books for class :/

For my Literature and the Occult class, I've had to read quite a bit of books lately. The two that I'll be commenting on are Dr. Taverner by Dion Fortune and Dracula by Bram Stoker.

Dr. Taverner is a series of short stories chronicling the goings on of a mental hospital in the late 19th century. Dr. Taverner, the main character of the story, is a psychic and, in general, accepts patients who need help of a more metaphysical sort. The stories are told via Taverner's 'apprentice' of sorts, a man named Dr. Rhodes. Rhodes is not indoctrinated into the secrets that Taverner knows, and so, as we see things through his eyes, we are seeing not through the eyes of someone who understands all that is going on, but one who is a careful observer of all that is going on.

I liked the Taverner stories a lot. They almost always had a moralistic bend to them and the good guys always won out in the end. It's quite interesting to see what was thought of the psychic world back in the 19th century. Additionally, these stories are written in the mold of the Sherlock Holmes stories...where a mystery is presented that must be solved. The correlations between Watson and Rhodes are quite evident from my earlier commentary.

Anyone who was a fan of Sherlock Holmes will most likely also be a fan of Taverner. 4.5/5. I liked the stories but they were not completely perfect.

Dracula. What can be said about Dracula? It is the holotype for all other vampire stories written since its publication. I, however, am not so impressed with it. I feel that during the 1800's there was probably an unwritten rule stating that short stories were not thought of altogether well. Therefore the authors who wished to be taken seriously had to string together an entire novel length work before they could be thought of as worthy of attention. I noticed this same effect with Lovecraft earlier in the year. Lovecraft's shortest fiction, of about 5 pages was wonderful and quite near perfect. His works that were longer though came out lacking. It was as if he wanted to fill them up with more garbage that didn't add to the overall story simply so that he would have a longer piece written.

I feel as though Dracula suffers from the same problem. The beginning of the novel creates a sort of suspenseful atmosphere with Harker trapped in Dracula's castle and not knowing what was going to happen next, but with an ever increasing feeling of dread creeping upon him. As the story progresses though we are introduced to Lucy and Mina. In truth, Mina is the lynch pin to the entire story and probably the most important character save for Dracula himself. Lucy was entirely superfluous though. Her character had no meaning other than to aid in Mina's awareness of something evil being afoot. This could have been accomplished a myriad of other, more interesting, and less lengthy ways. The preparation for the hunt of the vampire is altogether too long as well. The minutae of their every activity and choice as to if they should include Mina in their plans (which changes every other chapter) are unnecessary details that detract from the suspense built in the opening chapters of the book. On the other hand the ending is quite satisfying in the action and the amount of verbosity used to convey it's story.

Then again, perhaps I am being too harsh? Dracula was never meant to be a suspenseful story in the vein of what we think of as suspense today. Dracula was a gothic novel. A slice of time in the life of the characters we observe during the course of the novels purvue. This makes the small details of the characters lives that so annoy me, rather important to the novel's scope. Still though, I see a great suspense story there with the entire middle of the novel chopped out. Great beginning, great ending, meh middle. 3.5/5

Other, shorter things we've read recently include Christabel and Carmilla. Both of these are vampire stories set way back in the medieval period. Christabel by Coleridge is a great poem about a girl who brings home to daddy a vampire. Carmilla on the other hand is about a rampaging vampiress who seeks to destroy the daughters of the nobility around her. Both of these stories predate Dracula, and in a way Christabel serves as a basis for Carmilla, which in turn presents Stoker with ideas he used in Dracula. I'm a big fan of Coleridge and his way of thinking and writing, in addition poems with over 400 rhyming lines tend to impress me. 5/5 for Christabel and 4.5/5 for Carmila (Once again, the middle is a bit unnecessary...although this time it's not the entire middle, just beginning of the middle).

In other news, I still haven't decided on a game to play to start my great video game omnibus of reviews. I suppose I might try and do the entire final fantasy series from beginning to end. I'm sure I will wuss out after two or three games though, ROFL. That series can take some time to finish.

In terms of books, I am STILL waiting for Stirling's latest to arrive in paperback. Ive gotten so desperate as to start looking around libraries for the hardcover one to take a peek at. I'm still slogging through the steampunk collection that I had started earlier. I'm turning out not to be a fan of the writing, even though I love the genre, Lastly, for when I finish the steampunk I picked up the next of the Pendergast books, titled "Dance of Death". At the rate I'm getting to read with my schoolwork and such, I expect I will finish the steampunk and Pendergast book just in time to be able to read the next Stirling book. :)