessarily. I don't think that was That

The fact that other books that will remain unnamed. Were published so much early. Or, the prose was so much less, I'm gonna say antagonistic. This prose felt antagonistic at me, personally.

See, that's funny because I mean I didn't feel like that. I like dense prose so I actually did really enjoy the prose. It was just really hard to read. It just took a long time

I like, it was good. If it wasn't good, you wouldn't be able to stand how dense it was.

Yes

But that doesn't make it less dense. And I, I guess, really it's because I was reading it for A podcast recording. We had to push this recording back twice because I was like, Shit, I still have a hundred pages left and I thought one evening would be enough because that should be.

Yeah, it took a lot longer to read than a book this length normally does

It's not that long of a book.

No, it's just takes forever to read.

long. And that's why I said that it is an attack on me personally.

Okay. So the, the denseness of the prose is not related to the time period in which it was written,

Right. It must have been a choice that he made on purpose against me personally.

yes, that is very true. But the xenophobia in the book, definitely. Was a choice that Stoker made and I do think that that is probably related to the time period in which it was written.

I agree completely. And This is also an aspect of the book that is just shoved into the things we didn't like section instead of getting its own whole discussion subtopic because there is no rebuttal. There's some rebuttal for the sexism, or not rebuttal, but there's, there's a conversation to be had around it.

Yes,

The xenophobia just sucks and is there.

there's a lot of it I mean, as you point out in our notes, Dracula is foreign the, his lackeys are all very othered and foreign Professor Van Helsing has a terrible foreign accent

We're supposed to admire him, though, because he's right and helpful and good most of the time.

are, but his accent is very bad.

his accent is bad, yeah. The working class accents in this book also, I don't know how bad they were, or if I just really dislike written accents. But it was rough.

I didn't mind those as much, because at least they were consistent internally.

That's true. The Van Helsing, he could not put verbs into the correct tense. Just wildly swinging back and forth.

Yeah, his accent just was not consistent.

Van Helsing being the is he Dutch, I think?

I don't remember what he is.

Is Van Helsing real? No, Google. That is not what I was looking for.

But is Van Helsing real?

He is Dutch. He is not real.

He is really Dutch.

He is the Dutch doctor of psychology, professor of Dr. Seward. Seward?

I was always pronouncing it C word. I don't know if that's how to pronounce it.

It does sound like we're calling him Dr. though. I'm going with it. Dr. Seaward. He was his old professor that Dr. Seaward brings in when Lucy, one of the characters in this book, starts having a mysterious illness, and for a very long time, Van Helsing is like, I know how to fix this, but I'm not gonna tell anyone anything, and we're gonna complain about that in a second.

It's my least favorite trope ever, and it continues to be my least favorite trope in this book.

It was bad. other than him having terrible intercommunications, interpersonal communication skills, he was the wise mentor, he was kind, he was knowledgeable, he was brave, he even had an action hero moment. Like, Abraham Van Helsing, Bram Stoker, alright dude, we know, everyone knows that's not even me being original, that is just me remembering that I watched the extras on the DVD for the movie Van Helsing featuring Hugh Jackman where they bring it up.

also the people who brought his boxes of dirt to the ship in the first place. I don't know if they're the same exact people, but it's travelers in both cases.

there are like four different groups of people living in the region of Transylvania, according to this novel. There were some footnotes in my book that made it sound like that that was probably, for the time, accurate phrasing. But I don't remember the names of them because I don't think they're phrases that we use for people anymore.

My understanding is that Stoker did do his research.

yeah There's a lot of geography also

There is a lot of geography.

which my footnotes made sure I knew.

I didn't have any footnotes.

The footnotes in this book were weird.

Well, it sounds like they were editorial, not something that was inherent to the or actually in the original text.

oh, yes, yes, yes, they were definitely. But I'm saying the information that they chose to give me

Ah, okay.

was not necessarily the information I needed. Like, every time any neighborhood in London was mentioned, they were like, This is the exact region of London that it's in, and this is how you get to it using the underground today. And I was like, why? Piccadilly is a place that's fine! I don't need to know! No!

want to know which tube line you take to get there? I'm pretty sure it's the Piccadilly line, actually.

Yes but it really made sure that I knew, like, which region of London every single place name was in. And I was like, this is not pertinent at all!

That's not helpful! Not a problem with the original book, though, to be

No, definitely the footnotes. So, there were also two different kinds of footnotes. There were footnotes on the page, which was things like, this is where Budapest is, or these rivers go through these countries. And then all, ooh, it was helpful to know that there are about 10, 000 different words for horse drawn carriage that show up in this book. And I know, or, I don't remember, but I was told, like, all of the differences of them.

Your copy sounds very weird. I think on the whole, I'm glad I went with the Project Gutenberg e book.

Yeah! I don't remember why I was complaining about Oh! Because there was a footnote talking about the four different groups of people in that region of Transylvania, and it named them. And so I was like, this sounds legit. There's also some really bad science.

It was written in the 1890s.

I did really enjoy that Brooke Allen, in her introduction, talks a little bit about, like, Oh, Freud was just writing, so, you know, that happened to him. But there was a lot of, like, Oh, I can tell this person's character by their facial features, which maybe that should just go under the xenophobia

I think that, I think that goes under the xenophobia.

Yeah, we can tell by the shape of his nose that he is evil and corrupted by the devil.

Sounds like xenophobia to me.

A lot, a lot of that. There are some blood transfusions that are just like, Oh, all of these men love Lucy so much that they can just transfuse their blood into her. Don't worry about blood types. It's fine. Don't ask questions.

Love is all you need to make it work, right?

And then, Dr. C Word is a psychologist who runs an asylum that is also in his house? Or something? Or he

Or he lives in the asylum. It's kind of unclear. Doesn't sound very healthy.

No. And Dracula uses for another one of his rules lawyering loopholes. Because, I mean, I won't say everyone knows Renfield, but Renfield is the classic character. He is a patient in the asylum who we sort of learn over the course of the book has been taken in by Dracula. And he is the one who says the line, the blood is the life. He is the one who is eating bugs and things to absorb their life and increase his own. It's a little wishy washy,

Well, I don't think, I mean, I think it's wishy washy because it's not effective.

yeah. Well, there's a whole thing about like, what about souls? And it's okay. Yes, Christianity is a thing. I don't care. We're not going to talk about it. It's a, there's a lot of Christianity in this book that I simply don't want to discuss. It doesn't mean it's not there. Do you want to discuss it?

Not particularly. I just enjoyed the way that you said that we weren't going to discuss it.

Yeah, then I'm right. Anyway, Dracula uses the fact that Renfield technically lives in the same house to gain access to the house because he has control over Renfield and can force him to give Dracula permission to enter because that's one of the classic vampire things. You must be given permission to enter a home for the first time, you being a Dracula. And that was a really fun loophole. I liked it.

It was good. I mean, I, I did enjoy Renfield as a character.

There's a reason why he has stuck in popular culture in a way that poor Lucy has not. Poor Lucy.

I have to say that I was more familiar with Lucy than I was with Renfield because Lucy shows up in the French musical adaptation of Dracula and Renfield does not.

Well, we're gonna have to talk about adaptations at length later, because we are recording time, 46 minutes in, and we have many sections left to go.

we do. But before we move on Helsing has lots of information that he does not explain. And this causes problems. This was a trope that I really hated and it caused problems that could have been avoided if he would just talk to people. So it sucked.

It was the absolute worst. So stupid. And, and, I understand. At the beginning, he didn't want to tell everyone, Ooh, I think it's a vampire. Because everyone's gonna think he's crazy. That, I accept. That is reasonable. In this world, vampires are not a thing. Cool.

Well, they, they are, but people don't realize that they are.

In this society. How's that?

Yes.

However, he puts up wards against Dracula. You know, we have the garlic flowers, the crucifixes, all sorts of stuff like that. And never tells anyone that they're important. And so they're constantly getting cleaned up or put away or whatever. It's implied that at one point a servant steals the crucifix. For many reasons, his wards are gotten rid of.

What I found frustrating was that, so they're trying to save Lucy's life, basically, he, he puts up all of these wards, he thinks it's a vampire, but he hasn't admitted it to anyone else, and the garlic flowers are basically the only thing that are keeping her from being turned into a vampire by Dracula.

that's a thing. Like, I accept his logic to an extent. I'm not just gonna go around saying, I think it's a vampire. Yes, that's reasonable. Fucking say literally anything else though.

Yeah,

These are medicinal! Don't move them!

it's important that this room smells like garlic, it's going to clear her airways.

Yeah, it's the 1890s! Make something up! It's what every other doctor's doing.

Yeah, he really, he really fucked that up.

And not just once, and that's what really pissed me off. There are, I think, three nights where he puts up some kind of ward, and then it is thwarted. And then he's so sad, and he's wringing his hands, and he's like, I'm so upset that Lucy's gonna die because someone did something stupid. And it's like, no, it's your fault, though.

Someone did something stupid that you could have avoided.

Yeah, just tell the servants. Hey, don't clean this up. Oh my god. So frustrating

Yep.

And I kind of already touched on how manufactured Mina's Practicing shorthand, which is why she has a journal before she thinks these are important That was just

She loves trains, so she knows all of the train schedules.

it's always that she thinks it's gonna be helpful for Jonathan which kind of makes her an awful little trad wife that I want to shake. But, then she swings around and becomes badass and I don't know how to handle it. But we're not going to talk about that yet because this is a vampire book so we must address sex.

Yes. So what is up with the sexuality in this book?

Mostly evil. I mean, it's evil. It's evil. There is no sexuality in this book that is not of the devil, terrible, bad. There is such a abrupt description. I think it's even on the page. Lucy used to be so sweet and beautiful, but now she's voluptuous and evil, I think is Not quite word for word, but just about word for word, the description.

it's pretty close.

Which is bonkers. Also, poor Lucy. The book really, really condescends towards her. She has three men propose to her in one day. And she's kind of a goober about it in her diary. She's like, oh, woe is me. Can't I just marry all of them? And it's a little annoying, but also yeah. I mean, can't you just marry all of them?

I, I mean, it really feels to me like she is the one who becomes a vampire because she is a little morally looser, she likes having these three men who propose to her and her punishment is, you know, turning undead and evil,

And also therefore sexy.

and also therefore sexy.

There are also no romantic relationships in this book. That is not to say no one in this book is in a romantic relationship. But those relationships are not in this book.

They're not particularly romantic in this book, it's very true.

I Lucy gets proposed to by three men in one day. We get extremely detailed descriptions of the two proposals that she rejects. And then nothing! On the man she's actually going to marry! And we hear so much, we always hear the, frankly, the men talking about how devoted they are to their woman, their fiancé or wife, depending on when you are in the book, to other men, but you never actually see them interact with their wife.

I mean, we do see Jonathan interact with Mina, but it doesn't feel romantic.

It's so surface level.

Yeah. It's very sexless.

there's even, at the beginning, Jonathan writes his entire journal about his first interactions with Dracula, he afterwards thinks he's mad, and he's like, Mina, take this journal, please hide it, please never read it, swear to me. And she's like, yes this is how trustworthy I am, you know that I will never read it. And then eventually she does, because shit gets weird, and she was right, and in his defense, Jonathan is not mad at her for it. However.

Nope.

Never. Not at all. There are, however, extensive platonic relationships in this book. Or, should I say, same sex friendships. And opposite sex friendships. Mina becomes pretty close with Lucy's rejected suitors.

Yeah, I mean, and, and also with Arthur, like, I, I do feel, I do feel that Lucy has platonic relationships friendships with the men in these novels, in this novel.

That's true. There are a ton of friendships. That is what we get on the page. That is what people are waxing poetic about. Lucy and Mina write extensively on how much they care about each other. They write letters to each other. I, the first half of this book is Lucy and Mina caring about each other. And then the rest of it is all of Lucy's Love interests. Her actual fiancé and her two rejected ones. Did I count right? Yes.

You did count right.

And how they like, band together as brothers to defeat the evil that murdered the woman they love. And relationships are, again, very extensively explored.

I mean, apparently they were best buds even before they all fell in love with Lucy. Somehow, coincidentally, it's never really explained how they all know each other, but also know Lucy.

I think Arthur, her actual fiancé, and Dr. Seaword were best buds. I don't think Quincy Morris the American, who is, that's, that's who he is, by the way, in the book, he's just the American. He likes guns, and he's a rootin tootin go getter.

But he, he is, he is best buds with Arthur.

Yeah, I mean, they, the time frame of their friendship I don't think is clear. They're definitely, like, friends. Whereas, like, Arthur and Dr. Seward, we get the impression, have been friends for, like, a very long time.

We got that impression with Arthur and, and Quincy too. I'm not gonna argue that Quincy and Dr. Seward were friends necessarily before this. But I'm pretty sure that, that Quincy and Arthur were.

That's fair. I mean, Really, just Arthur introduced his two best buds to the girl he likes and everyone hit on her on the same day.

I don't know. My, my issue with That is that until they all come together and like,

They didn't talk about it with each other.

yeah, like when we first learn about these different proposals, we don't realize that they're all friends with each other until they're all suddenly talking about how sad they are that that. Lucy's, you know, turned into an evil, sexy undead vampire.

I agree. However, that is actually eclipsed by the fact that I love That they weren't shitty about it.

I will give them props for that. Or Stoker props for

yeah, there's no, like, aggressive machismo. They don't resent Lucy for rejecting them. They handle it very maturely. they kind of simp for Lucy. It's a little annoying. But the fact that they're not mad at their bros for all asking out the same girl was, it's good. The friendships in this book are really good.

They definitely simp for Lucy, but I appreciated that they don't try to change her mind. They're not like, but actually you should marry me instead. They're like, okay, you've made your decision. I respect that. We will be best friends.

Yes. You're not gonna marry me, but I will still die for you. And that, this whole thing, this whole conversation around, I, really, Lucy, because this book definitely kind of condescends her for, she's not necessarily a floozy, she's very clear, she doesn't lead any of them on, but she's so flippant about it. The tone of the book is definitely negative.

She is not smart like Mina. She's not devoted to one person like Mina. She is not perfect like Mina. all she cares about are her romantic entanglements.

Yeah. Yeah.

The book definitely makes the point that she is not As good as Mina.

Lucy is the dumb slut, and that's why she deserves to die.

Yes!

like, it's there, it's in the book,

It is!

which is bad.

Yes! Also that!

there's no more eloquent way to put it. I,

mean, it really, it really does feel when she turns into a vampire, it really does feel like a moral judgment on her for not, not being as smart and being a little more boy crazy than Mina.

yeah. And then we have Mina's whole thing. I don't know where to shoehorn this in, but when I was reading the introduction, learned that Bram Stoker had a messy ass personal life. He wrote some borderline love letters to some male gay poets. Some of the quotes in this introduction, Brooke Allen was leading. She never says, Hey, I think Bram Stoker might have been into dudes. But she wants me to read between the lines. I can tell.

Yes.

Also, Stoker was prone to hero worship. One of his first idols was Walt Whitman, whose revolutionary poetry celebrated democracy, comradeship, and love between men. Stoker wrote the older man emotional, revealing letters. How sweet a thing it is for a strong, healthy man with a woman's eyes and a child's wishes to feel that he can speak so to a man who can be, if he wishes, father and brother and wife to his soul.

That's some kind of leading quotes.

Mm hmm. Whitman apparently referred to him as a sassy youngster. Which is delightful. So that was apparently a big thing. And then he had a whole weird obsession with Henry Irving. Like, changed his entire career so that he could be the, like, manager for Irving's Playhouse or something. I didn't read super closely. I was kind of flipping through it. But.

know who Henry Irving is.

He's an actor.

Ah.

And all of the Shakespeare references in this book are apparently love letters to Irving. Or, I shouldn't say love letters. He only quoted characters that Irving played in Shakespeare plays. And there's a lot of Shakespeare quotes in this book.

Oh my.

And for anyone who thinks that I am putting words in Brooke Allen's mouth, I would like to read to you this excerpt. If Stoker enjoyed love affairs with members of either sex, he did so with the utmost discretion. So, reading that, I mean, the way Stoker handles women is not good, but it makes me wonder if the ham fisted heterosexual relationships in this book are more of a statement by the author against heterosexual relationships. from the perspective of a man and less a statement on women.

It's possible, but I mean You can be gay and write women well.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm not saying that this book is actually a revolutionary piece to feminist literature. It's not. But there is enough going on in it that it's worth a conversation in a way that the xenophobia is just like, No, it's bad, it's one dimensional, throw it all out.

Yeah, it's, it's possible. I mean, I do feel like I would want to read more about the time period and more. Dracula scholarship in general to really be able to comment on that. I didn't read that introduction. My copy did not have anything like that. So I don't have really much historical context for Bram Stoker as a person.

It was honestly shocking. I thought he was a weird, repressed, small minded little man. And I think he probably was still repressed, frankly.

Quite possibly might have still been repressed.

maybe in a different way, you know? I don't know. Sex is still definitely big, bad, and scary in this novel. We never see any, any physical affection between our heterosexual couples. Except,

Mina and Jonathan hug. At one point.

At one point, Arthur tries to kiss Lucy on the forehead when she's on her deathbed. And Van Helsing is like, No, she'll kill you, you can't! So, do not kiss your fiancé on the forehead, or she will kill you. Is the moral of this novel.

Well, by then she's been turned into a bad evil vampire and she'll be too sexy and he won't be able to resist her.

Right, yeah. There's a lot going on. But there is a lot of physical affection between platonic friends. Like, Mina is often embracing and holding hands with The other heroes of the book. I'm just saying the heroes, so I'm not saying Lucy's suitors, because that feels shitty to Lucy in a way that I don't mean. Also Van Helsing, who is not a suitor, and Jonathan,

Who is also not a suitor.

he was Mina's, at this point, husband. Like, they're very physically affectionate, and the men are affectionate with each other. Lucy and Mina are affectionate towards each other. Like, this is a very pro friendship book.

It is.

Which is great! Like, that's good. We need more solid friendships in literature.

maybe Stoker wasn't gay, maybe he was ace.

also a great point. Apparently, another comment in the introduction was that apparently his marriage was not warm at all. But again, I read like a 15 page introduction, not. A biography on him,

Right?

Brooke Allen had some points to make, and she has a PhD, so I'm gonna listen. Anyway, Mina, would you call Mina the main character of this book?

Think that I would, because I don't think that there is one single main character.

This really is an ensemble cast.

It, it is an ensemble cast. I would say that she is a main character.

Yes, I'd say, really, our heroes, Jonathan Harker, Mina, eventually Harker, Lucy, is not really a main character,

I would not call Lucy a main character, unfortunately.

And that fact sucks ass, in a bad way.

Yes.

But her three boyfriends are Arthur, who is actually her fiancé, Dr. Seward, the psychologist, and Quincy Morris, the murrican. And then we also have Van Helsing, yes, who is Dr. Seward's old professor slash good friend. I would say that's the like, they're the ones whose perspective we see them, although we don't actually see Quincy Morris's perspective.

He's American. He doesn't write letters.

He doesn't. He writes one letter, which is just to prove that he's not butthurt about getting rejected. That's literally the only perspective of his that we get. He is more involved with the rest of the plot than Lucy, because he doesn't get killed off in the first half. But I

get killed off, though.

he does get killed off though. Yeah, he's not a main character. I'm downgrading him. He's a more major character than Lucy, but he's also not British, so who cares. Really, I think, One of the problems I have with this book is that there are so many comments on how women are, or how men are, and it's like, just say Mina! Don't say all women are like this!

I wouldn't necessarily mind if they were good comments.

Well, yeah, it's you know, being weird and weepy and hysterical, and it's like, it is reasonable to be weepy and hysterical when your best friend dies and you find out that she turned into a vampire, but don't say, It was her woman's constitution that did that. Just be like, yeah, Mina cried, cause it's reasonable. And also that's how she is.

But, no, but see, the thing is, that's not how Mina is in general. Yes, she's weepy and sad because her best friend turned into a vampire, which is, understandably, thing that would make you weepy and sad, but in general, she's not a weepy and sad person. She's actually quite a strong and strong willed character.

Love Mina. I, how did this book do women as a whole so dirty, and then write the most badass female character?

Because, because we're not actually supposed to find Mina that badass. I don't think.

And I, I am using badass. In a conceptual way, she's not fighting any vampires. Also, she does have a gun! she, is involved in the final

would, she would fight vampires. But we're also supposed to believe that she is weak and, and incapable of You know, things, it's a shame that she has such a good brain because she's a woman, is basically a line that I think Fan Helsing says. She has the brain of a man.

Yeah. And that's the weird generalizations. Like, couldn't you just say, Wow, Mina sure is smart. She,

No, because, because women are not supposed to be that great. And Mina's pretty great.

okay, other than the weird, like, plot device garbage of her practicing Shorthand, because it could be helpful for Jonathan.

really liking trains.

And really liking trains. Honestly, neurodivergent queen. She figures out Dracula's schemes at the same time as or before Van Helsing, basically every time.

I mean, she is by far the smartest character in this book. I

Yeah! She's incredible! And she's brave. At one point, she's like, Hey guys, I have figured out that I am turning into a vampire. I just want to let you know that I will kill myself. Which, you know, not good, but also, standing by her convictions.

mean, like, I respect that. I actually think that if this book had treated her as a human being and not as a poor, fragile woman, she would have been insufferable. As a character, because she would have been too Too perfect.

I can see that.

I like her as a character, partially because the book does her so dirty.

Yeah, it feels like her character is rebelling against Bram Stoker. And I think that's what baffles me. Reading this book, I love her so much, and I feel like I'm not supposed to.

yeah, like, I feel like we're supposed to be like, wow, she is

She's lucky she's surrounded by these strong men who are going to take care of her.

yeah. Whereas she actually basically drives all of the action. While still

For real. And how did this book accidentally write Er, the book didn't write. How did Bram Stoker accidentally write such an incredible female character? I don't think Yes! Yeah, like, he clearly didn't do it on purpose. Does he secretly think women are great and he just didn't realize it?

he doesn't think Lucy's great.

sure doesn't think Lucy's great. But he clearly believes that women are capable of greatness?

Except

it's an anomaly?

Except that every time, like, she does something, it's all, there's always some line denigrating her, like, achievements, like, comparing her to how it would have been done had she been a man, or it would have been better if she had been a man, or it's a shame that she wasn't a man. Like, there's always some kind of line that brings her down and takes away from, from her just being this badass female character.

It's true. I think the most vindicating moment for me was, alright, the men all decide that even though Mina did all of the investigative work, she can't be included anymore because she's a weak and fragile woman and they don't want to expose her to the vulgarities of vampire hunting. And that is exactly when all of the men are off hunting, that Dracula comes and gets access to Mina and begins to turn her, which is a multi day process in this world.

But they keep doing it afterwards!

know, it's, that is why I'm so torn and confused, like, it, what is happening?

I think that he had a moment of clarity for plot reasons, and then he's like, nah. But their sexism, sexism is okay, actually.

Yeah. I, what is it about vampires? So using this book, attributing this book with sort of the, cementing of vampires in modern popular culture. They have become more of an exploration of female sexuality and empowerment, I would say, over the years. Maybe that's just flipping the trope.

Yeah, I mean, I, I think that they have progressed as society has progressed.

There is something interesting in this is a creature invented to prey on women's weakness, women's inherent weakness, and how sex is bad. And then, even if the characters are still predatory and evil, the way that the stories exist in our culture is empowering. I mean, if you think of romance novels, sexy vampire books, as women giving permission to express their sexuality in a way that has not been normal, In a lot of history, vampires are an icon of that. They are, they are objectified.

Yes, I agree. I haven't come across a Dracula specific adaptation does that though?

No, no,

granted I haven't. read or watched or, or interacted with a lot of Dracula adaptations.

no, I'm definitely talking about vampires more than Dracula

I, I do think that, that women have kind of reclaimed vampires in a

Yes, exactly. Also, we've all decided Dracula is hot. He is not hot in this book.

He is really not hot in this book. He, he's very definitely not hot in this book.

He is very explicitly not hot in this book, and we're like, no, that's nice.

No, but actually, actually Dracula is hot.

I, it's fascinating to me.

Dracula just should be hot.

Oh yeah, I also meant like, vampires as being reclaimed and becoming pro female sexuality as a plot device. Even if the vampire characters themselves are not

Well, I feel like That is a common theme in tropes that are originally used to, I don't want to say suppress but to, to criticize or to put down women in some way, like, or, or even, not, not specifically women, but like, some kind of, of group. Like, I do feel that there is usually a reclamation period,

Mm hmm.

or often a reclamation period.

Yeah. I have some additional commentary, but I think I should save it for our conversation around adaptations, which I'm very excited for.

That'll be a fun one.

Especially, like, vampires and sexuality and how that has changed. Because if we look at More recent adaptations. It's very different.

It is very different.

Yeah, I don't, I don't want to get into it. There are so many closer adaptations, looser adaptations, vaguely inspired by, to, we've used the name Dracula to name a vampire has nothing else in common. I really think it deserves its own episode, which is why we're going to do it for a Patreon exclusive probably in the next couple months. I'm not actually sure when it's scheduled to come out at this point.

We don't, I don't think it's on the schedule specifically, but my impression is that we're going to record it whenever I watch Nosferatu.

Yes! I have aggressively not referred to the recent Nosferatu remake, because I think, again, deserves to be part of a wider conversation about Dracula adaptations. You're also going to talk about the French musical, which I did see once a very long time ago. But you've seen more recently.

I did rewatch it on YouTube after I finished reading Dracula, but I had had a lot of wine that evening. I might need to re watch it because I had had a lot of wine that evening.

I think you should.

I do have, I mean, I have had that soundtrack playing through my head the entire time. Specifically, Lucy has a song after she's been turned that's a banger. And I've had that playing in my head this entire episode.

Awesome.

It's a great musical. I don't know if it's a good adaptation necessarily. It's a great musical.

Absolutely. And hey, I don't know if this is a good vampire adaptation, but it's a good book. We are definitely, I mean, how can we not touch on Van Helsing with Hugh Jackman? Simply because we have both seen it many times.

I don't think I've actually seen it that often.

Really?

I've seen it at least twice.

Our cousin Viv showed it to me at a fundamental age.

Was that the first time? Are you sure it was Viv and not me who showed it to you?

You might have both been there. See, you don't get to claim ownership of it and then also say, I haven't seen it that much. You gotta pick one.

Well, I haven't seen it that much, but I can still claim ownership of it, gosh darn it. I should rewatch it, though.

There is, of course, the 90s adaptation with Keanu Reeves,

That I don't think I've ever seen.

Very campy. I haven't seen it in a long time. I need to rewatch it before I talk about it.

Okay, can you put together a list of the adaptations that you are planning on watching and where they can be found.

can't tell you where they can be found, but I can tell you the movies that I am going to go to the ends of the earth to find, to watch.,

I was gonna say, if you, I mean, you don't have to do it right now, but if you can include where they are going to be found, we could post it in our discord and people could participate in this adaptation conversation in the sense that they could watch some of these adaptations.

We are definitely going to do that. The adaptations are The original Nosferatu, the Bela Lugosi Dracula, the Keanu Reeves Dracula. I know that these are not actually the way that these movies are referred to, but these are how I am going to refer to them.

What about the Christopher Lee Dracula?

It wasn't on the list, but I can add it.

I feel like it should be added.

you watch it with me?

If you, if you can figure out how we can watch it.

All right, the Christopher Lee Dracula. Van Helsing featuring Hugh Jackman. The recent, the two recent kind, more spin off movies. There's Renfield, and then there's what is actually the name of it? It's like The Last Voyage of the Lady Demeter.

Last Voyage of the Demeter.

Yeah, because that's the name of the ship. So, I don't know why I kept adding words to it. The Last Voyage of the Demeter. And then of course the, the most recent Nosferatu. I believe that is all of them.

It's a 2023 American supernatural horror film.

Dude, I am really excited for it. I think it's gonna be a fun monster movie. I haven't seen it before. Some of these movies I have seen many times, some of them I have seen once, some of them I have not seen at all. I'm going on a binge.

Yeah, I mean, I am probably not going to watch all of those movies, but I would watch some of them with you.

Yeah, let me know which ones you're interested in. Ooh, it has 50 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. I'm so excited.

It yeah. This is probably one that I, I will rely on you to tell me how it is.

I just, I love the concept of zooming in on this one part of the book that's not really on the page much. Like,

think we get like one chapter.

yeah, we have a little bit of the captain's log. We know that spooky shit is happening on this boat. We know that no one survives. That's all we know.

I liked horror movies more, I would watch it with you. Because I, I like how they are, we're going into adaptation talk but I like, I like how they take a unique approach to a Dracula adaptation.

yes, absolutely. I'm also excited for Renfield. It's basically, what if Renfield was hot and badass and not a sad old lackey? I haven't seen that one yet either. Just purely based because of time. And so this is an excuse to watch it. Anyway, adaptations. I'm very excited.

going to have lots of fun talking about Dracula adaptations.

So, if you are not on our Patreon, you should be. I think it's the 5 level that can access exclusive episodes. They come out about once a month, or 12 times a year. Which, which time of year they come out is a little bit dependent. And Thank you for listening to this episode of Fiction Fans. I should pull up the actual script, because I don't know what I'm saying.

But you got that line right.

I did.

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We are going to be playing Shoot, Screw, or Marry. If you want to know which one of Lucy's suitors we would marry, and which one of them we would murder, go find that there. Thanks again for listening, and may your Draculas always be defeated.

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