I had already seen dozens of movies, comics and games about Dracula but I had not ever readen the original book by Bram Stoker. Through an initiative of Dublin City Public libraries, with a project called Dublin: One City, One Book, I took attention to the Stoker's book, which was chosen for the 2009 edition of the project. This project every year takes a different book and put it in a lighted spot to be seem in evidence in all over the places in the city - in museums, bookstores, theaters, libraries (of course) and even on the streets.
My reference to this book was the 1992 Coppola's adaptation film that I heard it was the closest to the original, and for that I guess it is true, but just for the first part of the movie. I shall return to talk a little about the differences between one and another later.
The book starts with the kind of atmosphere that is shown in the movie when Jonathan Harker goes to the Castle of Count Dracula, in Transylvania. The mystery about the place, the weird aspect of the Count that for each page becomes a more evident evil person and all the suffering of Mr. Harker that slowly changes status from a guest to a prisoner, describe the first part of the book. The pages are written by the view of Mr. Harker and it is a rich account and incredible breathless.
The story is built by excerpts from Jonathan Harker's journal, Mina Harker's Journal – Jonathan's wife , Dr. Seward's Journal, Dr. Van Helsing's journal and some pieces of newspapers. In this configuration the author manage to put real emotions and gives a sense that can really be felt from the reader.
The plot is simple. The monster minded Count Dracula decides to move to London, England. He learned the social rules, the language and managed to afford some lands in the Britain capital and he needs some help to do the transition. Well planned to move on, the Count calls to Jonathan Harker, one of his London's solicitor, to come to his place in Transylvania where they could work on the last details.
Count Dracula treats Harker as a guest in a very good manner and they start to talk every night for almost all night which the Count says it is good to practice his communication skills in English. After each session with the Count, Jonathan writes on his journal how was the conversation. They talk about impersonal things like the Britain culture and so on and the Count always avoid to talk about himself. In each night the Count always says that he would like that Jonathan could stay longer. Nevertheless Jonathan starts to suspect that the Count is actually pretending be something else that he is not. As the days going on, Jonathan starts to see unusual and terrifying things inside the castle. After a while without being able to get out of the castle at anytime of the day or in the night Jonathan realizes that there is must be something very wrong in all the situation, including the Count's behavior. He finds very strange the fact that the Count just can be seen after dusk and that, although there is always noise in the castle, he cannot see anyone else living there.
During the day-time Jonathan takes the opportunity to be alone without the presence of the Count and tries to know about the castle and see all the rooms, corridors and maybe if there exists a exit from the built. In one of this tours he finds a little chapel with a coffin that for his surprise it has got the Count himself laid down like a dead body.
Jonathan makes up his mind that the Count Dracula is a sort of a monster, an aberration, and he tries to play the game that he was put in on just to try to scape from that alive. Indeed, Count Dracula realizes what is going on in Jonathan's mind and he plays even hard the role of a good host to make Jonathan fight with struggle to keep himself sane.
Crossing the excerpts of others journals, the book changes the subject and shows more two main characters: Mina Murray, that after will be Jonathan's wife; and Dr Seward, a sanatorium's doctor. Their lives are going to cross with the Jonathan's life when he comes back to his home and they will together fight against the Count Dracula that will be landed in London. To help them, a dutch professor called Abraham Van Helsing from Amsterdam and friends of one of the first victim (best friend of Mina, Lucy) of the evil Count Dracula in London, Quincey Morris and Arthur Holmwood will be added to the plot and all the crew will learn about their enemy and the best way to defeat him.
I would say that the Irish author Bram Stoker was brilliant in the way he put all the suspense in the book, but in my opinion the action at the very end of the book could be better. Actually I thing is that the end was with no glamor.
And to put glamor to this plot, I think Coppola's adaptation succeeded. The Coppola's version took all the suspense that Bram Stoker managed to create and then added to it an another end with love and sexuality that was not written in the book.
It is not possible to blame the author for the lack of the right action at the end of the book. The author managed to publish this book in 1897 and at this time he was inventing a new genre in the literature that later had influenced many other authors.
In addition of a very good experience the book brought to me, it influenced me in one thing as well – I have started to write a journal. The book is not just built from the character's journal but all the time it is said how important and good is to keep a journal by the characters in the book. I took them for example to be followed. And I actually believe that the habit of write about our day can be important in the future. Many journals brought to the history facts that would be ignored if they did not have been written (or found). I have got two big examples. The first one is the Christopher Columbus's journal; if it had not been found, we would believe that the America's discovery was done by someone else and we would never had known that his plan was to get in on India through his idea that the earth was round.
The second example is the Cabeza de Vaca's Journal. He was a Spanish explorer that survived a wreck in the America and managed to walk naked for almost ten years meeting and taking knowledge from the native American Indians and the jungle. Through his account, it is possible to take many information on the America's discovery and what the explorers found in the new world.
I am not to say that my accounts will be important for the course of history, but above from be a good write exercise, it can be used in the future by others to know how we managed to make things in our lives done and help them in anyway.
To finalize – the Bram Stoker's Dracula is a full entertainment and full filled all my expectations. It was a pleasure read it.
