I just finished a couple of books: In Europe by Geert Mak and Dracula by Bram Stoker. In Europe (which took me almost a year to finish) is a history chronicle of the 20th century, counting hundreds of pages and dense with insights and anecdotes. Very interesting and a great starting point for anyone who wants to know a bit more about European modern history in general without going into specifics too much.

Dracula was very enjoyable as well, a well-written Victorian horror novel, but there are a few problems I'd like to delve into. Note that these things don't hurt the book very much, and I do want to stress I really enjoyed reading it. Nevertheless, some honest critique is never out of place. It's not really errors in any case, just musings on my part about some issues in the story.

First off, Dracula himself. The vampire king. Most of the time he's an enigmatic character, well-read, composed, of noble appearance. At other times, however, he will suddenly lapse into comic-book-villain crudeness, of the 'you'll never catch me alive, coppers!' sort. And though throughout the book he remains a source of threat, he never quite manages to rise above it. He never becomes truly terrifying, that figure of horror we know so well. This surprised me, as the book is widely known as the classic that inspired everything about vampires later on (though Dracula was far from the first step into the direction of the mystical, noble vampire count. As far back as in the early 19th century, Byron wrote stories about the Transsylvanian terror as well). The source of this confusion is, I think, the way the vampire myth has developed in modern times. Especially Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula movie in the mid-90s (ironically using only cinematic techniques that were decades old to establish a 'classic' feel to the film) redefined the story and monster as something of a gothic apotheosis, the archetype as dark and torturous as he ever could be. Stoker's own Dracula, after that, seemed a lot more tame. (I'll deny myself the pleasure here of going into the changes Coppola made to the story, because that would be going off onto a wild tangent, though my hands are itching at the thought of a point-by-point analysis.)

My second gripe, if you will, is the language used by Abraham van Helsing in his writings (as you probably know, the book is written in diary form, so every new chapter or subchapter is presented as if part of someone's personal writings). Van Helsing, one of fiction's great characters, is a Dutch physician and philosopher, who provides the most important clues as to the evil that has beset London. Because of his noble Dutch origins, he doesn't speak English quite as well as the rest, which results in a curious choice of words, sometimes stilted sentences and faulty grammar. However, it seems that Stoker only ever so often remembered the character had this problem (or perhaps he rightly identified the clumsy way of Van Helsing's language rather annoying to read), because only occasionally in the book he displays it. This gives rise to awkward chapters that start out beautifully written, but suddenly interject a few paragraphs of 'Van Helsing English', doing away with it again shortly after. It would've been much better just to keep everything told properly.

My final point is a suggestion about the flow of the story. The book starts with Jonathan Harker's journey to castle Dracula, where we soon learn of the count's evil plot and his wicked ways. Afterwards we travel back to England where strange things start occurring, which we're able to map back to the events in Transsylvania. Wouldn't it have been better to start in England and leave Jonathan's ordeal for the middle of the book, where it would work splendidly as a big 'reveal', for the first time lifting the veil on the count and his history and powers? The way it works now is that the reader knows what is happening at every step of the way, taking away much of the mystery, the horror. Storywise this would've made perfect sense, since the characters in the book don't read Jonathan's journal until somewhere in the middle anyway. Why not let the readers join in the feeling of discovery themselves? Probably because the part in castle Dracula is a great opener, an exciting way to set the tone. But not without a price to pay in the reader's sense of mystery.

These things aside, I can clearly see why this book has made such an impact. It's a great read with a lot of pathos and a decided air of Victorian romance of good versus evil, science versus superstition, modern Victorians against ancient evils. I'm curious which book I'll read next. I've got a whole pile, so plenty of options!