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fandomaniaBook review: Tasty edition of 'Dracula' revives a classic
BY JOY TIPPING
DALLAS MORNING NEWS
Vampire fans should clear a spot -- a large spot, preferably one that's artfully draped by cobwebs -- on their bookshelves for Leslie S. Klinger's exhaustively detailed and utterly spectacular "The New Annotated Dracula."
The 613-page compendium features the complete text of "Dracula"; more than 1,500 footnotes, and 200 illustrations, photos, movie stills, posters and stage bills. It has a bibliography and guide to Dracula societies where one might find friends in fangdom, too....
Klinger, editor of "The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes," brings intelligent wit to this project, starting with taking author Bram Stoker "at his word" that the letters, journals and newspaper articles that make up "Dracula" are historically accurate. Klinger, tongue embedded in cheek, surmises that Jonathan, Mina, Dr. Van Helsing and Mr. Fangs-for-the-Memories were all real individuals whose true identities were concealed intentionally.
To prove this, he points out the manuscript's many inconsistencies and errors -- Stoker's way, Klinger says, of diverting from the truth. For instance, he notes that in a scene where Dracula forces Mina to drink his blood, Dr. Seward's journal says of Dracula, "his face was turned from us," but that "we all recognized the Count -- in every way, even to the scar on his forehead."
In his footnote, Klinger writes, "This suggests that the scene is a constructed one, a fictionalized version of the true events."
He doesn't shy from gently making fun; in several notes, he remarks on Dr. Van Helsing's unfettered ego and medical quackery, for instance his ability to take Mina's pulse in a few seconds while kissing her hand.
Klinger studied Stoker's original manuscript, owned by a private collector who has given only two researchers access to it in recent years. In his preface, he writes, "In examining 'Dracula,' I must admit that I have found more questions than answers. ... In the words of Bernard Davies, a lifelong student of 'Dracula,' in his provocative 'Unearthing Dracula -- Burying Stoker,' 'We shall fit in all the pieces of the puzzle as neatly as we can, then throw the odd one or two left back in the box. With 'Dracula' you've always got some pieces left.' "
Klinger pays attention to "Dracula's" wicked pull on readers, even those who'd otherwise avoid tales so visceral and shocking. A review in the August 1897 issue of the Bookman, published in London, read:
"A summary of the book would shock and disgust; but we must own that, though here and there in the course of the tale we hurried over things with repulsion, we read nearly the whole thing with rapt attention."
How ghastly! Tell me more!
http://www.freep.com/article/20081026/FEATURES05/810260308/1030/FEATURES
BY JOY TIPPING
DALLAS MORNING NEWS
Vampire fans should clear a spot -- a large spot, preferably one that's artfully draped by cobwebs -- on their bookshelves for Leslie S. Klinger's exhaustively detailed and utterly spectacular "The New Annotated Dracula."
The 613-page compendium features the complete text of "Dracula"; more than 1,500 footnotes, and 200 illustrations, photos, movie stills, posters and stage bills. It has a bibliography and guide to Dracula societies where one might find friends in fangdom, too....
Klinger, editor of "The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes," brings intelligent wit to this project, starting with taking author Bram Stoker "at his word" that the letters, journals and newspaper articles that make up "Dracula" are historically accurate. Klinger, tongue embedded in cheek, surmises that Jonathan, Mina, Dr. Van Helsing and Mr. Fangs-for-the-Memories were all real individuals whose true identities were concealed intentionally.
To prove this, he points out the manuscript's many inconsistencies and errors -- Stoker's way, Klinger says, of diverting from the truth. For instance, he notes that in a scene where Dracula forces Mina to drink his blood, Dr. Seward's journal says of Dracula, "his face was turned from us," but that "we all recognized the Count -- in every way, even to the scar on his forehead."
In his footnote, Klinger writes, "This suggests that the scene is a constructed one, a fictionalized version of the true events."
He doesn't shy from gently making fun; in several notes, he remarks on Dr. Van Helsing's unfettered ego and medical quackery, for instance his ability to take Mina's pulse in a few seconds while kissing her hand.
Klinger studied Stoker's original manuscript, owned by a private collector who has given only two researchers access to it in recent years. In his preface, he writes, "In examining 'Dracula,' I must admit that I have found more questions than answers. ... In the words of Bernard Davies, a lifelong student of 'Dracula,' in his provocative 'Unearthing Dracula -- Burying Stoker,' 'We shall fit in all the pieces of the puzzle as neatly as we can, then throw the odd one or two left back in the box. With 'Dracula' you've always got some pieces left.' "
Klinger pays attention to "Dracula's" wicked pull on readers, even those who'd otherwise avoid tales so visceral and shocking. A review in the August 1897 issue of the Bookman, published in London, read:
"A summary of the book would shock and disgust; but we must own that, though here and there in the course of the tale we hurried over things with repulsion, we read nearly the whole thing with rapt attention."
How ghastly! Tell me more!
http://www.freep.com/article/20081026/FEATURES05/810260308/1030/FEATURES
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