#bram stoker was basically bryan fuller crossed with john oliver convince me otherwise

[magratpudifoot]

Can we all take a moment to contemplate how much modern readers are getting from a found family story written by an ambiguously queer person while he watched a longtime acquaintance be thoroughly broken by a government outlawing homosexuality? It is kind of incredible that we can have these moments of connection as history bends back again.

Let's give thanks to Charlotte and Abraham Stoker for telling their kid spooky stories and taking him to the theater, and let's all try to keep Leaves of Grass more thoroughly planted in our hearts in the coming years.

[magratpudifoot]

This is a perfect distillation of why I love this wacky book, and why I have spent the last two decades rambling to everyone who will listen about why every big-budget adaptation misses the point, even the ones I like.

I would like to add my strong recommendation that anyone who wants a similarly sweet but even more bafflingly, inexplicably weird novel should read Lady of the Shroud. I had the joy of listening to an audio recording in a setting where I didn't even know how long it was, so I was thoroughly unprepared for how many plot points there were, much less what any one of them would turn out to be. It is a wild ride, especially if you are trying to work out how Stoker felt about colonialism and feminism.

(HEAVY warning about Islamophobia in Lady of the Shroud--if you think Dracula's tirade about "Turkey-land" was hard to stomach, imagine it more bluntly racist and coming directly from the protagonists as an integral part of the plot. But if you lived through US propaganda in the early 2000s you have almost certainly heard worse.)

by the way on this the first day of dracula season let me just say that if you are wondering whether you, yes you personally, should sign up for dracula daily this year to see what all the fuss is about, the answer is unequivocally Yes, Do It. dracula is one of the weirdest books i have ever read (if you like i was are only familiar with it through cultural osmosis you are in for basically unrelenting surprise when you dive into the actual text), a horror novel about train schedules, an action movie about archival diligence. it’s an extremely victorian novel that i really do think speaks to our time both in spite and because of the extent to which it’s a perfect distillation of what fears and values the british empire was haunted by in the twilight it didn’t yet see coming. it’s funny by accident but also on purpose - like, really, really funny - and scary and gross and horny and strange and romantic by accident and also on purpose and if i had to choose one word to capture its emotional mood i would say sweet. discovering it in the real-time serialized format offered by dracula daily was honestly a highlight of my year and one of the most fun and rewarding reading experiences i’ve ever had, and its mix of silliness and earnestness i really think makes it a weirdly well suited novel for pondering on this particular website. it’s a love story baby just say yes!