DRACULA, THE NOVEL AND THE LEGEND by Clive Leatherdale

DRACULA, The Novel and the Legend. By Clive Leatherdale. (Kindle 2012) 
Finished 4/2/14

Trust Your Instincts

This is the first of several books in the preparation for listening to thirteen versions of DRACULA. After reading this book I came away with two observations. First was the impression that even though I have listened to this novel ar least seven times and read it twice, there are a lot of things that I did not notice. My readings have been focused entirely on the unfolding of the story; on how Bram Stoker managed to write such an engaging tale It is, after all, a work of fiction, and the mystery to me is always how an author is able to utilize words, which are literally just symbols in ink on a page (or in the case of the Kindle, just patterns of light on a screen) and evoke thoughts and emotions in the mind of his reader. Secondly, I am glad that I discovered DRACULA before I encountered the literary criticism, else I might have been detrimentally influenced to think that it is a veiled treatise on Freudian Oedipal complexes; or an occultic playing out of a reading of tarot cards; or could it be a Gnostic text extolling the virtues of Catholic superstition to be puzzled out, or even a political satire depicting the superiority of totalitarianism over capitalism? But I did learn to pay closer attention to a few things: Does Stoker ignore members of the lower classes intentionally, or is he just limiting his cast of characters? I will be comparing Lucy's slow vampire transformation to the rapid changes experienced by Mina. I also learned that Quincy Morris is seen doing nothing useful, but is always involved when bad things happen. I do not foresee that any of the preparatory material we have established will serve to enhance our enjoyment; not because we will learn something that will alter our assessment of DRACULA, but because we will have new layers of speculation with which to consider, and ultimately reject, as we find confirmation of everything we already knew when reading it without such critical thinking hovering around our heads.  In short we will enjoy the novel afresh, discovering just what we loved about it the first time, but now with firm conviction that we were right all along.