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Review of Bram Stoker's Dracula
Pot-boiler (pot-boil' ur) n. a piece of writing or the like, usually inferior and uninspired, done quickly for money.
—Webster’s New World Dictionary (2nd College Edition)—
The most frightening aspect of Bram Stoker's Dracula has little to do with the famous figure of that pale, nocturnal, blood-sucking, un-Dead fiend with whom we've all become so fondly familiar. Far more frightening is the fact that, even after a century of steady international publication, Dracula, generally regarded a "potboiler" by the scholars-that-be, ("one of the most successful pot-boilers ever written"), is rarely included in the canon of English Literature — Yes! Literature with a capital "L". Dracula, therefore, is a classic, yet not even close to a Classic for those literary legions who've deemed it a clumsy, inconsistent, overcomplicated assemblage of documents ostensibly written, rewritten, collected and then recollected by "flat, underdeveloped characters" with neither common sense nor, apparently, any writing skills to boot — as evidenced by their use of "painful" puns, their overuse of exclamation marks, and their splitting of infinitives like there's no tomorrow (Maude Ellmann vii).
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Probably one of the coolest books of its time and frightening if you wave the London fog and see - Dracula bringing his wives bags of babies to consume - the 'bloofer' lady (beautiful) lady Lucy - who comes to the young to feed - even the ending - it is an amazing book that no one has really replicated for its originality and subject matter.
If you have ever seen Francis Ford Coppolla's Bram Stoker's Dracula, you will see probably one of truest versions of the book. Although it was terribly miscast.
Coppolla's 'view' of Dracula as a demon, I didn't care for, but Gary Oldman was a good choice for Dracula -
His interpretation of the creation of Dracula was brilliant - and the redemption - was a wow!
You have to have fun with Dracula - envision yourself 100+ years ago and reading it in a darkened room lit by candlelight and a roaring fire during a storm...
Wishing you great reading -
ellen