In this strange complex of time and space anything can happen

Don't forget the gay aspect too, thinking of Dracula saying he wants Harker for himself.

Yes, indeed, this is definitely there too.

In fact... *muses*... one thing this means is that the character of Dracula can be read as a spurned homosexual lover of Harker, with his whole revenge against Harker and his friends motivated by this. I'm interested now, because this is something that's often also true of the villains in classical epics (I mentioned this briefly (http://www.livejournal.com/users/purple_pen/4768.html#cutid3) in my equally long post on Troy (http://www.livejournal.com/users/purple_pen/4768.html)). OK, so the films I'm referring to there are from the 50s and early 60s, not the Victorian era. But Ben Hur at least was based on a Victorian toga play: I wonder if that theme was there in the original? I'm intrigued to know how firmly ensconced into western literature this 'topos' is now, and when it first appeared.

I'd be tempted to go the whole hog and say that Stoker is a pretty bad prose writer. Dracula works because of all the potent themes that percolate through it, perhaps not entirely consciously. By contrast, Frankenstein as an elaborately structured novel of ideas.

Ah, but the whole point of this post is to take the unfashionable stance of defending Dracula! I'll admit it may not be the best book ever written, but I wanted to argue that it's not actually too bad, even if it isn't quite in the same league as Frankenstein. I've come across a lot of criticism of it since I last read it as a teenager, and hence picked it up this time expecting to find it pretty turgid. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised.