Teens and adult fiction

So I basically agree with Brian McGreevy's article on Salon today, for reasons I'll blather on about in a moment. First, though, there's the article's subheading, or the first part of it, which just, well...here, read it:

Parents push young-adult fiction because it's safe. But protecting kids from sex, death and adult themes is wrong

Can I just say: what is this safe young-adult fiction? OK, I don't have kids, and haven't paid much attention to the YA fiction of today. But back in my day, when YA fiction was chiseled onto blocks and hauled into the agora by mules, a hell of a lot of it was not "safe" at all. In fact it was downright lurid in comparison to adult fiction. For example, I remember a book called Run [Drat, what was the protagonist's name? I can picture the book cover--a teen with long blond hair, wearing a black turtleneck and looking warily over her shoulder for reasons which became only too apparent], Run. That book was pure pornography. My mother evidently agreed, belatedly, as the book disappeared from my shelf at some point and was never seen or mentioned again. And that wasn't the only example. By comparison, the fiction of Joyce Carol Oates, or even Stephen King, is redemptive.

Though I was a rather sheltered child, I managed to read--either surreptitiously or in the amber light of my mother's weary approval--Jaws, The Exorcist, and Carrie, not to mention the subversive Judy Bloom, and a lot of other quite questionable stuff. Oh, and Dracula. I was, for the most part, not allowed to watch movies of the same ilk (I got to read Jaws in exchange for not seeing the movie), and I pretty much agree with that decision now. There's something about the visual assault of violent movies that doesn't occur when you're reading, although imagination can sometimes make things worse, generating images and sensations that linger creepily in your system.

But I do take McGreevy's point: "perverse and puritanical an instinct as there is in this culture to prolong childhood, there is a far stronger counter-instinct in children to analyze, simulate, and as soon as humanly possible participate in the challenges of adulthood." And: "They are entitled to learn about it at exactly the rate it is appropriate to their individual moral development to do so." I think my own dark, semi-taboo reading experiences were somehow validating at a time when I needed validation. I was not the chirpiest, chipperest kid (unlike now!), and these books told me I was not alone in sensing something was seriously wrong out there. The books were scary, but oddly reassuring.

Dracula: An E-pilogue

Having just bid a fond (and somewhat relieved) farewell to Dracula, I see Bekka Black has taken the novel's fascination with communications technology, and run with it. iDrakula retells the tale via email, text messages, and web pages. (What, no Twitter?) As Black points out, this is entirely in the spirit of the original. Also, she's given Mina more agency.

The original really does seem to cry out to be rewritten for contemporary times. While reading it, I continually had the feeling it was on the cusp of our own age, both aesthetically and culturally. It seems clear that a sense of radical change in the air inspired Stoker's story in the first place, and Dracula embodies the inchoate fears of same.

Interesting that societal change is represented, in Dracula, by a being who cannot change, i.e. age or die--though he can take different forms, which means one must constantly be on the lookout for him. The fear is: he will change us; he will make us the same as him; but he is so radically "other" that we can do nothing to bring him into "our" fold. New technologies inspire those kinds of fears. Technology makes us less human, we think; we seem less sure that we can humanize technology. Maybe racial or sexual otherness sparks the same horror in some: if we intermingle, we'll turn into them. It's a one-way street, always leading straight to hell. "They" can never be like "us."

So the vampire is the threat of change, but also the wish that things never, ever will change. Maybe it's even an acknowledgment that the fantasy of changelessness--immortality--is dangerous and monstrous. In fact, change is human. But no one wants to admit that up front.

Today's terrified Tea Party casts Obama in the vampire role. The fact that his campaign made great use of new technologies probably made him even more frightening to those on the wrong side of history. Never mind that the Palins of the world, true parasites, have also mastered these communications tools. What's really scary is the combination of implacable fear plus access to technology. Information, reason, appeals to our common humanity--nothing seems to stop this kind of fear. Maybe a better economy would help. But the fear is still there, buried, but not dead.

Anyway, I really just meant to note the Black book in this post. But now that I think about it, I'm more convinced than ever that Dracula is a book for the ages, literally.

Borrowed Fire: The somewhat disappointing demise of Dracula

It is done. Dracula is finished. And what an ending it is, or isn't, for the title character.

Our heroes have been racing toward Castle Dracula, trying to intercept the cart bearing the Count's coffin before the sun sets. They've split up into various parties, and the actual death scene is narrated by Mina, who's watching from a short distance away with Van Helsing. Here's how Dracula dies:

By this time the gypsies, seeing themselves covered by the Winchesters, and at the mercy of Lord Godalming and Dr. Seward, had given in and made no further resistance. The sun was almost down on the mountain tops, and the shadows of the whole group fell upon the snow. I saw the Count lying within the box upon the earth, some of which the rude falling from the cart had scattered over him. He was deathly pale, just like a waxen image, and the red eyes glared with the horrible vindictive look which I knew so well.

As I looked, the eyes saw the sinking sun, and the look of hate in them turned to triumph.

But, on the instant, came the sweep and flash of Jonathan's great knife. I shrieked as I saw it shear through the throat. Whilst at the same moment Mr. Morris's bowie knife plunged into the heart.

It was like a miracle, but before our very eyes, and almost in the drawing of a breath, the whole body crumbled into dust and passed from our sight.

I shall be glad as long as I live that even in that moment of final dissolution, there was in the face a look of peace, such as I never could have imagined might have rested there.

I dunno. I guess I was expecting a little more drama. The racing-against-the-sunset thing is all right, but I was sort of expecting Dracula to at least say something before crumbling into dust. Or to present a greater danger to his killers, to put up some kind of fight. Earlier we got a hint of this, during an unsuccessful attempt to do him in:

Harker evidently meant to try the matter, for he had ready his great Kukri knife and made a fierce and sudden cut at him. The blow was a powerful one; only the diabolical quickness of the Count's leap back saved him. A second less and the trenchant blade had shorn through his heart. As it was, the point just cut the cloth of his coat, making a wide gap whence a bundle of bank notes and a stream of gold fell out. The expression of the Count's face was so hellish, that for a moment I feared for Harker, though I saw him throw the terrible knife aloft again for another stroke. Instinctively I moved forward with a protective impulse, holding the Crucifix and Wafer in my left hand. I felt a mighty power fly along my arm, and it was without surprise that I saw the monster cower back before a similar movement made spontaneously by each one of us. It would be impossible to describe the expression of hate and baffled malignity, of anger and hellish rage, which came over the Count's face. His waxen hue became greenish-yellow by the contrast of his burning eyes, and the red scar on the forehead showed on the pallid skin like a palpitating wound. The next instant, with a sinuous dive he swept under Harker's arm, ere his blow could fall, and grasping a handful of the money from the floor, dashed across the room, threw himself at the window. Amid the crash and glitter of the falling glass, he tumbled into the flagged area below. Through the sound of the shivering glass I could hear the "ting" of the gold, as some of the sovereigns fell on the flagging.

We ran over and saw him spring unhurt from the ground. He, rushing up the steps, crossed the flagged yard, and pushed open the stable door. There he turned and spoke to us.

"You think to baffle me, you with your pale faces all in a row, like sheep in a butcher's. You shall be sorry yet, each one of you! You think you have left me without a place to rest, but I have more. My revenge is just begun! I spread it over centuries, and time is on my side. Your girls that you all love are mine already. And through them you and others shall yet be mine, my creatures, to do my bidding and to be my jackals when I want to feed. Bah!"

With a contemptuous sneer, he passed quickly through the door, and we heard the rusty bolt creak as he fastened it behind him. A door beyond opened and shut. The first of us to speak was the Professor. Realizing the difficulty of following him through the stable, we moved toward the hall.

This promises much for the ultimate showdown. But now, at his long-awaited death scene, all he gets to do is glare, and then zip! All over. He is not granted so much as a "Bah!," let alone a threat to make the lot of them his jackals when he wants to feed.

One reason for this may be the choice to show the scene through Mina's eyes. As I've repeated to the point of tedium, Stoker seems to recognize Mina as both the smartest and the bravest person on the whole team. Van Helsing certainly says as much, though he tends to do it in a patronizing tone, neutralizing the threat Mina presents. For instance, after the men have lost the trail, Mina uses logic to figure out where Dracula is going:

When I had done reading, Jonathan took me in his arms and kissed me. The others kept shaking me by both hands, and Dr. Van Helsing said, "Our dear Madam Mina is once more our teacher. Her eyes have been where we were blinded. Now we are on the track once again, and this time we may succeed."

Like one of the characters said on Mad Men when Peggy came up with her first slogan: "it was like a dog playing the piano." Mina, far more than a simple victim, comes close to rendering the whole posse of men irrelevant--she's smart and physically brave; only her weakness from the "vampire baptism" would seem to hold her back from being able to destroy her attacker herself. So I sense that in having her narrate the killing of Dracula, Stoker is somehow trying to give Mina her due, while at the same time making sure the male heroes have something important (and traditional) to contribute. Because of her social position, she can't do the actual deed, but she can at least tell the story of the deed.

But because she is an observer and not a participant in the action, she's not engaged in the life-and-death struggle with the vampire. This means the opportunity for any kind of existential struggle is lost--for example, Dracula looking into his killer's eyes and saying, "Zo. You are like me after all. I didn't think you had the guts..." Or, had it been Mina who killed him, he might have made an almost persuasive appeal to her latent desires for power and freedom: "We shall rule the night. We shall fly together through darkness, through fields of stars. These twerps here shall be our jackals. Do you really want to spend the rest of your life proofreading Jonathan's legal prose?"

Again, I realize the book is not intended to be psychologically challenging on this level, but it almost is, in so many places. Even here, as Mina sees the "peace" on the Count's face, we're reminded that this hasn't been a simple story of good and evil, that it's had to be squished a bit to fit in that box.

Also, my theory here is not airtight. Why couldn't Mina observe and narrate a more complex scenario? Maybe she could even have wanted to intervene, to help Jonathan, who always needs her help? She could try escaping from the holy circle Van Helsing has set up around her, throw herself again and again against the force field...

I don't know. Maybe Stoker just wanted the whole thing to be overwith. Or he didn't want to risk giving the Count any final statements that could lead to doubts about the rightness of his killers' actions. But I think the ultimate issue is this: like Mina herself, the novel is far more intelligent and interesting than its tradition--in this case, its genre--allows it to be.

Anyway, what can we learn from this, as writers of contemporary literary fiction? A genre frame--like the Gothic novel, the detective novel, the romance, etc.--can give you some wonderful creative constraints. But if you're going to challenge those constraints, you really have to break all the way through. Don't just mosey up to them and poke at them, or your readers might not realize what you're doing.

Borrowed Fire: Show, don't tell, for God's sake, Bram

Yes, it has been a great many days since we last checked in on Dracula and the valiant attempt to finish him off. I speak of the book's heroes' attempt, not my own. My efforts have been less than valiant. It's true that I have been unusually absorbed in trying to get my novel finally, finally out the freaking electronic door (nearly there! so close!). But it is also true that as I look at the battered paperback waiting for me on the coffee table, I see not a classic of Victorian literature, but a football-sized field of wet concrete, on the other side of which is...more wet concrete.

This should be the most thrilling part of the entire novel--the pursuit of the arch-villain back to his homeland--but there is just. too. damn. much. blabbing. There's interesting stuff going on, including Mina and the Count's psychic connection, which turns her into a sort of broken office intercom that allows the evil boss to eavesdrop on his rebellious employees. But every time the momentum picks up just a tad, we are treated to paragraphs like this:

"What does this tell us? Not much? No! The Count's child thought see nothing, therefore he speak so free. Your man thought see nothing. My man thought see nothing, till just now. No! But there comes another word from some one who speak without thought because she, too, know not what it mean, what it might mean. Just as there are elements which rest, yet when in nature's course they move on their way and they touch, the pouf! And there comes a flash of light, heaven wide, that blind and kill and destroy some. But that show up all earth below for leagues and leagues. Is it not so? Well, I shall explain. To begin, have you ever study the philosophy of crime? 'Yes' and 'No.' You, John, yes, for it is a study of insanity. You, no, Madam Mina, for crime touch you not, not but once. Still, your mind works true, and argues not a particulari ad universale. There is this peculiarity in criminals. It is so constant, in all countries and at all times, that even police, who know not much from philosophy, come to know it empirically, that it is. That is to be empiric. The criminal always work at one crime, that is the true criminal who seems predestinate to crime, and who will of none other. This criminal has not full man brain. He is clever and cunning and resourceful, but he be not of man stature as to brain. He be of child brain in much. Now this criminal of ours is predestinate to crime also. He, too, have child brain, and it is of the child to do what he have done. The little bird, the little fish, the little animal learn not by principle, but empirically. And when he learn to do, then there is to him the ground to start from to do more. 'Dos pou sto,' said Archimedes. 'Give me a fulcrum, and I shall move the world!' To do once, is the fulcrum whereby child brain become man brain. And until he have the purpose to do more, he continue to do the same again every time, just as he have done before! Oh, my dear, I see that your eyes are opened, and that to you the lightning flash show all the leagues," for Mrs. Harker began to clap her hands and her eyes sparkled.

First, and least of all: if you are going to do info dumps like this, please, please, not to do them in the voice of a guy whose command of the language is imperfect, and who nevertheless (Newt Gingrich-like) enjoys quoting from The Ancient Sages and The Latest Sciences to reveal his own amazing learnedness!

But why is this happening in the first place? Of course Stoker's was less of a show-don't-tell age than our own. Not bombarded by glowing, rapidly moving images every second of their lives, his audience most likely had both the patience and desire to slog through...I mean, peruse lengthy accounts of esoteric subjects. It is also likely that the desire for such information was stronger in them, certainly on the topic of vampires, which were not nearly as familiar a subject as they are to us. Insights not only into vampire lore, but into the makings of this particularly dangerous example of the type, were probably welcomed rather than skimmed.

However, this raises the more general problem I have with lots of genre literature: the overemphasis on world-building. Many people (Tom Clancy fans, say) love genre fiction precisely for the information it delivers about unfamiliar places, procedures, and times. Ultimately, reading such novels, for these readers, is just a more fun way of learning than studying a technical manual. Nothing wrong with that; I'd just rather learn the stuff by watching characters interact with these worlds. And I don't think much would have been lost had all this information been shown to us through the course of Dracula's misadventures in England and on the high seas.

And that's the other key issue. We have multiple points of view in this novel, but never Dracula's. I get the reasoning: he must be mysterious and therefore opaque. We also must not be tempted to sympathize with him in any way, although Mina herself, at one point, suggests that any decent Christian ought to try. (If what Van Helsing says is true, he really must be suffering something awful.) BUT. An inventive author could certainly present Dracula's point of view without demystifying him--in fact, one could make him far more mysterious that Van H's dry treatises (which he even admits are dry) turn out to be. Our sympathies with him, if invoked, could make the story even more disturbing.

The fact is, we don't quite see enough of Dracula. Yes, he has to be shadowy, and a little of him goes a long way.* But thus far we have really had too little, apart from his very entertaining scenes in the beginning. (Remember climbing down the castle wall headfirst, dressed as Jonathan?) He has become less of a being than a scholarly project of Van Helsing's--and Van Helsing clearly does not possess the gift of bringing the subjects of his inquiries to life.

Nevertheless, I press on...

*In the course of writing my novel, I have also learned that this is true of Bigfoot. I now no longer tell people my novel is "about" Bigfoot. However, he is a significant minor character.

Borrowed Fire: Does Dracula have a psychology (part 2)? Or: the Gothic John McCain

As we make our way toward the final confrontation with you-know-who, we are once again treated to one of Van Helsing's patented info dumps, i.e. stuff it might have been good to know earlier. I suppose I should not complain. After all, I've been on Van H repeatedly for always going off to do research at the very moments when he ought to be vigorously pursuing Dracula with a stake. So now he's found out something kind of interesting about Dracula's psychology, and I guess it's better late than never. Besides, don't we all have the same problem--preparation vs. action? Research vs. writing? No matter what we're doing, it seems like the wrong thing at the wrong time, doesn't it?

Anyway, here's what he's learned:

"I have studied, over and over again since they came into my hands, all the papers relating to this monster, and the more I have studied, the greater seems the necessity to utterly stamp him out. All through there are signs of his advance. Not only of his power, but of his knowledge of it. As I learned from the researches of my friend Arminius of Buda-Pesth, he was in life a most wonderful man. Soldier, statesman, and alchemist--which latter was the highest development of the science knowledge of his time. He had a mighty brain, a learning beyond compare, and a heart that knew no fear and no remorse. He dared even to attend the Scholomance, and there was no branch of knowledge of his time that he did not essay.

"Well, in him the brain powers survived the physical death. Though it would seem that memory was not all complete. In some faculties of mind he has been, and is, only a child. But he is growing, and some things that were childish at the first are now of man's stature. He is experimenting, and doing it well. And if it had not been that we have crossed his path he would be yet, he may be yet if we fail, the father or furtherer of a new order of beings, whose road must lead through Death, not Life."

As before, this is not exactly a psychology. We're learning this info primarily so we can see what a formidable enemy Dracula is. He's extremely smart, and, for the first time, we understand he has a Plan.

Interestingly, vampirism seems to be akin to a brain injury--it causes faculties usually present in adults to vanish. I'm not quite sure what the reference to his being childlike means, but we might assume it's a radical narcissism, which doesn't recognize the existence of others as others. That obviates the need for any conscience, and explains his desire to populate the world with mini-Dracs. In his mind, everyone is either him, or should be him.

Yeah, this is overstated. Van Helsing's insights don't raise Dracula beyond the level of extra-scary monster. However, this description put me in mind of another character who could become a truly tragic monster, if someone wants to write that particular novel. I am thinking of John McCain. I have no evidence one way or the other to indicate whether he once was smart. However, like Dracula, he was a proud warrior. He was laid low by his enemies. At some point--perhaps as a result of torture, or that combined with years in the strange and stultifying castle of the U.S. Senate, plus two (or more?) failed runs for president--he developed a burning desire for vengeance. What he may once have been, he is no longer. He bides his time, learning and plotting as his conscience withers away. Until one desperate day, faced with what could be his final defeat, he makes a bargain with the devil. And unleashes a red-suited, bee-hived demon upon the earth...

Borrowed Fire: How character can help plot

So Dracula has been a bit of a slog this week. How can this be, when this week's reading culminated in the still-somewhat-shocking scene of Dracula forcing Mina to drink from a vein in his chest--like "a child forcing a kitten's nose into a saucer of milk to compel it to drink"?

Well, to get to this point, we have to slog through some pretty tedious plot logistics, which are rendered necessary by faulty characterization. If I may be so bold. Yes, I get that this is a horror novel, not a literary novel, and so characterization is secondary to plot. But in this case the plot problem is actually a character problem. Or maybe even a philosophical problem that hampers characterization.

Stoker, perhaps deliberately, misunderstands the nature of heroism. Dracula is fundamentally a story of good vs. evil, but Stoker mistakes "good" for "perfect." His male heroes, in order to be heroes, all have to be indisputably wise, brave, diligent, strong, and solicitous of the weaker sex. But his plot demands that all these perfect guys fail utterly to discern that Mina is being attacked by Dracula while they are out looking for Dracula. This failure would suggest that they are at least somewhat deficient in wisdom, bravery, diligence, strength, and consideration.

But in this understanding of heroism, that can't be. Therefore, we need elaborate explanations as to how this failure occurred that don't entail personal failings in the characters. These explanations are convoluted and ultimately not convincing. Contrary to the author's apparent intentions, they even make the characters look dumb and callous. After all they've been through--all the research, all the collating and comparing of documents, not to mention the wasting away and then the bloody murder of Lucy, which they all saw and participated in...they still have no idea what is happening to Mina.

To be fair, Mina herself seems to have no idea. She, like her husband and the expert Van Helsing, insist on seeing her problem as womanly nerves. She is more tired than usual, pale and weepy--which suggests being "visited" by Dracula is like getting your period. These symptoms confirm for both Mina and the guys that they were right in having her stay at home alone while the men went out to not find Dracula. The fact that it is unusual for Mina to behave this way does not raise any red flags--if anything, it seems to bring relief to all concerned (including the author) that Mina really is (just) a woman. We were right not to bring her along--just look at how exhausted she is from merely thinking about hunting vampires! Whereas we sort of suspect that Mina, if she had gone along, would have found and staked Dracula in a second, while the guys were still leafing through UPS notices, debating the whereabouts of the boxes of earth that Dracula has had shipped to England.

But what if Stoker had a different definition of heroism? Let's say Jonathan is a bit dumber than his wife. Say he's uncomfortable with this--it threatens his sense of manhood, which is already under threat because he's not brave, or at least thinks he isn't. This is understandable. He lives in an age in which women aren't supposed to be smarter or braver than their husbands; moreover, Jonathan has been through some serious trauma in Castle Dracula. We would understand if he were scared and confused, and perhaps too quick to attribute Mina's pallor to a stereotype that he knows, deep down, is wrong. And let's say Van Helsing was once a great vampire hunter. But the years, and the grisly nature of his business, have taken their toll. Some part of him just doesn't want to deal with Dracula. He doesn't want to cut off another head and stuff the mouth with garlic. He's old and tired. Maybe he even has some sympathy for the creatures he has to kill--cast out by God and man, and it isn't their fault, really...Can't someone else take over? I could even see Mina and Dracula having an interesting conversation before they...you know. Mina can't help being drawn to the Count--she knows he's bad, really bad, but so much more interesting than Jonathan, with his endless nattering about real estate and office politics...

So the scared young guy and the exhausted old guy and the smart but frustrated woman make a series of mistakes. Their psychology causes them to willfully misread Mina's illness, allowing Dracula to almost do her in. But they pull themselves together, despite their fear, exhaustion, revulsion, and stupidity, to do what they have to do in the end. Isn't that a more compelling definition of heroism? Overcoming one's flaws to do the right, and hard thing?

On the other hand, who am I to criticize? Dracula has, you know, done all right as a novel. It will no doubt outlast us all. It's a classic. And, again, I know Stoker didn't set out to write a literary/psychological novel. It's just that he almost did. And while I don't write genre novels, and can't really presume to tell others how to do it, it still seems to me that *even* genre novels benefit from having complex, flawed characters. It would make at least this plot more interesting and believable.

Borrowed Fire: What do authors know about their own intentions? Or, Jonathan, you idiot!

I have said it before: Keanu Reeves was the right choice to play Jonathan Harker in Dracula. First, a highlight reel to prove my point:



And now this week's reading. He and the boys have been out looking for the Count, and--amazingly--not finding him. Instead they have just managed to "count" (ha!) the boxes of earth in the chapel, and play with some schnauzers. From Jonathan's journal:

I came tiptoe into our own room, and found Mina asleep, breathing so softly that I had to put my ear down to hear it. She looks paler than usual. I hope the meeting tonight has not upset her. I am truly thankful that she is to be left out of our future work, and even of our deliberations. It is too great a strain for a woman to bear. I did not think so at first, but I know better now. Therefore I am glad that it is settled. There may be things which would frighten her to hear, and yet to conceal them from her might be worse than to tell her if once she suspected that there was any concealment. Henceforth our work is to be a sealed book to her, till at least such time as we can tell her that all is finished, and the earth free from a monster of the nether world. I daresay it will be difficult to begin to keep silence after such confidence as ours, but I must be resolute, and tomorrow I shall keep dark over tonight's doings, and shall refuse to speak of anything that has happened. I rest on the sofa, so as not to disturb her. (Emphasis added, because Jonathan is too dumb to see it.)

Two things. Thing One: after all the vampire-induced horrors that everyone, including Jonathan, has been through, he still misinterprets Mina's pallor as nothing more than womanly nerves--even though Mina has proven time and again she is not subject to womanly nerves. Jonathan is. Which leads us to Thing Two: IF Jonathan had given Mina her due and let her come out with the boys to look for Dracula, she would not have been left alone to be fed on by same.

Overtly, Stoker seems very keen on stifling any hints of feminine strength--bravery, sexuality, taking charge, knowing stuff. Witness Vampire Lucy's punishment when she makes the moves on Arthur. And maybe getting drained by Dracula is Mina's punishment for even vaguely wanting--without forcing the issue in any way, mind you--to be considered an equal. Surely the endpoint is the same: she will need to be rescued and redeemed by men. Still--Stoker seems to be making repeated efforts to reveal Mina's intelligence and strength in contrast to her husband's relative obtuseness and ineffectualness.

If this is the case, and not just me imposing my own beliefs on the story, my question is, does Stoker intend for us to read the story this way? I know, for readers, it ultimately does not matter: we see what we see. But for writers, is it incumbent upon us to recognize our latent intentions and draw them out? Is Stoker's treatment of Mina and Jonathan actually subversive because he did recognize the situation, and decided not to hit is over the head with it? Or do Mina and Jonathan's more nontraditional qualities come across as unintentional?

My Signet Classic version of the novel has an introduction by Leonard Wolf, who asserts that the novel "has embedded in it a very disturbing psychosexual allegory whose meaning I am not sure Stoker entirely understood." If Lucy were the main female character, I would tend to agree. But the dynamic between Mina and Jonathan suggests another level of awareness, if not full consciousness, that men sell women short. In fact, the way Jonathan always has to keep his wife down for her own good makes him a kind of author-insert. Stoker sometimes clumsily reins his female characters in--he may think it's necessary, but he also may suspect it's stupid.

Borrowed Fire: Dostoevsky does Dracula?

It is high time we got back to Dracula.

The vampire hunters band together to kill the title character. In her diary, Mina quotes the inspiring botched English of Van Helsing:

How then are we to begin our strike to destroy him? How shall we find his where, and having found it, how can we destroy? My friends, this is much, it is a terrible task that we undertake, and there may be consequence to make the brave shudder. For if we fail in this our fight he must surely win, and then where end we? Life is nothings, I heed him not. But to fail here, is not mere life or death. It is that we become as him, that we henceforward become foul things of the night like him, without heart or conscience, preying on the bodies and the souls of those we love best. To us forever are the gates of heaven shut, for who shall open them to us again? We go on for all time abhorred by all, a blot on the face of God's sunshine, an arrow in the side of Him who died for man. But we are face to face with duty, and in such case must we shrink? For me, I say no, but then I am old, and life, with his sunshine, his fair places, his song of birds, his music and his love, lie far behind. You others are young. Some have seen sorrow, but there are fair days yet in store. What say you?"

Whilst he was speaking, Jonathan had taken my hand. I feared, oh so much, that the appalling nature of our danger was overcoming him when I saw his hand stretch out, but it was life to me to feel its touch, so strong, so self reliant, so resolute. A brave man's hand can speak for itself, it does not even need a woman's love to hear its music.

When the Professor had done speaking my husband looked in my eyes, and I in his, there was no need for speaking between us.

"I answer for Mina and myself," he said.

"Count me in, Professor," said Mr. Quincey Morris, laconically as usual.

"I am with you," said Lord Godalming, "for Lucy's sake, if for no other reason."

Dr. Seward simply nodded.

The Professor stood up and, after laying his golden crucifix on the table, held out his hand on either side. I took his right hand, and Lord Godalming his left, Jonathan held my right with his left and stretched across to Mr. Morris. So as we all took hands our solemn compact was made. I felt my heart icy cold, but it did not even occur to me to draw back. We resumed our places, and Dr. Van Helsing went on with a sort of cheerfulness which showed that the serious work had begun. It was to be taken as gravely, and in as businesslike a way, as any other transaction of life.

This scene is rife with Dostoevskian potential. Because he is not Dostoevsky, nor does he care to be, Stoker breezes through the whole vampire-hunting dilemma in less than a page. Now, if he were Dostoevsky, he--in the guise of someone like Ivan Karamazov--would dwell awhile on the fact that if one is killed by a vampire while trying to rid the world of his evil presence, one gets damned by God for one's trouble. You might think it was the bravest, most selfless act of all to risk not only one's life, but one's immortal soul, to protect others from the same damnation. One might think God would want to offer an extra special reward for such a risk. Apparently not. However, apparently "duty" (as Van Helsing puts it) goes beyond the duty to God--the duty to humankind takes precedence.

Perhaps there's a reason why Stoker blew through all this rather quickly. It's a knotty theological problem. Our heroes have, sort of quietly, renounced God, or at least God's blessings, and we admire them for doing so. It can't have been Stoker's intention to reveal the limits of God's love, to suggest that by making the greatest sacrifice of all, you could end up damned forever. Then again, maybe that is what sacrifice really means--giving up God's love voluntarily for the sake of humanity. Leaping without the net, and never expecting the net to appear. It won't, because you are beyond it.

Or is that wrong? Because you give up God's love when you do bad things, also, so...

Anyway, here's a fun writing challenge. Put Van Helsing (minus the accent, please), or Mina (who would be more interesting)* into a dialog with, say, Jesus. Model it on the Grand Inquisitor, and let it explain the role of the vampire in leading us to or away from God.

*Note that in the scene above, Mina is afraid--not of what Van Helsing is describing, but that Jonathan (I will always think of him as Keanu Reeves) is losing his nerve. The touch of his hand reassures her that he is indeed a brave man. But we don't need that reassurance from Mina; we know she's brave. Stoker then has her clam up like a good wife, and let Jonathan answer for her. Too late: she's gotten out of her cage again.

Borrowed Fire: Creating realism through the problem of other minds

I've already mentioned how impressed I am with Stoker's use of detail in Dracula. His landscapes are truly stunning and immersive. Because Stoker is committed to making us feel present in his heightened reality, in which vampires roam both Transylvania and England, he provides a wealth of details that are both realistic for those places, and also "off." As it turns out, the stranger your tale, the more detail you actually need to make it believable.

In the same vein (ha!) Mina's attention to detail is one reason we trust her, and also, I think, believe in her as a character. She seems to have a complex mind, so much so that she threatens to go beyond the boundaries Stoker has set for her. In fact, maybe it's that threat that convinces us a character is "real"--you sense him or her straining against the prison of the medium. Still, Mina ought to have a little more room to begin with.

The other characters, especially the men, don't make it out of their cardboard boxes, in my opinion. Stoker spends a little too much time insisting on their bravery and goodness, as reported by other characters.* Their primary role is to coalesce into a collective force of good, fighting the singular but multifaceted evil that is Dracula.

Still, there is considerable complexity to their thoughts, if not to their emotions. Defeating Dracula is not just a matter of physical bravery--he must be outsmarted, and he is really smart. We get a sense of the kind of mental agility that's required in Dr. Seward's encounter with the madman Renfield, who is...well, let's just say he's a minion. So far he's mostly just been eating bugs and birds, and it's not yet clear how this is preparing him for his role in Dracula's scheme. But he is up to something:

I found Renfield sitting placidly in his room with his hands folded, smiling benignly. At the moment he seemed as sane as any one I ever saw. I sat down and talked with him on a lot of subjects, all of which he treated naturally. He then, of his own accord, spoke of going home, a subject he has never mentioned to my knowledge during his sojourn here. In fact, he spoke quite confidently of getting his discharge at once. I believe that, had I not had the chat with Harker and read the letters and the dates of his outbursts, I should have been prepared to sign for him after a brief time of observation. As it is, I am darkly suspicious. All those out-breaks were in some way linked with the proximity of the Count. What then does this absolute content mean? Can it be that his instinct is satisfied as to the vampire's ultimate triumph? Stay. He is himself zoophagous, and in his wild ravings outside the chapel door of the deserted house he always spoke of 'master'. This all seems confirmation of our idea. However, after a while I came away. My friend is just a little too sane at present to make it safe to probe him too deep with questions. He might begin to think, and then… So I came away. I mistrust these quiet moods of his, so I have given the attendant a hint to look closely after him, and to have a strait waistcoat ready in case of need.

What's interesting here is the complexity involved in trying to keep pace with Renfield's state of mind. Seward recognizes he is "too sane" to be probed "too deep"--because then he will figure out what Seward is up to. I don't know about you, but this scene reminds me of Jane Austen. You know, all the minute parsing of what so-and-so meant when he said such-and-such, and how maybe one should employ this strategy in order to elicit that reaction...These characters are not as nuanced as Austen's (although they are not that far off, the more I think about it), but all these layers of conjecture ultimately stem from a similar source: we cannot know other minds. At the same time, Seward's conjectures imply that both Renfield and he have minds--say what you will about the condition of Renfield's--and Seward struggles with the same fundamental problem real humans have: knowing for sure what others are thinking and feeling.

In other words, real humans spend a great deal of effort trying to fathom other humans' minds, and failing at it. Depicting your characters engaged in such a task, revealing both the nuances and the ultimate impossibility of the effort, is a good way of making them, or at least your story, more palpably realistic.

*This is especially the case with Jonathan. The characters keep insisting on how brave and unusually smart he is. For me, this protesting-too-much only proves that Francis Ford Coppola was right to choose Keanu Reeves for the role.

Borrowed Fire: Idea for a novel: The New Lucy Westenra

This week in Dracula, we are forced to rescind some of the feminist props we gave Stoker for his depiction of Mina Harker. I'm not up for an exhaustive analysis, as usual, so I'll just opine here that the man was ambivalent about what Mina calls the New Woman. With Lucy's transformation into a vampire (a new woman indeed), Stoker outlines his concerns about the prospect, i.e. previously docile and manageable females will run amok, start making the first move on their husbands, and prefer to feed on children rather than having it the other way around.

Here the ad-hoc band of vampire hunters, led by Van Helsing, encounters the New Lucy:

There was a long spell of silence, big, aching, void, and then from the Professor a keen "S-s-s-s!" He pointed, and far down the avenue of yews we saw a white figure advance, a dim white figure, which held something dark at its breast. The figure stopped, and at the moment a ray of moonlight fell upon the masses of driving clouds, and showed in startling prominence a dark-haired woman, dressed in the cerements of the grave. We could not see the face, for it was bent down over what we saw to be a fair-haired child. There was a pause and a sharp little cry, such as a child gives in sleep, or a dog as it lies before the fire and dreams. We were starting forward, but the Professor's warning hand, seen by us as he stood behind a yew tree, kept us back. And then as we looked the white figure moved forwards again. It was now near enough for us to see clearly, and the moonlight still held. My own heart grew cold as ice, and I could hear the gasp of Arthur, as we recognized the features of Lucy Westenra. Lucy Westenra, but yet how changed. The sweetness was turned to adamantine, heartless cruelty, and the purity to voluptuous wantonness.

Van Helsing stepped out, and obedient to his gesture, we all advanced too. The four of us ranged in a line before the door of the tomb. Van Helsing raised his lantern and drew the slide. By the concentrated light that fell on Lucy's face we could see that the lips were crimson with fresh blood, and that the stream had trickled over her chin and stained the purity of her lawn death-robe.

We shuddered with horror. I could see by the tremulous light that even Van Helsing's iron nerve had failed. Arthur was next to me, and if I had not seized his arm and held him up, he would have fallen.

When Lucy, I call the thing that was before us Lucy because it bore her shape, saw us she drew back with an angry snarl, such as a cat gives when taken unawares, then her eyes ranged over us. Lucy's eyes in form and colour, but Lucy's eyes unclean and full of hell fire, instead of the pure, gentle orbs we knew. At that moment the remnant of my love passed into hate and loathing. Had she then to be killed, I could have done it with savage delight. As she looked, her eyes blazed with unholy light, and the face became wreathed with a voluptuous smile. Oh, God, how it made me shudder to see it! With a careless motion, she flung to the ground, callous as a devil, the child that up to now she had clutched strenuously to her breast, growling over it as a dog growls over a bone. The child gave a sharp cry, and lay there moaning. There was a cold-bloodedness in the act which wrung a groan from Arthur. When she advanced to him with outstretched arms and a wanton smile he fell back and hid his face in his hands.

She still advanced, however, and with a languorous, voluptuous grace, said, "Come to me, Arthur. Leave these others and come to me. My arms are hungry for you. Come, and we can rest together. Come, my husband, come!"

Not too subtle, is Stoker. Purity ---> Voluptuous wantonness. Maternal instinct ---> Callousness. And those hungry arms! This thing must be staked and beheaded asap, or there's no telling how far the infection will spread! Womanhood as we know it will be destroyed, as women start expressing...their own desires. Is Dracula evil because he unleashes those desires? Is he spreading the plague of feminism throughout Britain?

Mina's been given a heroic afterlife, at least in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. So I propose a similar retelling of Lucy's life--before, during, or after Dracula gets her. This retelling might show she wasn't quite as pure as everyone thought, and/or she rather likes the changes that the count wrought. A quick, probably inconclusive Google search shows this hasn't been done yet. Or not done famously, at any rate.

Because I'm off on another ghoulish tangent with my murder novel, I may not get to this for awhile. So I'll throw the idea out there, and if you write the story before me--well, best of luck with it.

Borrowed Fire: How (not) to depict an expert

We have now reached the part of Dracula where Van Helsing, the "great specialist," is introduced, bringing with him what we might call the problem of the expert. This is more of an issue in stories that emphasize plot over character. Simply put, once you bring in the expert, the story is at great risk of slamming to a halt, because the expert, if he really is one, is highly likely to solve the story's main problem. On the other hand, we don't want to see non-experts (or just plain dumb people) floundering for three hundred pages, either. So the solution seems to be, bring in the expert, but put plausible obstacles in his path, so that he's thwarted time and again without losing credibility as an expert.

I'd say Stoker struggles with this in the case of Van Helsing. One problem is that the readers know what's happening to Lucy--i.e. she's having the mortal life drained out of her night after night by the Count--but the other characters don't. This makes for a certain type of suspense, but also necessitates some rather unbelievable choices. For instance, Jonathan, recovering in Budapest from his ordeal in the Castle Dracula, hands his quite informative diary over to Mina, but tells her he never wants to read it again, and she agrees never to read it except in the most dire circumstances. He wants to put the horrors all behind him, see. Meanwhile the nuns taking care of him know darn well what's happened, but they won't speak of it because it's unholy.

And Van Helsing, while implementing various temporarily effective treatments against vampire visits, tells no one of his suspicions--ostensibly because he wants to be sure, before he makes such an extraordinary claim. But this leads him to not sufficiently explain the importance of various measures--namely Don't Open the Windows and Don't Take off the Garlic Necklace for God's Sake--to the other characters, including Lucy herself. Also, conveniently, Lucy's mother has a fatal heart condition, which means she can't be told anything, lest she risk dying of shock. Which, spoiler, she does anyway. And Lucy's fiance's father is sick also, so he has to be away and can't help out much. Etc.

Van Helsing also has a way of being in Antwerp, or asleep in a chair, when he is most needed. But is he just being pushed out of the way by Stoker in these cases to make way for the plot? Or is there something about Van Helsing himself that makes him a flawed expert--and perhaps a more realistic character in the bargain? We are given to understand that Van Helsing has a sly sense of humor and a big personality. Also he's foreign, so he talks funny.

How appealing these features actually are, is another question:

Found Van Helsing in excellent spirits, and Lucy much better. Shortly after I had arrived, a big parcel from abroad came for the Professor. He opened it with much impressment, assumed, of course, and showed a great bundle of white flowers.

"These are for you, Miss Lucy," he said.

"For me? Oh, Dr. Van Helsing!"

"Yes, my dear, but not for you to play with. These are medicines." Here Lucy made a wry face. "Nay, but they are not to take in a decoction or in nauseous form, so you need not snub that so charming nose, or I shall point out to my friend Arthur what woes he may have to endure in seeing so much beauty that he so loves so much distort. Aha, my pretty miss, that bring the so nice nose all straight again. This is medicinal, but you do not know how. I put him in your window, I make pretty wreath, and hang him round your neck, so you sleep well. Oh, yes! They, like the lotus flower, make your trouble forgotten. It smell so like the waters of Lethe, and of that fountain of youth that the Conquistadores sought for in the Floridas, and find him all too late."

"Not for you to play with?" "You need not snub that so charming nose?" Oh, ICK. I know all the other characters treat Lucy like a child, and that is meant to indicate both their kindness and her irresistible womanly innocence. But Van Helsing's supposedly erudite babbling, combined with this condescension and the weird attempt at having an accent, just does not inspire confidence.

The scene above goes on:

Whilst he was speaking, Lucy had been examining the flowers and smelling them. Now she threw them down saying, with half laughter, and half disgust,

"Oh, Professor, I believe you are only putting up a joke on me. Why, these flowers are only common garlic."

To my surprise, Van Helsing rose up and said with all his sternness, his iron jaw set and his bushy eyebrows meeting,

"No trifling with me! I never jest! There is grim purpose in what I do, and I warn you that you do not thwart me. Take care, for the sake of others if not for your own." Then seeing poor Lucy scared, as she might well be, he went on more gently, "Oh, little miss, my dear, do not fear me. I only do for your good, but there is much virtue to you in those so common flowers. See, I place them myself in your room. I make myself the wreath that you are to wear. But hush! No telling to others that make so inquisitive questions. We must obey, and silence is a part of obedience, and obedience is to bring you strong and well into loving arms that wait for you. Now sit still a while..."

I think we are to take this sudden flare-up of temper, add it to the general loopiness of speech and affect, and be convinced that Van Helsing is eccentric, and therefore a genius. His frequent lapses in the early going are meant to be products of circumstance, not results of his own failings.

But what if the reverse were true? What if he is a self-defeating genius, one who secretly has a fear of success and so undermines his own efforts with trips to Antwerp? What if, deep down, he admires the Count and wants to be a vampire himself--so that his tormented subconscious causes him to carry out the Count's wishes even as he seems to be fighting him?

As I say, I'm pretty sure this is not what Stoker is up to. He's just not that much for characterization, even though I think there's more to his characters than other books of this ilk tend to offer. But for those of us who want to bring experts into our own fiction--without wrecking either the story or the belief in the character's competence--the self-defeating expert could be an option.

Borrowed Fire: How to be generous to your characters

It's not a new idea that Mina is the hero of Dracula. For example, in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, she gets transformed into a Victorian super-spy.

She also has her own Wikipedia page, which tells us that "[l]ike her friend Lucy, Mina is highly idealized: she is described by Stoker as a pure, angelic wife and (symbolic) mother." Well, sorta. Yes, she is utterly dedicated to Jonathan, and learns shorthand so she can help him with his profession as a solicitor. She makes jokes about the "New Woman," suggesting she does not harbor unseemly aspirations beyond being the helpmeet. On the other hand, she is exceedingly smart and resourceful. She is level-headed, unlike the more flighty Lucy, whom Mina keeps having to rescue from her sleepwalking excursions. If the women are idealized, they're idealized in completely different ways: Lucy is the beautiful, trusting, helpless victim. Mina takes charge. It may be that Stoker will keep her within the acceptable boundaries of female behavior, possibly through the offices of the novel's title character; but she's going to put up a struggle.

I think it's significant that Stoker gives a good portion of the story to Mina to narrate. And to do so, he gives her his own considerable powers of observation and description. For example, Mina writes:

There were very few people about, and though the sun was bright, and the air clear and fresh, the big, grim-looking waves, that seemed dark themselves because the foam that topped them was like snow, forced themselves in through the mouth of the harbour, like a bullying man going through a crowd.

Good, huh? Stoker lets this character, who might easily be cast as a victim, be as smart as he is. This is an act of generosity and respect. It also proves extremely useful, since he needs her to tell his story as precisely and believably as possible.

Mina deploys her powers again to excellent effect a few pages later, after rescuing Lucy from atop their favorite seat in the churchyard, where "something" with "a white face and red, gleaming eyes" is bending over her. Mina wraps a shawl around Lucy and attempts to fasten it with a safety pin. The next day, she writes in her journal:

The adventure of the night does not seem to have harmed her, on the contrary, it has benefited her, for she looks better this morning than she has done for weeks. I was sorry to notice that my clumsiness with the safety-pin hurt her. Indeed, it might have been serious, for the skin of her throat was pierced. I must have pinched up a piece of loose skin and have transfixed it, for there are two little red points like pin-pricks, and on the band of her nightdress was a drop of blood. When I apologised and was concerned about it, she laughed and petted me, and said she did not even feel it. Fortunately it cannot leave a scar, as it is so tiny.

For suspense to build, we need the point of view of someone astute enough to closely observe what's going on and describe it accurately. At the same time, she must be plausibly deceived, so that the truth can be revealed over time--and so the unfortunate Lucy can get in more trouble. Mina's attentiveness to the safety pin shows a highly alert, sensitive character making a reasonable mistake. It's true that she gives less thought than might be expected, at least initially, to the red-eyed figure she saw bending over Lucy in the churchyard. But I am willing to forgive Stoker this possible lapse, because of how precisely observed this safety-pin business is. I have done some of Stoker's work for him: I've told myself that Mina's so relieved that she hasn't hurt Lucy that she "forgot" everything else. An author can earn that effort from a reader by creating characters that he himself clearly respects. He's generous in the gifts he gives them, so we want to do the same.

Still, you can maybe pull this off once in a novel. You can't rely on smart characters to get you through your implausible plot points. Stoker can't manage the same trick when other characters, namely Lucy's mother and Van Helsing, get involved. Maybe because Mina's so savvy, he needs these other characters to do something really foolish so that Lucy can be properly victimized. Left to Mina, she'd have been out of danger long ago.

Borrowed Fire: Does Dracula have a psychology?

A few months ago, Carrie Kei Heim Binas wrote a great post about monster psychology. Basically, a monster should have one. Monsters are characters, and just like other characters, they grow more interesting as they reveal levels of complexity.

So, what can we learn about monster psychology from Dracula? Is Dracula complex? Does he have motivations, other than mere bloodsucking*? Does he have a history? Is he at war with himself?

In the first several chapters, Dracula:

• Disguises himself as a coachman to pick up Jonathan at the crossroads
• Cooks Jonathan several meals and cleans up after him
• Lunges at Jonathan's throat when he sees that Jonathan has cut himself shaving, and then smashes the shaving mirror (but not before Jonathan observes that Dracula casts no reflection)
• Questions Jonathan extensively on the duties of solicitors in England
• Locks Jonathan in the castle
• Climbs down an outer wall, headfirst, wearing Jonathan's clothes
  
• Kills a baby and feeds it to his wives and sets a pack of wolves on the baby's mother
• Grins malignantly at Jonathan from his coffin, when Jonathan attempts to bash him in the face with a shovel.
  

So Dracula's monstrosity is pretty well established: he is powerful, smart, and slippery. He is also a nobleman, whose line--possibly through some fault of his own--has seen better days. Though it's not quite presented this way, there's something amusing and a little pathetic about Jonathan's discovery that Dracula does all his own housework--though he falls down on dusting, like many of us--because he has no (more) servants. Even his wives (daughters?) don't help him, which is rather gratifying. When Jonathan first arrives, he still attempts little touches of nobility, such as serving his guest dinner on gold plates, and leaving him nice notes with his breakfast:

I slept till late in the day, and awoke of my own accord. When I had dressed myself I went into the room where we had supped, and found a cold breakfast laid out, with coffee kept hot by the pot being placed on the hearth. There was a card on the table, on which was written--"I have to be absent for a while. Do not wait for me. D."

I just love that "D."

Anyway, is this ruined but insistent nobility a veneer, a ruse for drawing in innocent victims? Is it a political comment by Stoker? Answer to both questions: yes. But does it also constitute a psychology--a way for readers to understand and maybe slightly identify with D.?

Having discovered that he is a prisoner in the castle, Jonathan attempts to get Dracula talking, to see what he can find out about his situation. Dracula does like to talk, especially about the past. And he has some grudges:

Midnight.--I have had a long talk with the Count. I asked him a few questions on Transylvania history, and he warmed up to the subject wonderfully. In his speaking of things and people, and especially of battles, he spoke as if he had been present at them all. This he afterwards explained by saying that to a Boyar the pride of his house and name is his own pride, that their glory is his glory, that their fate is his fate. Whenever he spoke of his house he always said "we", and spoke almost in the plural, like a king speaking. I wish I could put down all he said exactly as he said it, for to me it was most fascinating. It seemed to have in it a whole history of the country. He grew excited as he spoke, and walked about the room pulling his great white moustache and grasping anything on which he laid his hands as though he would crush it by main strength. One thing he said which I shall put down as nearly as I can, for it tells in its way the story of his race.

"We Szekelys have a right to be proud, for in our veins flows the blood of many brave races who fought as the lion fights, for lordship. Here, in the whirlpool of European races, the Ugric tribe bore down from Iceland the fighting spirit which Thor and Wodin gave them, which their Berserkers displayed to such fell intent on the seaboards of Europe, aye, and of Asia and Africa too, till the peoples thought that the werewolves themselves had come. Here, too, when they came, they found the Huns, whose warlike fury had swept the earth like a living flame, till the dying peoples held that in their veins ran the blood of those old witches, who, expelled from Scythia had mated with the devils in the desert. Fools, fools! What devil or what witch was ever so great as Attila, whose blood is in these veins?" He held up his arms. "Is it a wonder that we were a conquering race, that we were proud, that when the Magyar, the Lombard, the Avar, the Bulgar, or the Turk poured his thousands on our frontiers, we drove them back? Is it strange that when Arpad and his legions swept through the Hungarian fatherland he found us here when he reached the frontier, that the Honfoglalas was completed there? And when the Hungarian flood swept eastward, the Szekelys were claimed as kindred by the victorious Magyars, and to us for centuries was trusted the guarding of the frontier of Turkeyland. Aye, and more than that, endless duty of the frontier guard, for as the Turks say, 'water sleeps, and the enemy is sleepless.' Who more gladly than we throughout the Four Nations received the 'bloody sword,' or at its warlike call flocked quicker to the standard of the King? When was redeemed that great shame of my nation, the shame of Cassova, when the flags of the Wallach and the Magyar went down beneath the Crescent? Who was it but one of my own race who as Voivode crossed the Danube and beat the Turk on his own ground? This was a Dracula indeed! Woe was it that his own unworthy brother, when he had fallen, sold his people to the Turk and brought the shame of slavery on them! Was it not this Dracula, indeed, who inspired that other of his race who in a later age again and again brought his forces over the great river into Turkeyland, who, when he was beaten back, came again, and again, though he had to come alone from the bloody field where his troops were being slaughtered, since he knew that he alone could ultimately triumph! They said that he thought only of himself. Bah! What good are peasants without a leader? Where ends the war without a brain and heart to conduct it? Again, when, after the battle of Mohacs, we threw off the Hungarian yoke, we of the Dracula blood were amongst their leaders, for our spirit would not brook that we were not free. Ah, young sir, the Szekelys, and the Dracula as their heart's blood, their brains, and their swords, can boast a record that mushroom growths like the Hapsburgs and the Romanoffs can never reach. The warlike days are over. Blood is too precious a thing in these days of dishonourable peace, and the glories of the great races are as a tale that is told."

Dracula's story is the story of a people. Not of a good people or a nice people--indeed, they seem to be a seriously fascist people. But their glories are all in the past, and Dracula, clearly, has not moved on. When Jonathan discovers Dracula in his coffin, he sees in the count's eyes "such a look of hate, though unconscious of me or my presence, that I fled from the place..." In other words, the count is not simply a killing machine, although he is that; he is motivated by revenge for a deep, historical humiliation. One gathers he witnessed these historical humiliations personally, which must make them sting all the more.

Does this history make Dracula sympathetic? Definitely not. Understandable? More intriguing? I think so. The history gives him dimension. It also moves the story beyond a horror that befalls some unlucky people in Transylvania and England. Dracula embodies history, and is embedded in it. Peel back history, or lift its coffin lid, and we find this guy staring up at us. Since we're all part of history, we can't escape, not completely.

To the extent that Stoker wants to make Dracula complex, I think he succeeds. The count is at least as multidimensional as any of the other characters in the story. After all, the main purpose of this story is to scare us, not to set us to contemplating the nuances of human interactions as inflected by class and ethnicity. But the fact that Dracula still has a foot in the human realm, and in human motivations (base though they may be), makes him harder for readers to dismiss once the book is closed.

*By "mere," I do not wish to imply that bloodsucking is a trivial matter. It is a big deal.

Borrowed Fire: How to be disturbing (part one)

In the early going, Dracula appears to be chock full of lessons for fiction writers. We are riding along with Jonathan Harker as he cheerily makes his way to Castle Dracula, devouring paprika-laden meals--which make him thirsty--and learning a ton about what writers can do with landscape. Perhaps this notion has occurred to me because I acquired my copy of Dracula from a table of books a professor was purging from her office; and said professor has helpfully annotated the first section with repeated iterations of the word "landscape." But what a landscape it is!

If you haven't read this book recently, you might assume Jonathan's journey occurs entirely at night, in a thunderstorm, with black, frothing horses, a mysterious coachman, and weird little fires in the distance. There will be plenty of that sort of thing, but what you need to make it work is contrast. So here's how Stoker sets it up:

They were evidently talking of me, for every now and then they looked at me, and some of the people who were sitting on the bench outside the door--came and listened, and then looked at me, most of them pityingly. I could hear a lot of words often repeated, queer words, for there were many nationalities in the crowd, so I quietly got my polyglot dictionary from my bag and looked them out.

I must say they were not cheering to me, for amongst them were "Ordog"--Satan, "Pokol"--hell, "stregoica"--witch, "vrolok" and "vlkoslak"--both mean the same thing, one being Slovak and the other Servian for something that is either werewolf or vampire. (Mem., I must ask the Count about these superstitions.)

When we started, the crowd round the inn door, which had by this time swelled to a considerable size, all made the sign of the cross and pointed two fingers towards me.

With some difficulty, I got a fellow passenger to tell me what they meant. He would not answer at first, but on learning that I was English, he explained that it was a charm or guard against the evil eye.

This was not very pleasant for me, just starting for an unknown place to meet an unknown man. But everyone seemed so kind-hearted, and so sorrowful, and so sympathetic that I could not but be touched.

I shall never forget the last glimpse which I had of the inn yard and its crowd of picturesque figures, all crossing themselves, as they stood round the wide archway, with its background of rich foliage of oleander and orange trees in green tubs clustered in the centre of the yard.

There's nothing like a Slavic language for conveying spookiness, and these early diary entries are sprinkled with amusing "mems" to "ask the Count" about local customs and superstitions. Jonathan even wants to ask him for a recipe. Now that's dramatic irony. But in the midst of all this foreboding and foreshadowing, notice the "rich foliage of oleander and orange trees in green tubs." To Jonathan, it's this lushness surrounding the terrified figures that makes the scene unforgettable.

Then the lushness really burgeons:

I soon lost sight and recollection of ghostly fears in the beauty of the scene as we drove along, although had I known the language, or rather languages, which my fellow-passengers were speaking, I might not have been able to throw them off so easily. Before us lay a green sloping land full of forests and woods, with here and there steep hills, crowned with clumps of trees or with farmhouses, the blank gable end to the road. There was everywhere a bewildering mass of fruit blossom--apple, plum, pear, cherry. And as we drove by I could see the green grass under the trees spangled with the fallen petals. In and out amongst these green hills of what they call here the "Mittel Land" ran the road, losing itself as it swept round the grassy curve, or was shut out by the straggling ends of pine woods, which here and there ran down the hillsides like tongues of flame. The road was rugged, but still we seemed to fly over it with a feverish haste. I could not understand then what the haste meant, but the driver was evidently bent on losing no time in reaching Borgo Prund. I was told that this road is in summertime excellent, but that it had not yet been put in order after the winter snows. In this respect it is different from the general run of roads in the Carpathians, for it is an old tradition that they are not to be kept in too good order. Of old the Hospadars would not repair them, lest the Turk should think that they were preparing to bring in foreign troops, and so hasten the war which was always really at loading point.

Beyond the green swelling hills of the Mittel Land rose mighty slopes of forest up to the lofty steeps of the Carpathians themselves. Right and left of us they towered, with the afternoon sun falling full upon them and bringing out all the glorious colours of this beautiful range, deep blue and purple in the shadows of the peaks, green and brown where grass and rock mingled, and an endless perspective of jagged rock and pointed crags, till these were themselves lost in the distance, where the snowy peaks rose grandly. Here and there seemed mighty rifts in the mountains, through which, as the sun began to sink, we saw now and again the white gleam of falling water. One of my companions touched my arm as we swept round the base of a hill and opened up the lofty, snow-covered peak of a mountain, which seemed, as we wound on our serpentine way, to be right before us.

"Look! Isten szek!"--"God's seat!"--and he crossed himself reverently.

We ride through what ought to be a soothing, pastoral scene. But there are a few undercurrents--the mysterious mutterings of the other passengers, the possibility of war with "the Turk." Also the land, bursting forth with Nature's beauty, is just a little too. The peaks are a little too high and pointy, the blossoms too massive, the colors too strong. The effect is queasy and erotic in equal parts (the word "feverish" is one place where the currents meet). Stoker, as we will see, is particularly good at this balancing act. Also we've just seen villagers crossing themselves for protection from Ordog et al, and now a passenger crosses himself in reverence for "God's seat"--which makes God himself part of this unsettling landscape, rather than a benevolent figure who watches over it from outside. He is going to be no help.

Is this not extremely creepy? As Stephen King once said, true horror happens in broad daylight. We've seen this technique before--taking objects or scenes that should be soothing, in either their ordinariness or their beauty, and giving them a little twist so that they become uncanny.

And then the sun goes down...

Borrowed Fire: Dracula and the novel form

Today we begin a new book in the Borrowed Fire series, Bram Stoker's Dracula. As we make our way through the novel, discovering writing lessons we can borrow for our own work, let us have modest expectations. Let us not assume that these little writing seminars will qualify us to write the next Twilight series and become billionaires. Let us instead plan to write something like The Passage, because we are all literary novelists who would never be seduced by the lure of unimaginable wealth and movie deals. We would only write about vampires if they served our artistic purposes. We'll see if we can make them do that.

I have already written about the ethnography at the beginning of Dracula, which definitely seems like a cool way to set up a book about "otherness." So for my official first post in this series, I'll talk about the novel's form. It is composed of diary entries, letters, and even a "phonograph diary" by various characters (although not, sadly, the Count himself). What do these particular forms of writing allow an author to do? Well, clearly you can switch point of view easily, without having to create a more complex artistic apparatus for doing so: just label each new section Jonathan Harker's Journal, Lucy Westenra's Diary, etc. These formats also contain dates and locations as a matter of course, so that (again) you don't need to worry about more subtle ways to show the passage of time or movements from place to place.

Perhaps more interesting, though, is the sense that these forms of writing are more private than other types of fictional narration. They are supposedly intended for a specific and relatively small audience--possibly even no audience, other than oneself. In the case of a novel posing as a bunch of journal entries, that conceit is of course more complicated. And perhaps those of us who keep journals expect them eventually to be published among our "papers." (Those of us who blog aren't waiting for that day.) In other words, the author of Dracula is winking at the notion of private communications at the same time as he's presenting them to us, a mass, faceless audience.

Still, the promise of privacy, the sense of a particular as opposed to a general audience, creates intimacy. One could imagine that Mina, for instance, writes her diary with her beloved Jonathan in mind--even if he isn't going to read it one day, she wants to tell him these things, and so she records her observations with a mental image of him as the listener or reader. Writing teachers often give students the exercise of writing a story in the form of a letter to a specific person, and inevitably the writing becomes more detailed and emotionally charged. The idea is to learn to write that way always. This intimacy would seem especially powerful in a story about a creature who gets a little too intimate. By writing, these characters might be trying to preserve the boundaries of their own selves as the Count seeps through the cracks.

But we have also seen the downside of the diary / letter form for stories involving almost any form of action. In Pamela, the 18th century epistolary novel foisted on so many innocent students of English, the letters occasionally go something like, Here comes my rapacious employer yet again! It is really hard to write with him climbing all over me... (OK, it's been awhile since I read it, but this is the kind of thing I remember.) More recently, watching The Blair Witch Project, some audience members may have laughed as the plucky, dwindling film crew managed to grab up all their recording equipment and turn it on before running like hell from the Evil. (I didn't laugh. Not at the time. That movie scared me.) We will come across the problem of "writing in haste" with this novel as well.

A reflective novel, such as Gilead, is far easier to write in diary or letter form. But let's see how Stoker handles the opportunities and pitfalls.