wayner

So I finally finished reading Dracula a day or two ago. And I was SO disappointed. I’m thinking it might have been the language used. Victorian English is as strange and difficult to me as Shakespeare‘s iambic pentameter.

It could also have been that I am so accustomed to the idea of Dracula that I find it hard to relate to characters who have no knowledge of him. Almost the first third of the book (after Johnathan’s adventure in Castle Dracula) or more is devoted to the mysterious withering away of Lucy. That’s around 200 pages!

Dracula? Dragula.

And the reason it drags on is what kills me. Van Helsing keeps everything to himself. So much is wasted because he doesn’t tell anyone what’s going on.

Dracula, as a novel, seems to be some sort of moral lesson about the Hacker Ethic. Dracula, as a character, is able to succeed – indirectly – from a lack of knowledge and information. If they only knew what they were up against, they might have taken more direct action sooner. In fact, it’s not until they start sharing their information do they even begin to have some sort of response to the threat.

What I find particularly telling is that when they decide for “Madam Mina‘s” own good that they stop including her in what’s going on that they start having problems again.

And most telling is the contribution provided by Mina. It is Mina that does most of the work that allows them figure out what’s really going on. For this she gets praised for having a “Man-Brain”. ‘Cause really, no mere woman would be able to do it.

Ok, let’s look at the points of the Hacker Ethic:

• Access to computers – and anything which might teach you something about the way the world works – should be unlimited and total. Always yield to the Hands-on Imperative!
  • Let’s trade computers for Technology and the Wikipedia entry covers that.
• All information should be free.
  • Until their information was free between them, they had no hope.
• Mistrust authority – promote decentralization.
  • Van Helsing couldn’t accomplish much when it was just him who knew what was going on.
• Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race, or position.
  • Add gender to that and Mina Harker is a hacker.
• You can create art and beauty on a computer.
  • Ok, so maybe this one doesn’t apply.
• Computers can change your life for the better
  • If we change to technology again I think killing off one of the supreme evils on earth is change for the better.

I think that works rather nicely.

I also think that the novel picks up in it’s last quarter or fifth. But I do find that Dracula’s death lacks a little drama. They catch up on him a cart that’s bringing him back to his castle and just before the sun sets they toss the crate to the snow, pry the lid off of it and kill him. Bram doesn’t really up the tension with it too much. Perhaps Hollywood has me expecting more.

Speaking of Hollywood, I’m going to try and get the famous Dracula movies out of the library and see how they fare to the original story.

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Listening to: Rob Zombie – Dragula