Thoughts on completing "Dracula"

After putting it off for far too long, I recently finished reading the original "Dracula" by Bram Stoker.

My quick opinion is that as a piece of literature it was excellent ... but since you can already find plenty of literary commentary on this book/character, that's not the reason for my bringing it up. If you're looking for actual literary criticism feel free to visit Google.

Reading this 19th-century story that essentially formed the modern understanding of the vampire figure is fascinating.


It was also fascinating, if not disheartening, to see how much later adaptations of the vampire legend departed from the original. I won't name that particularly infamous piece of modern writing that claims to be about angsty teenage vampires, but I trust you know what I mean.

In Stoker's "Dracula," the Count is a fearsome, appalling, soulless, bloodthirsty (well, obviously), and grotesque shell of what once was humanity. He can shape-shift, but all of his forms offer those present an uncomfortable, chilling feeling. There are some passages in which he is presented as eerily seductive, but the reader realizes that this is a bad thing that can hurt people.

He is also a representation of the sin-filled soul, expressing great peace when finally removed from his torment.

In certain senses, he can be compared to Tolkien's Gollum in terms of the lost person in need of saving ... but I promised no literary criticism, and digress. (But oh, that would be fun to write about!)

Anyway, he is a representation of strict evil, and if you read the book, that's kind of hard to miss.

So wait. Where did we get this totally strange trend of fashionable, attractive vampires with mental turmoil and quarter-life crises? What on earth happened to this field of literature?

As a journalist, I believe it comes quite simply from forgetting to look at the original source. I'd be willing to bet that the majority of vampire bandwagon authors haven't even read Stoker's original work. And if they have? Well, they're rather missing the point.

We know how splendidly it goes when a reporter gives an inaccurate account of a situation. Though many people today aren't very trusting of the press, they know that the press does owe them the truth. And when the press falls through big time, well, people have an inalienable right to be upset.

Fact check, people. Whether you're writing about a great literary archetype, or the big news that happened around the block on the night of the 27th, you owe your readers accuracy.