Book of the Week

Next Monday, the Kayton Library is hosting its annual 'Predict the Booker' Event. Six Pauline readers explore and appraise the shortlist for this year's Booker Prize for Literature, before the audience vote on which novel they think will win: you can find out more about the event here, and the shortlisted novels here, and we'll be reporting on the event in next Wednesday's post.  

Meanwhile, today's book of the week - a classic of the horror genre - is perfectly poised between two significant dates: last Friday's Hallowe'en, and next Saturday's anniversary of Bram Stoker's birth in 1847.  Yes, our book of the week is Dracula - recommended by Tom Ritchie.  

It took Bram Stoker over three years to write his most iconic novel, Dracula, and thank goodness he put the effort in! After consulting Miss Warner about reading over the summer holidays to build on my pre-existing penchant for the gothic genre, I embarked on Stoker’s fantastical adventure as soon as I entered severe, focused reading mode. It must be said that this was the first book I have read in a while that captivated me from the first page, with Jonathan Harker’s journal sucking me into a four hundred page long whirlwind from cover to cover. 

Harker, an English solicitor helping Count Dracula purchase a London house, travels from England through Eastern Europe on trains and in carriages to the remote, isolated Castle Dracula. The Count is far from normal; he never eats, his physical appearance is ghastly and unhumanlike, he can control animals, he can shapeshift and, as when Harker cuts himself shaving, turns into a bloodsucking vampire. The Count imprisons Harker and escapes to England where his first victim is the best friend of Harker’s wife. He continually morphs into a giant bat during the night to come and quench his thirst by sucking poor Lucy dry until her eventual death, or so they think. Lucy is half dead and under instruction from Dracula so every night she comes wailing out of her grave to snatch an unsuspecting child from Hampstead Heath. The six protagonists, Van Helsing, Seward, Godalming, Morris, Harker and his wife Mina, kill Lucy once and for all by driving a stake through her heart before attempting to take down the main man. I won’t spoil the entire plot for those who will read the book after seeing this glowing review so the rest will have to be found out by you!

Religion is a key theme in the novel and one that I am horribly unknowledgeable on so to read about it and discover so much fascinated me. The prowess of the Holy Cross and sacramental wafers enable the group to drive Dracula out of England as the Count is warded off by the presence of God. This put into perspective the power of Christianity and highlighted that if you deeply believed in a certain faith, you would reap the rewards. 

Another aspect I particularly enjoyed to the extent that it formed the main point of my High Master’s Prize essay was the link between the novel and the Victorian ‘fear of the foreign’. Stoker deliberately makes the antagonist a foreigner to immediately prevent any form of positive connection with him, thus vilifying him beyond his horrific character traits. Stoker, being part of Victorian society, could also have shared this fear and so created a novel where a foreigner wreaks havoc and chaos in England before ultimately being defeated by the noble men and women of the country, hinting at an anxiety that the author may hold. 

It sounds foolish to say but the scariness of the story grabbed me by the throat (metaphorically much to Dracula’s dismay) and meant I wasn’t really able to put it down so unfortunately my hotel swimming pool saw less action from me than expected prior to starting this book! The violent descriptions of Dracula’s horrific actions are something unparalleled which make the book enchanting in a sense as I couldn’t stop reading at times.  

Overall, I found Dracula a spine-chilling and terrorising piece of fiction that I would recommend to anyone and everyone as it opens a whole new world of the supernatural. Despite the fact that it requires understanding and deep focus and thought to get the most out of it, making it definitely not a light read, it is completely worthwhile and something I am exceptionally glad I read. Thank you Miss Warner!