From the journal of the modern Countess Dracula
February 21, 2013
There are days where being of the undead has its perks. Just returned from work where, were I alive, they might have just succeeded in sucking the life out of me… At high noon, I escaped to the employee rest room for my daily nap. Thankfully, no one ever bothers me on those daily naps. It regenerates me just enough so I don’t jump at the throat of any of those monstrous yuppies have to work with. They are all health freaks and they look freakishly healthy and plump and I can just imagine sinking my sharp canines into them. I left the office at dusk and turn into the garden where I can transform back into my bat shape without prying eyes discovering my secret…
OK, just letting the imagination take over for a bit. I’ve been reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula and while I have never been attracted to vampire stories, I have been having quite a bit of fun reading this one. I have always like Victorian novels and this one is no exception.
I have seen it described as an epistolary novel. Although I have always associated that descriptor with novels composed of letters, I supposed it can also apply to a novel consisting mostly of a series of journal entries, which is the case with Dracula, if you extend the meaning of epistle to journal entries as letters to oneself.
It is also a kind of adventure novel. A group of friends set out to destroy evil in the form of Count Dracula and go through some hardship in the process. Their enterprise requires courage and ingenuity as their knowledge of vampires habits, capabilities and strengths as well as their limitations and weaknesses is based in great part on legend and hearsay. Every attempt to confront vampires is an experiment and our hardy bunch learns as they go along.
So how do you kill a vampire? You wait until they are asleep (typically in a box or coffin), you cut off their head and drive a stake through the heart.
I recommend it. Well, the book. Not killing a vampire.
Reference
Stoker, Bram. Dracula. First published in 1897. Read web edition published by eBooks@Adelaide.
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