Dracula

Stoker, Bram.  Dracula. New York : Signet Classic, 1992. $4.95. ISBN:  0451523377.  (Image Credit: Cape May County Library)


In the wake of popular vampire fiction, I thought I would take a step back and read the classic, Dracula.  Bram Stoker is the author of this macabre classic, setting the tone for today's modern tale of blood-sucking entities.  Stoker weaves a Victorian epistolary tale, where a group of friends unites in a fight to bring down the monster they know as Count Dracula.

Stoker takes the reader from the outskirts of Transylvania to England's Whitby and London, and back to the Carpathians.  He never truly describes Dracula's motives, outside of contaminating the modern world with his venom. He depicts the creature and powerful and calculating. Stoker focuses mainly upon the characters who set out to bring their revenge and death to the vampire, Jonathan Harker, Mina Harker, Professor Van Helsing, Dr. Serward, Quincy Morris, and Lord Godalming.  It is their unity and belief in justice that solidfy their motives and direction, as they pursue a creature they are afraid will be the end of all mankind.

Bram Stoker envisions vampires as hell-born creatures.  They look for helpless victims, in particular, women.  Once Lucy and Mina are infected by Dracula, they begin to lose their pureness.  They become seductive, volumptuous and sexualized.  They slowly lose the values that make them ideal Victorian women, even though they struggle against the changes that occur within themselves.  The men in the novel set out to stop Dracula from corrupting virutous women into sexual, killing creatures.

Stoker has cemented many of the characteristics we now associate with the modern vampire, shape-shifters, blood-sucking, sexual, and powerful monsters.  Humans are lured in by their overwhelming and seductive power.  They are almost helpless to fight against it.  Humans are easily transfixed by the vampires beauty, thus becoming a victim its lust and needs.  Although, the novel was written in 1897, it manages to convey both the Victorian's moral standards, as well as a strong sexual undertone that makes the idea of vampires so alluring.  It is a tale that has been told, and re-told, in many ways, and yet, it still has the power to capture the attention and imagination of today's modern reader.  Before Stephenie Meyer and Charlaine Harris, Bram Stoker envisioned a world where vampires lurk in the dark waiting to find their next seductive meal.  He has created a tale that never seems to die out, just as the vampire itself.  It is a story that constantly captures the imagination with the possibility that such beings exist.  With elements such as death, sex, power, and adventure, it is not hard to see why the idea of vampires continues to be a modern obsession.

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much

Bartlett, Allison Hoover.  The Man Who Loved Books Too Much:  The True Story of a Thief, a Dectective, and a World of Literay Obsession. New York:  Riverhead Books, 2009.  $24.95. ISBN:  9781594488917.

For the first time in quite a while I am not reviewing an audiobook, since this particular title is not available in a listening format.  Instead, I have decided to relay one my recent reads.  I found it intriguing and thoughtful, especially in the way the author portrays the thief, John Gilkey.  Allison Hoover Bartlett sets out to uncover the workings of a book thief, John Gilkey, who in his short career has managed to acquire over $100,000 worth of stolen rare books.  In addition to Gilkey, she depicts the perspective of Ken Sanders and his colleagues, the owners of rare book stores.  They are also many of Gilkey's victims.

By exploring the world of book thievery and the obsession those have with old books, Bartlett is able to describe the mania and fixation of those who must own important literary works.  She illustrates how this is a realm filled with a plethora of  problems that surround capturing book thieves, since many in law enforcement do not see stolen books as a true investment of their crime-fighting time.  Gilkey is able to evade law enforcement for quite some time.  It is not until Ken Sanders decides to take the initiative and begin to connect the crimes together, bringing book dealers and collectors into a collective awareness of this thief's particular habits.

Barlett also tries to delve into the mind of Gilkey and into understanding his lack of conscious.  He is strictly driven by his bibliomania.  He is only governed by the need to acquire books, in order to declare and establish himself as a cultured gentleman.  A man worthy of prestige and respect.  He never admits that what he does, "stealing.,"  is wrong.  He merely sees himself as a man getting even with book collectors, who  deprive the public the means to acquire important books through their price gouging.

There is no ultimate ending to this book.  Barteltt follows Gilkey around for years, accruing information  and personal accounts of his crimes.  The book peters out at the end, with Gilkey released from jail and scouring libraries for literary gems.  He never seems to want to give up his obsession.  Instead, he continues to try and find ways to steal books in his personal mission to become what he feels is a cultured, worldly, and literary gentleman.