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Title: Dracula the Un-Dead Author: Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt Paperback: 424 pages Publisher: Dutton (2009) Amazon: Instant Look Up Appraising Eyeballs: |
From the Back of the Book:
He returns
Bruce’s Appraisal: Warning: This review
contains spoilers, including the ending of the book. There is another warning halfway through,
before the spoilers commence. The
ending of the book is spoiled at the end of the review, by which time you may
understand why such an egregious act has been committed. Okay, first of all, that’s cool.
He returns Just like that, in script, with a trail of ink that makes you
wonder, Was this written in someone’s
blood? Is that a statement…or a
warning? Mary Shelley gets all the press; Frankenstein is considered the gothic novel that “got it
right.” But sometimes getting it right
misses the mark. Sometimes you have to
get it just a little bit wrong to become transcendent. That may be hyperbole, but Bram Stoker’s Dracula transcends quite a lot. After more than a century, it continues to
spawn movies, cartoons, magazines, comics, and novels. Even sequels. Most of these can be carefully avoided by the discerning
consumer. For the most part, an author
who can’t come up with his own vampire probably doesn’t have the creativity
to merit a second glance. I mean, really,
how many books are published with a main character of Abraham Lincoln,
somehow surviving his assassination and combating slavery in the modern
day? Or Gandhi, miraculously
recovering from those fatal gunshot wounds and emerging to spread non-violent
passive aggressivism once more? But here is a book written by a Stoker. A fellow with the inside track. A fellow who, if anyone, has the right to use Dracula in his work. Who knows what secrets the Stoker family
has been holding all these years? Who
knows what Bram Stoker’s plans might have been, had he ever revisited the
character! There’s also the coolness of the book’s dedication, which Thanks
Bram Stoker on behalf of his family.
Clearly, this is coming from a place of caring, even reverence for the
source. At first, the book is off to a rollicking start. As a nod to the epistolary form of Stoker’s
original, we kick off with a letter.
And it’s a whopper. A letter
to Quincey Harker, Esq,, to be delivered in the
event of the death of Wilhelmina Harker. Oh, yeah.
That’s what I’m talking about. And then we are introduced to the villain of the piece, and it’s
a bit of a wonder. There is some real
genius in the selection of the antagonist, and I still recall laughing in
genuine excitement when I read her name in the first chapter. It was perfection. It was also the last time I thought
anything positive about this novel. It’s so hard to write that. When I learned about the Stoker sequel, I waited
on pins and needles till I could get my hands on it. I was there on the day it was
released. I planned to read it as my
October horror novel. It wasn’t the
sort of excitement where I had a million ideas of what could happen. I was a blank slate, waiting to be
awed. Anything would be accepted. Anything! Well, as it turns out, anything
except this. Like the song says, sometimes love is
not enough. And while Stoker and Holt
clearly appreciate the original, this is a sequel only in the sense that it
picks up after Dracula, and
involves many of the same characters and locations. Wait.
That sounds like a sequel, doesn’t it?
In fact, isn’t that the definition of one? I thought so, until I read Dracula the Un-Dead. It’s like this. Alien
was a horror movie with science fiction elements. For the sequel, James Cameron made a
science fiction move with horror elements.
To picture the relationship between Dracula and Dracula the
Un-Dead, imagine that, instead of James Cameron, they had hired Mel
Brooks. Even with a character named
Ripley, and a guy in an H.R. Giger-suit, you just
wouldn’t have a sequel to Ridley Scott’s movie. Here are just some of the complaints
that caused me to take two years to finish reading this book. This book is the reason that my wife began
talking to me about my “stubborn insistence to finish reading every book I
start.” This is the book that almost
broke me. Warning. Ahead you will find spoilers: Within
the first seven chapters: 1. Jonathan
Harker, the everyman hero of Dracula, is revealed to have become a drunken whoremonger who
sleeps in a different room from Mina, his wife. 2. Jonathan
Harker is then murdered while estranged from his
family. 3. Jack
Seward is described as an old man who succumbed to his morphine
addiction. Yet he functions like a man
out of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And
we’re not talking about Riley here.
We’re talking Angel or Spike or the Mayor. We’ve got scaling walls. We’ve got swordfighting. We’ve got full-blown James Bonding here. 4. Jack
Seward is then run down in the street by a carriage and killed. 5. Mina
Harker is an embittered woman who has watched her
family disintegrate around her. She feels trapped in a woman’s role in
polite society and has watched life pass her by, day by day. 6. Arthur
Holmwood has disavowed all of his former
friends. He has re-written his memory
of the events of that day and considers everyone else to be mad. He is in a loveless marriage designed to
shelter a family friend from losing her status. 7. Van
Helsing is a venerable old man, sickly, and is
about to be accused of being Jack the Ripper. 8. He hasn’t returned
yet. So, before going on, we are left to
ask, Why in the nine circles of hell
would anyone want to read this? Isn’t
the point of surviving a horror story that you get to be stronger from the
experience? That you learn to
appreciate the simple joys of life?
That you look around with renewed wonder at that which had been
mundane before you so nearly lost it? Apparently not. Apparently, surviving a horror novel leads
to drug addiction, alcoholism, whorish behavior, losing friendship with
everyone who could have commiserated with you, and just pining for the day
Death does come with his carriage. Oh,
and if you’re lucky you get to learn how to fight like you’re in a John Woo
movie. But that’s just the beginning. In the Rest of the Book: 1. Arthur
hasn’t re-written events. You learn
this when the narrative requires Arthur to join the story. He’s hasn’t come to remember things
incorrectly. He’s just an
asshole. But then he turns into the
only character in the entire novel that could be considered remotely
heroic. But then he dies, too. 2. Seeing
a Ten Little Indians theme here? Oh,
it’s there. Set them up. Knock them down. 3. Katana. Mina pulls out Jonathan’s katana—a gift from
his business partners in Japan—and then carries it into the final
conflict. Someone got a little too
distracted by Buffy the Vampire Slayer
while researching Bram’s novel. 4. When
he finally does return—nevermind that in true Scooby-Doo fashion he’s been there
the whole time, as the only character that either isn’t from the original
novel or else from Scotland Yard—but when he
finally does return, he explodes through the roof of a train car, landing
in a crouch with a shock of flowing dark hair over his blazing eyes and
justice in his gaze. Yes. He has
become a cross between Neo from The
Matrix and mullet-haired, 90s Superman. 5. They
fight in mid-air. The vampires leap
into the air, slashing and kicking at one another as they fly past each
another. It’s like Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Dragon was stabbed in the gut and allowed to bleed out until
nothing was left but Matrix: Reloaded. 6. Van
Helsing becomes a vampire and tries to kill his
former friends when they can’t appreciate the genius of Dracula. 7. Quincey Harker isn’t
Jonathan and Mina’s son. Mina had a
tryst with Dracula in the original novel.
He’s Dracula’s boy. So he’s
half vampire. He just didn’t know it
because he hasn’t been put in a stressful enough situation for his super-strength
to manifest. 8. Dracula
really is the hero. He’s been
misunderstood all along and is actually still fighting on God’s side. That whole thing with Lucy? A tragic accident. And all Van Helsing’s
fault, really. All Dracula really
wants is to be reunited20 with his true love and estranged son. The Writing: 1. A
man is disemboweled. He has the urge
to vomit as he begins to fall over, then he realizes, he doesn’t have the stomach for it. 2. He
steps into thin air. “Thin air?” Isn’t that one of the examples used in
every book on how to write? Phrases
like that are “poster children” for what not to do. 3. And
how to show grief. Well, apparently,
you can avoid any sort of in-depth discussion of physical appearance or inner
conflict by simply throwing every possible cliché into one paragraph. She’d lost her son. So: She was Lot’s wife. The light went out her eyes. Her heart turned to stone. Dear God, make it end. 4. Aside
from the writing, there’s the element of shortening chapters. A great approach to ratchet up the
tension. But when we’re told at the
mid-point that we have entered the “endgame,” and thereafter no chapter is
longer than four or five pages…The “endgame” really does start to feel like a
seventh-inning stretch. The Ending (Yes, I’ll spoil that, too. Don’t read it if you don’t want to.) 1. One
character survives. He decides to make
his way to America to start anew. And
he gets a ticket on board the fucking Titanic. And there you have it. A labor, and not
one of love. I’m Done With It. |