Dracula
I read the original Dracula, by Bram Stoker yesterday. First time, actually. I can see why it endures; it’s a pretty solid book despite its attempts at sensationalism. There’s an unusual psychological sophistication for the era in many of its characterizations.
I can definitely see ground for the common thesis that the book in part is a commentary, consciously on the part of the writer or not, on Victorian sexuality, but the thing that stuck with me most was the (Protestant, I think) author’s use of Catholic elements. It’s a curious choice, especially in that several of the Protestant characters - Harkness in particular - appear to “convert” in some fashion as the story progresses.
I might suspect Stoker of having been a closet Catholic, save that the Catholocism of his book has a very pantomime feel to it. The confusion between rosary and crucifix, the vaguely superstitious treatment of same, and the Catholic Van Helsing’s “Indulgence from the Vatican” to abuse the Blessed Sacrament for various purposes, all feel about as authentic as the TV hacker who brings down the villain’s network by “downloading his IP address to the mainframe”.
I didn’t let it ruin the book for me, any more than I would allow our erstwhile hacker to do, but it is kind of sad realizing in general that the more experience I get in different disciplines, the more things like this I’m going to notice in fiction. At least my experience as a writer helps me to have some charity in the matter—the best advice a writer can take is “write what you know,” but I also know from experience that sometimes you’ve simply got to touch on things outside your immediate experience for the sake of an interesting story, and that is hard to do well. You can only do so much research…
Anyway, Dracula. I’d definitely say it’s worth a read if you haven’t already. Very significant piece of literature, and entertaining too if you like horror. From what I’ve heard, I don’t think any of the movies really do it justice.