By: Bram Stoker 4/5
This book has had a daunting pressure on me to read as it is
one: considered one of the classic must reads and two: as a Romanian you must
read what it portrays us as.
The last pressure is probably the greatest as I am a former
descendant of Vlad Tepes aka the former ruler of Romania, aka Dracula. So
before going into my dialogue on Dracula the book a little Romanian history.
Vlad Tepes as a fierce ruler and was also known as Vlad the
Impaler for his very industrious techniques in impaling the know Turkies people
when invading his land. He ruled from 1456 to about 1462 at the age of only 25!
He was tough and as soon as he got his hands on a TURK he killed him, took his
body and put a stake through their bodies and put the stakes on the street,
where bodies would line the streets. This technique didn’t only apply this to
the invaders, but to his own people that stole, raped, lied and were
treacherous. During his rule, a money bag could be found on the street and no
one would pick it up for fear of being considered a stealer. This is how he
earned his name … Dracula. The name derives from dracu which in Romanian means
devil, and the –ula at the end is assigning the devil name to him.
This bring us to Brahm Stoker many many many years later
when he wrote Dracula in 1897, almost 435 years later than Vlad Tepes. Upon
hearing of the devilish and romanticized Transylvania (which coincidently is
where I am from), he wanted to set a book on it. So he wrote Dracula.
Stoker did well in researching
this book and the beliefs of the time, especially because rumor still followed
in the late 1800s. So upon reading the book I was pleasantly surprised to hear
the names of the towns from my childhood, and the descriptions of the land which were very vivid and accurate
even though Stoker never went to Transylvania himself. The descriptions of the
Carpatheians (Carpati) Mountains
were wonderful. This book must have sent chills to people reading it at the
time. It is filled with awe and with the darks beliefs of devils and religion. So my expectation in reading the book
was that I would be terrified to the core!
Not so… It was amusing, it was a nice story but did it
terrify NO! That might be in part one, I was listening to it on audio, and two,
that in today’s society what we fear is very different than based on the
religious superstitious of those days.
The very beginning was great where Jonathon Hawker’s story, though I
think it dwindled because there was a lot that just didn’t captivate me, and
that again might be in part due to audio. The story does pick up again and you
become engrossed in the ploy of the book, and Dracula’s play.
Things that I found interesting is that they called Dracula
a count, and they didn’t say the name Dracula till the very end.
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
I don’t know if Vlad Tepes is buried in a grave that is
labeled Dracula, but it might have been possible that the Romanian Orthodox
would have buried him in a Christian way and named the grave as that.
According to Wikipedia “
He was taken
back to Wallachia and buried. In the early 1900's Vlad was unburied for
research. The researchers found nothing. Remains were found around his grave,
and was thought to be the prince's remains. He was reburied and then left. When
another dig took place years later, his grave was found destroyed and no
remains were found.[17] The other theory is that Vlad is buried at Snagov, an island monastery
located near Bucharest”. From childhood I feel like I remember visiting both
grave site possibilities with the first one being very well gated.
