Dracula (daily or otherwise)

So we just found Dracula Daily, a mailing list that sends out all the letters in Dracula in "real time". The first letter was on May 3rd, so we're a few days late, but Tumblr is having a good time memeing on everyone's new good friend Jonathan Harker and his emails about perfectly normal things for solicitors to encounter on their business trips to Transylvania, so we thought we'd make a thread here too.

Apparently it ran last year too, but somehow we didn't hear of it that time around.

Trouble Cube continues to be a general-purpose forum for those who desire such a thing.

Oh, that sounds like a fun as hell way to experience the book. Its adaptations have become so popular, not enough people know how inventive it gets with the Epistolary Novel format.

May 7: In which the Count apologizes for his poor English

There was no letter yesterday, which turns out to be because Jonathan slept all day — and well into the evening tonight as well.

Trouble Cube continues to be a general-purpose forum for those who desire such a thing.

May 8: Jonathan learns that shaving can get dicey

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I like how his reaction is just "very annoying, how am I supposed to shave now?"

Trouble Cube continues to be a general-purpose forum for those who desire such a thing.

Today, poor Jonathan is just. Accepting the horror that is his life.

Edited by wisewillow on May 15th 2022 at 8:12:19 AM

Thanks to Sesame Street I can't picture The Count without thinking of the muppet

New theme music also a box

I’m rereading and trying to look at it in the same chronological fashion as Dracula Daily, but moving faster than that, and I noticed something I never have before.

There’s a letter from Lucy to Mina on August 30 saying how well she’s doing and that she’s feeling great and has been having loads of fun for the whole last week, chronologically sandwiched between a diary entry from her saying she feels awful and weak (August 25) and a letter from her fiancé Arthur to Dr. Seward saying she’s been looking horribly ill for the last while and is getting worse and could Seward please come and look at her (August 31).

On previous readings I didn’t look closely at the dates and thought her health was just going back and forth, but reading it in order makes it clear that’s not the case - she’s lying to Mina so Mina won’t worry, because Mina already has enough to worry about with Jonathan being ill!

It makes me very sad. The poor sweetheart!

Edited by Galadriel on May 15th 2022 at 10:42:26 AM

Oh, fuck yeah, we have a thread for THIS! I’ve heard about this happening on Reddit and it sounded amazing so I’m glad to get seats on this train!

And “Dracula” is public domain so I can just look up a pdf of the book and read along!

Trans rights are human rights. TV Tropes is not a place for bigotry, cruelty, or dickishness, no matter who or their position.

I remember reading along with it like this a decade and a half ago.

I kept seeing people posting about this and I'd never read Dracula before so I caught up today with the online version Project Gutenberg hosts.

I had a great time reading it! I 100% get why this is a classic.

For something like this I think I'd prefer a physical copy, so I'm going to check out a bookstore tomorrow while on lunch.

The part where Jonathan is trapped in Dracula's castle is an amazingly done suspense and psycological horror, I was really hooked the first time I read it and wasn't expecting it. Even if it is already obvious the Count doesn't have good intentions, the slow way the narrative moves really makes him threatening and affable at the same time without even showing much of his powers. It even makes me wish the book continued with that theme (speaking of that, I have yet to finish it...).

oh hey how are you doing?

Related to that, by following Dracula Daily, I'm learning that the problem with most adaptations of Dracula is that they're way too eager to get to the supernatural parts of the story and so they skip all the psychological horror elements that actually make Dracula terrifying and intimidating. Seeing Dracula being first introduced as a friendly if eccentric old man then having the facade slowly fade away until it becomes clear that he's a monster holding Johnathan Harker prisoner is amazing and something a lot of adaptations don't want to do. They just want to see Dracula rip peoples' throats out and transform into wolves or whatever.

The scene from a few days ago where Johnathan tries to smuggle a message for help out of the castle only for Dracula to immediately to return with them in hand and then burns it in front of Johnathan while still acting like a pleasant host..... the whole sequence is way more frightening and unnerving than any shot of Dracula baring his fangs and hissing ever was.

Very well put.

I saw this one "meme" recently which commented on how (middle class period-appropriate xenophobia aside), Jonathan's seeming obliviousness early on is very relatable, since he's this low ranked employee whose trying to make a sale that will jumpstart his career. And someone in that position really can't afford to slight a client, even if that client raises a lot of alarm bells.

Speaking of, I think another problem in adaptation has to do with Jonathan being a Ron the Death Eater. An adaptation would do well to put more focus on his advancing himself from a humble background and being comparably feminist.

One other thought related to your post - Although the xenophobic undertones (overtones) are troubling, I think it really is a cool idea how Dracula wants to make himself "modern", down to trying to lose his accent. One, I like the concept of Dracula being aware of his Creative Sterility and trying to compensate. But also, I think there's some nice psychological horror in the disconnect between Dracula being a ravening monster and also having these quirky "human" behaviors.

Seeing so many people discovering the novel because of Dracula Daily has been really fun! It's a shame Jonathan will escape the castle in 06/30 already, but I think the novel will stil last at least until November.

Edited by good-morning on Jun 12th 2022 at 1:41:13 PM

oh hey how are you doing?

June 17: Jonathan cudgels his brains.

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Once again, we can see the xenophobia against Earstern Europeans characteristic of 19th century United Kingdom. Being honest, the first time I read the chapter I interpreted it as the Slovaks simply not understanding what Jonathan was trying to say due to a combination of desperation and language barrier on Jonathan's part (and arguably, that might still be a valid point of view).

Edited by good-morning on Jun 17th 2022 at 2:08:19 PM

oh hey how are you doing?

It's been a while since I read Dracula, but I can't for the life of me remember if any Watsonian reason is ever given for Dracula's treatment of Harker early on. It seems like it would have served the Count's purposes better if he's just conducted his business with Harker and then let Harker go home unmolested, rather than continually extending his stay and very obviously planning to kill him.

Just my speculation, but if the Count knows they're going to be looking a lot younger by the time they get to London, they might not want someone loose in the city who can say, "Hey, that doesn't look like the guy I sold the house to!"

I think he may have planned on doing that initially, but once Jonathan saw the vampire women the jig was up; he didn’t want the risk of Jonathan returning to London and exposing him.

My question is why he left Jonathan alive for another month and a half after that rather than killing him shortly after, or at least killing him before leaving.

Edited by Galadriel on Jun 24th 2022 at 2:19:52 AM

I think he was still trying to finish the burocracy, no?

oh hey how are you doing?

It’s possible that Jonathan was still doing lawyer work for him all this time, yes, but Jonathan doesn’t mention doing so after the first week or two.

I'd buy the bit about the vampire women, except that Dracula'd already extended Harker's stay, and had him write post-dated letters to allay suspicion, before they showed up (I think). I believe they wrapped up their legal stuff pretty quickly, and the rest of the time Dracula was just asking Harker questions about England.

I may be a wrong about that last bit, as I think Dracula told the women that they couldn't have Harker because Dracula still needed him (for what, if not legal work?).

"The scene from a few days ago where Johnathan tries to smuggle a message for help out of the castle only for Dracula to immediately to return with them in hand and then burns it in front of Johnathan while still acting like a pleasant host..... the whole sequence is way more frightening and unnerving than any shot of Dracula baring his fangs and hissing ever was. "

That is probably because the was is sled: everyone already know who is dracula and what he kinda does and what not so him playing human can feel like wasting time for the good part.

"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"

Jonathan sees the vampire women on the night of May 15th, when he goes to sleep outside his room, something Dracula specifically warned him not to do. Dracula makes him write the post-dated letters on May 19th.

So I think Jonathan seeing the vampiric women threw a wrench in Dracula’s plans and made Dracula decide to kill him.

Edited by Galadriel on Jun 25th 2022 at 4:52:53 AM

That's a good theory, I'd never stopped to think that Jonathan seeing the women would be the ultimate confirmation that Dracula was up to no good, at least in the latter's eyes.

Yes, the psychological horror of the novel is often overlooked in adaptations, but it is really effective. My favorite part was when Dracula said Jonathan could leave as he wished, only for several wolves appear in the front gate.

oh hey how are you doing?

There should be Frankenstein Daily.

I like to eat poop