Dracula

If the Mystery Science Theater 3000 guys got together with a Victorian expert and a diehard fan of everything vampire, and then they all read Bram Stoker's Dracula together, they would write The Annotated Dracula, by Leslie Klinger. As it turns out, Leslie Klinger is all of those types of people, as well as an extremely intelligent and philosophical guy. It reads like you and Klinger got together and read every single word of Dracula (not an easy task), which has something to say on almost every single page.

You'll learn more than you thought possible about Victorian England. You'll learn more than you ever wanted to know about the railway schedules for almost every train in England and Europe. (I'd forgotten how much train travel there was in this book.) You'll also learn much about specific London streets and whereabouts, as well as about Carfax, Parfleet, and many other places in England. You'll learn the rivers, streets and locales of Buda-Pesth (I did remember that this was--and maybe still is--the original spelling of Budapest. But now I know why it is.) You'll learn everything you'll ever want to know about everything vampire and Dracula--including the surprising fact that the original Count had no problem at all walking around in the daylight. (That's a movie construct, mostly from 1922's Nosferatu.)

You'll see all of the discrepancies, minor (none of the journal and diary dates jive) and major (I did remember that Stoker had his characters give poor Lucy many blood transfusions--without concerning themselves with blood type. Even as a kid I knew you can't do that, as you can't empty and change a person's blood like you can a car's oil. But blood transfusions were a relatively new-ish thing in 1897, and Stoker took a chance and threw it in there.). Many of these discrepancies, like how there seems to be a full moon every single night, and how one train in Varna couldn't have gotten someplace as it says because it would actually take a lot longer, you could probably do without. But it's like MTV's Pop-up Videos: if you're in the mood for such arcania, you'll love it, if for no other reason than to just pass the time. (You don't watch Pop-up Video to learn something, do you?) Anyway, if you don't enjoy that kind of quaint nothingness, you probably shouldn't be reading this.

I'd read Dracula twice before, but I wanted to read it again with somebody who knew a lot about everything Victorian, as my current WIP partially takes place in 1890s New England. (Not the same, I know, I know.) But I wanted a feel for the time. And Klinger is an expert on everything Victorian, as he has also written a book that annotates every single Sherlock Holmes short story and novel that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote. Klinger did the same for Poe, too, but of course Poe was of an earlier time. (These books are all on my list of things to do.)

The constant sidenotes don't deter from the actual reading of Dracula, though someone who's never had to read scholarly things with a ton of footnotes, endnotes or sidenotes may take awhile to get used to this. I read the book and stopped to read the notes every time a little number appeared, and never got sidetracked. Some of these notes are short, some very long, and often there are consecutive pages of notes without the novel, to get caught up with itself. And the print of these notes are not the super-small letters you may remember from the glosses of your collegiate or academic days, so they're fine to read, without straining.

My one caveat is that Klinger uses a conceit that all of the characters are real people, and that the discrepancies are an intentional attempt to hide the truth that they don't actually kill Dracula at the end, and that he lives to fight another day--in tons of other books, movies, comics, graphic novels, etc. You get the idea. Occasionally this conceit did stay me, and I swiftly moved on over such notes. Klinger did this in his Annotated Sherlock Holmes as well, and I wish he hadn't done so here, but how else can you do this kind of thing and yet make it different from all of the similar annotated books of Dracula out there? (Yes, there are several.) Klinger also had to convince his publisher to print such a book as this, and I guarantee this conceit was in his pitch. Otherwise, it may have come across as yet another glossed scholarly work, and who the hell wants to publish or read another one of those? (Well, okay, I read a lot of the scholarly articles Klinger cites in his bibliography, cuz I'm cool like that.) Still, you've got to make it different, and you've got to make it interesting.

So I forgave Klinger this trespass (and I skimmed over many of those annotated conceits) and I read it to enjoy all of the other notes--plus the book itself. Don't forget about the book! It was still as clumsily written as I'd remembered it, and yet it was still as effective as I'd remembered it--sometimes in a Mystery Science Theater 3000 kind of way. (Everyone interrogates Renfield as he's dying, and then they all leave him to die alone on the floor as they--finally!--run to Mina's room.) And, yeah, Dracula, as it turned out, was hiding in the building next to Seward's asylum almost the whole time. Whatever.

So if you like Dracula, the book, or the movies, or the Victorian Era, or if you're in the mood for a MST3K riff on all of these things, then this is the book for you. It also comes with the famous short story, "Dracula's Guest," that looks like an early attempt at a Dracula chapter, but not a "missing" or edited-out chapter, like you may have heard. There are many more discrepancies between novel and story than similarities, and it wasn't published at all until after Stoker died, which means it probably was never supposed to see the light of day. (See what I did there?) He published a few books of collected short stories, so if he'd wanted to publish it, he would have. This story looks like a discarded draft of a chapter that was going to show part of Harker's journey to Transylvania, but it's obviously not necessary, and Harker himself is never mentioned in it, so you should enjoy it as a separate story. It's still cool, as "The Dead Travel Fast," is still there, and it's still creepy enough.

Overall, highly recommended, especially in an appropriately-nerdy, have fun as you learn kind of way. And there's nothing at all wrong with admitting that.

Death of the Hired Hand by Robert Frost

Photo: Haymaking, undated, oil on canvas by American artist Dwight William Tryon (1849–1925). Image courtesy of The Athenaeum. (I stole this from the Library of Congress's website of Frost's poem, "The Death of the Hired Hand," which you should read by clicking this link, or the one below.)

So I'm back to the Library of Congress's "Story of the Week," though I'm as behind on them as I am on my work and on my writing. It seems that I'm always behind everything these days, including my sleep. (Though, thankfully, not my mortgage.) Actually, I am very behind on my "Story of the Week" emails, which I have sent directly to me. That causes the backlog, of course, but they are definitely worth it. As far back as I can remember, I've only read maybe five that I didn't care for. (One, recently, was about Henry James's last assistant in his final eight years. I thought she'd have more fascinating things to say about the latter 19th Century's more famous writers, but mostly she just wrote about how he changed a lot of wordy sentences in his most popular works. She says some things that directly contradict what I've read about him; the worst was when she said he never used his fame to threaten or to use against somebody for nefarious purposes--which is a lie.)

Anyway, I just read "The Death of the Hired Hand," by Robert Frost. It's the one with the famous lines: 'Home is the place where, when you have to go there,/They have to take you in.'

This line is meant much more negatively than you might think. It's followed by 'I should have called it/Something you somehow haven't to deserve.' It's said by a farmer whose hired hand keeps taking off on him, so the guy is someone you can't trust, but who you feel obligated to take back in again. Not because you've missed him, but because he's like a lost dog and you pity him. The famous line is said by most (who haven't read the poem) as a line that someone will say about actual family who has to take you in because they're family. But Frost, who was shockingly cold and quite the nihilist, meant it to come from the POV of the farmer saying it, and not from the POV of the one who has to go home. It's not meant nicely, and those who say it like it is, like they have to be allowed in, are missing the point that they're supposed to feel like the pitied, like they'll be let in like the neighborhood's wet mongrel who people just can't leave out in the rain. The line means you'll be taken in not because of family obligation, but because of pity. The hired hand, in fact, had a brother who lived just 13 miles away, but this brother was a banker, and the hired hand didn't want to be pitied by his brother the banker. He'd rather be pitied by the farmer he keeps deserting. Again, the famous lines make more sense knowing the whole poem. And it ain't pretty, and it ain't happy. Frost is rarely either.

Frost is often misread, mostly because of those campfire poetry readings where he came across as a pre-Mister Rogers Mister Rogers.

I've got an English degree, but I somehow managed not to read too much of Frost. I guess I thought it was mostly homespun but drawn-out wisdom, amongst quaint New Englanders, who mostly keep to themselves. Good fences make good neighbors, after all. But there's a lot of genius there, and Frost is a magician who ably hides his literary tricks, which most poets seem incapable of doing. I don't see the obvious alliteration or cadences in Frost that I spot elsewhere, and when I see those, I lose my suspension of disbelief. (I speak like I'm Shakespeare, though my poetry mostly sucks. I've written exactly one that's sold.)

But I've mostly liked what I've read, though I stayed away from his longer ones, like this one. This poem is almost a short story, really, and is almost completely in dialogue, which I don't like in my poems. I also don't like them long, as per Edgar Allan Poe's dictum that all poems should be short--and then he wrote long ones. But I liked this one now, though I didn't when I was younger, perhaps because I didn't get it, or because I felt I might be the one who would have to go home and be taken in--and thereby pitied. Which I kinda was, I think. Best not to think about that now.

At any rate, there's genius here, and a message about human nature. You'll feel like you're the farmer who keeps getting deserted, yet you'll also feel like the hired hand, who keeps deserting, and then coming back with his tail between his legs. You might feel like you're the banker up the street, if you're lucky.

But sooner or later we're all the hired hand who lays down for the last time. And when that moment comes, you have to decide who you're willing to be a burden to.

Like I said, it ain't pretty, and it ain't happy. But it's real, and it's true. That's Frost's genius.

Dark (Horror) Fiction Collection--Little Visible Delight

I was lucky enough to be asked to take a look at a collection of short stories, all in the horror genre, by one of the editors of the book and a member, like me, of the Horror Writers Association of America. (Check out the cool icon on the right side of my blog.)

For the collection: Here's the Amazon link.

And here's a little snippet:

"A new anthology of original dark fiction edited by S.P. Miskowski and Kate Jonez, Little Visible Delight was published by Omnium Gatherum Media on December 6, 2013."

And a short description:

"Often the most powerful and moving stories are generated by writers who return time and again to a particular idea, theme, or image. Obsession in a writer's imagination can lead to accomplishment or to self-destruction. Consider Poe and his pale, dead bride; his fascination with confinement and mortality; his illness and premature death. Or Flannery O'Connor's far less soul-crushing fondness for peacocks. Some writers pay a high price for their obsessions, while others maintain a crucial distance. Whichever the case, obsessions can produce compelling fiction.

Little Visible Delight is an anthology of original stories in which eleven authors of dark fiction explore some their most intimate, writerly obsessions."

Sounds cool, right?  Especially if you're into this genre, like I am.  (Though I hadn't known about O'Connor fondness for peacocks.)  So I thought I'd review a few of the short stories in the collection, over a few blog entries.  This will be a little challenging, because when I like a book, I want other people to read it, but if I write too much about the stories in the book, and give too much away, why would you read them?  So I'm going to err (perhaps too much) on the side of caution, hopefully.  Suffice it to say, if I write about the story at all, I liked it.

I got the permission of one of the editors, so here's a review of the first two stories:

"The Receiver of Tales"

Very well-written, atmospheric, moody tale with a few images that will stay with you.  The writing is so lyrical, and yet so exact (rare for lyricism), and the ending is so well-conceived, that I read it twice.  It's sort of got one ending, when the woman fully realizes her predicament, and then another ending, when she does something about it.  This is a nice extended metaphor about the obsession writers have of writing--though I have to say that my stories are mostly my stories.  But that's just me.  (Enough about me.  What do you think about me?)

One of the few short stories I've ever read twice.  Outside of college classes, that is.

"Needs Must When the Devil Drives"

Never heard of this phrase before, though I like the rhythm of it.  I'll leave the connection between the phrase and the story alone.  You'll have to buy the book!  (Sorry.)  Anyway, this is a well-written time-travel story narrated by a blase, but well-voiced, main character.  It was a nice take on time-travel stories where someone has to go back to kill someone in order to create (or un-create) the future.  It mostly concerns what a philosophy professor once called "The Hitler Paradox."  It goes something like this: Would you go back in time to shoot Hitler before he came to power?  How about if you could only go back in time and meet him when he was just four years old?  And holding a Teddy Bear?  Could you kill him?  You get the idea.

In this one, the main character has to go back in time to kill someone very dear to him: Himself.

Clever story.

That's it for now.  These two stories are well worth the price of the collection, just for themselves.  If this sounds interesting to you, check out these links:

A Goodreads link.

The publisher's link.

And, again, the Amazon link. 

The Best American Mystery Stories--1998, Part 3

photo: book cover from its Amazon page

This is a continuing series of short story critiques and summaries from The Best Mystery Stories--1998.  While these stories are a bit old, of course, the hope is that the reader will check out the authors of the stories positively reviewed, as many of these authors are still pounding the keys today.  Check out the other blog entries here and here.

The Adventure of the Giant Rat of Sumatra, by John H. Watson, M.D., edited by John T. Lescroart

Shame on you and go to the back of the class if you didn't recognize the name of the good doctor as the character who was the author of his adventures with his friend, Sherlock Holmes.  Lescroart has apparently received permission from Conan Doyle's estate, or maybe the publishing company owned the copyrights and gave the series to him, or something, not sure of the legalities here.  I suspect it's like Jeffrey Deaver now writing the James Bond novels, and whomever else is doing Robert Parker's Spenser novels.  Might be worth a little Google search...and you might be wondering why the story would be in a "Best of..." volume of American stories.  Either Lescroart's American, which would be sort of blasphemous, considering Holmes is a very British creation, or the story was first published in an American publication--which would be even more blasphemous.

Anyway, the story is short and crisp and well-written, with all the little details that you would expect Holmes to get and you (and, often, Watson) to miss.  This one's a good one about the possibility of a nasty plague, which, if you've been reading my blog for awhile, you know I'm interested in.  I won't give away the mystery here, so you'll have to get a copy of the book somehow, but I will say that the only problem I have with this series is that Holmes is portrayed as such a genius that we may not even try too hard to figure it out before it's told to us.  That's the trap I fell into here, which is unusual for me.  I put some of the pieces together before Holmes tells it all to us--and to Watson, which has always been a clever writer-ly trick, so that the reader doesn't feel spoken to, though of course we are.  (That trick is maybe original to Holmes, unless Poe pulled it off first.  Now that I think about it, I think Poe did, and Conan Doyle took it.)  I usually get pieces of these stories right, such as the dirt on the knees of the guy in "The Red-headed League," which, by the way, is one of the more ridiculous short stories I have ever read.  I mean, what moron wouldn't suspect that something is up when he's chosen, without reason, among hundreds of other red-headed guys, and is hired only to copy every letter of every word of a dictionary?  Ludicrous.  But I digress.  This one is not ludicrous, and is far better, actually, than "League," so read it.  Though it's a stretch that Holmes would notice the existence of the crime at all from the newspaper articles mentioned, but whatever.  That's Holmes's genius, right?  Again, you expect that he'd get things that you wouldn't, which gives the writer more of a pass than most mystery writers would get.  (I suspect Agatha Christie got away with much the same thing.)  But, when you're done, you'll be impressed with the author's cleverness, so he got that part of the series correct as well.  Memorable.

Night Crawlers, by John Lutz

This one is passable, though just a solid okay.  Nothing you wouldn't see coming, really, and there's a bit of a cliche about motorcycle gang members with tattoos.  And that the whole town is scared into silence by these three guys.  Wouldn't they just get ten townspeople together and take care of them?  Guess not.  Anyway, the swampland is used to good (cliche) effect, and it's well-written on the whole.  It's just that what happens and what's said is what you'd expect to happen and what you'd expect to be said.  But still done well, I guess.  Not a big fan of the "this happens then this happens" type of mystery, as the writer never tries to hide the mystery too much, and the bad guys are very clearly bad guys right away, so the suspects aren't the mystery, either.  In fact, there's no mystery to this mystery, but it's readable and you won't be worse off for reading it.  'course, you won't be better off, either, but, hell, at least the title means two or three things at the same time.  Just read it and move on.

Prayer for Judgment, by Margaret Maron

This one is a small, impressive little nugget, solved practically between cases in the judge's spare time.  It starts off with a well-written description of North Carolina flowers and scents, which has been done a billion times before in short stories and novels, just change the state.  (It also frequently repeated the word "gardenias," which was discomforting to me as it reminded me of one of Marlon Brando's bald head in the darkness blabberings towards the end of Apocalypse Now.  But that's me; not the writer's fault.)  Anyway, the author tried to glaringly bookend it with a two-sentence mention of the same at the end of the story, and it didn't work.  The whole flower/scent thing is unnecessary at the beginning and at the end.  Luckily, the mystery in the middle is set up as a minor puzzle, and you should be able to follow along and piece it together as the judge does, so that when she pulls apart the curtain at the end, you're nodding along, and satisfied at your own cleverness.  Well-written but for the flower nonsense.  Title sounds like it'll have more gravitas than it actually does, as you're waiting for a double-meaning that never really asserts itself.

More to come.

Undaunted Courage--Stephen Ambrose

I pondered briefly giving this 4 stars, rather than 5, because of how long it took me to get through it.  But then I realized it took so long because of its amazing thoroughness.  Every single thing--every mile of the trip, every nuance of the time, every Native tribe they encountered, every possible outlook of every important decision that Lewis and Clark (and Thomas Jefferson) made--was given quick but thorough room in this book.  I understand the time, and Thomas Jefferson, better than I had before.  It is a brilliant book of a different time, an era that we will never revisit.  It is a miracle that every man but one of the Corps of Discovery returned from this three-year adventure.

The last few pages are a vastly different chronicle of a man who was perhaps the victim of Thomas Jefferson's biggest political mistake--the appointment of Meriwether Lewis as Governor of the Louisiana Territory, a position for which Lewis was horrifically, and very obviously, unsuited.  He would have been better off sent on another expedition, or given a job at the famous Philadelphia museums of the time, chronicling his discoveries and getting his journals published.  It took him over a year to even get to Louisiana after he was appointed Governor of the Territory.  He went insane there--instances of emotional and mental imbalances occurred throughout his life, but seemed to oddly disappear while exploring the Territory.  Possibly he had advanced malaria.  Medications he took for that may have reacted badly with the alcohol and other drugs he heavily consumed.  He seemed rather like Poe when he drank--some sort of reaction besides basic drunkenness apparently occurred.  Then he committed suicide in bizarre fashion, just a couple of years after his return from the expedition--with the journals still on him.  One of the greatest mysteries of the time is why this man, who was willing to give his life for the journals while in the Territory, and who was desperate for money after his return, never really even tried to have his journals published.  The publication would have brought him even more riches and fame than he had received upon his return.

A mystery of a very mysterious man.  And so the book is heavily recommended, but beware that it is a breathtakingly thorough work that will take some time to get through.  It will be well worth it.