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A review by jjupille
Dracula by Bram Stoker
3.0
I. Summary
I might even give it two based on the quality of the writing, but it's an engagement with high modernity, and I am a huge sucker for that. Basically, a bad but interesting book.
II. Bram Stoker: a pulpy Victorian hack
Too much stilted, phony dialogue. I think Stoker is a truly bad writer, and I don't like where he is coming from. There's no irony in it. He really believes, and I think aspires to and loves, pulpy Victorian manly strength and womanly virtue. He meant it, and that makes me not think much of him as an intellect. There's not much heft here.
I need to learn the history of the book. It wouldn't surprise of me it was envisioned as a penny pulp, but just caught fire by random, outliers kind of luck. It became, and remains, *the* Vampire story of record. Dracula is to vampires as Kleenex is to tissues (in the US). I think it has achieved this status not because it's good --it's not-- but because it's a good horror story that hits very resonant primal notes.
III. Characters
Most of the menfolk are very poorly rendered, like stick figures. They're all kind of androgynous equally prone to hairy, phallic violence and warm, most, vaginal tenderness.
A. American and other empty suits
We don't know anything at all about the American except that he is laconic, from Texas, rich, adventurous, loyal, and likes to hunt. I won't go character by character, but there are major holes in all of them.
B. Mina
Mina's treatment is interesting, but could have been more so. She's given lots of smarts and worldliness, she only faints once in the whole book (and at least some of the menfolk fainted, too, right?). I guess how I see her is as late-Victorian England's "Marianne", a shining beacon of what it means to be womanly at the turn of the 20th century. The Bolsheviks and the Nazis inspired some beautiful propaganda art with their own versions of this lady. Certainly not the equal of men, but no sitting room swooner. A pretty Madonna on the Madonna-Whore continuum.
She could have been interesting, but I just end up wanting her to not have to try so hard. The! Exclamations! And! Heaving! Of! The! Breast! about Manly Virtue !! and Womanly Duty (!!!) is all too much for me. Her discourse on the benefits of money is one of the stupidest fucking things I have ever read. Revisiting it in my mind makes me reconsider two stars for the whole book.
C. Van Helsing
Professor Van Helsing interested me most, of course. I like the statement of his polymathism, including traditional and non-scientific forms of knowing, as an antidote to 19th century high modern scientism.
IV. Van Helsing and Knowing
I need to challenge myself a bit more on the ideas of "ways of knowing". I guess we could call these epistemologies. Van Helsing deploys three technologies of knowing --science, religion and folk wisdom. I want to say a word about each and then talk about a fourth, aesthetics. Then I'll scrutinize the contradiction in my own thinking about religion. What we are all after is the best humanly-possible approximation of The Truth.
First, my ontological (theory-of-being) starting point: I view the world as infinitely complex (not just really, really complex, but finitely so -- infinitely complex). Given that I buy into original sin, if you will --human imperfectibility, including, crucially, finite complexity-processing-capacity-- our knowledge of infinity can only ever be incomplete. As I tell my students when I am at risk of putting on airs about my book-learnin', I don't know just as much as you don't know.
1. Science
In my everyday life, am a scientist. "Knowing" here means following certain transparent rules and procedures. These are the rules of logic/mathematics (including, of great importance in my and related fields, causal inference), procedures around the collection and analysis of empirical data, and so forth.
Given that we can never know everything, we do the best we can and we must be willing constantly to question what we think we already know. But, paradoxically, we cannot scientifically question science itself. Given our limitations, we can have no proof that science allows us most closely to approximate The Truth. All we can be certain of is that we cannot apprehend its totality.
Ultimately, then, and many make this point, I agree that belief in science is faith-based. That is, since we cannot prove its superiority, the notion of its superiority (in some domain) must only rest on a subjective belief which itself cannot be verified empirically. Now, we might be able to attach priors to that belief, but it will always be the case that P < 1.0. Let me hold that thought.
In short, doing political science involves thinking that it's a pretty good way to "know" something about The Truth of politics. For me, it's the best way, given my constraints - if interpretive dance about politics were better, I'd be wearing a tutu. But ultimately I must have faith in science, which isn't a very scientific way of going about things.
**possibly offensive views on religion follow - stop here if you don't want to be offended**
2. Religion
Now let me conjure a second technology of understanding, what I will call the "religious way of knowing". I find this way of knowing to be as silly as the silliest old superstitions (on which more below!). I actively discount other information, unless it were to be contra religion (and thus constitute an informative signal), when it comes from a religious source. I can use all of the offensive terms about having an imaginary friend and all of that. That's how strongly I feel that religion is just a childish comfort blanket that we wrap ourselves in to make ourselves feel better about death. Nothing more, nothing less.
I could almost think of the religious way of anti-knowing, since I think the mental procedures it requires us to go through (especially by rejecting pretensions to divinity and embracing our poor, fractured, flawed, biased, messed-up humanity) actually do more harm than good. They drive us further from the The Truth rather than closer to It.
(I know that is a strong set of statements. But that's how I feel about it. The whole point of this ramble is for me to scrutinize the contradictions in my own thinking, so if you have read this far, bear with me.)
Van Helsing's religiosity, like that of all of the characters in the book, is quite pure and comes out quite frequently. He is as certain in his religious faith as he is in his scientific understandings. And this bugs the shit out of me, for several reasons. First, I think less of him for having an imaginary friend who died for his sins. I am a committed Pastafarian in this regard. Second, STFU about it, both Van Helsing and Stoker. I hate being proselytized, I don't like hearing about other peoples' imaginary friends (though I certainly endorse their right to speak as freely as they'd like about their religions and religious beliefs). This amplifies point #1, as well, every time it comes up.
3. Folk Knowledge
Van Helsing's third epistemological pillar is folk wisdom, as found in ancient stories and tails, embodied in local practices, and so forth. The Roumanians and the Slovaks are right to ward off the evil eye in Dracula's presence; their unnamed, unquantifiable, unmeasurable, but nonetheless-real fears are totally legit. They "know" not scientifically or religiously, but quasi-instinctively, or at the boundary of instinct and culture. I'll call this folk knowledge or folk wisdom. (Later I might want/need to separate instinct from this, but no time now.)
I believe in this sort of knowing, too. There is Truth in many old kinds of knowing, especially when we find them to be highly localized. I think this is another way of saying that hyperlocal cultural practices are often (generally?) pretty adaptive. Truth about the world can be known through immersion in it, and the inductive codifications that massively iterated lived (individually but also shared) experiences can provide.
So, I might be inclined to believe in something like vampires in something like the way they are rendered in Dracula. I might be inclined to imagine that the cross and the stake and garlic and other physical (and symbolic) things could work as advertised. I might imagine that certain kinds of rules, whether social (can't enter without an invitation) or quasi-physical (in the various forms the vampire can take, its movements, its relations to the physical and human worlds, etc.) could apply. I believe that Van Helsing might have been able to come to "know" these things, which give access to some part of Truth.
4. Aesthetics
Van Helsing's claims to the mantle of Leonardo fall short in terms of aesthetics. (Note: I am talking out my ear here - I could be misusing the term entirely - these are intended as personal ramblings.) I think of aesthetics as knowledge of beauty. That's pretty broad and probably "wrong" in some important senses. So when the Flatirons take your breath away, or you warm up in the Colorado sun, or you catch a trout from still water in a quiet green and granite canyon ecosystem, and you appreciate the particular beauty of each of these things (and many others besides), that's aesthetics. Literature. Human beauty. Music, books, art, etc. Really really big stuff here.
The point is that I feel that aesthetics is a valid branch of knowing --that we can know Truth through art, literature and music, for example-- and it is an important part of my life. Helsing doesn't have any aesthetic sense which I can discern. That's fine, just making a note.
5. The Point
In the context of Van Helsing in Dracula (yes, I had a point!), I discount his character, I actually find him less admirable, because of his religiosity. Indeed, the religiosity of all of the characters drives me crazy. Yet I love Van Helsing's ecumenical polymathism. So why does this one type of knowing fall short in my estimation? Like science, it depends on faith. Like folk wisdom, it entails supernatural beliefs.
I haven't worked this out in my mind, but I think the others aren't in tension the way science and religion are, and I am a scientist. Folk wisdom can easily give way to science. It's proponents may hold on to their beliefs, but there's nothing inherent in folk wisdom that would cause it to reject contradictory scientific information. They are epistemologically reconcilable. Aesthetics is just extra-scientific. De gustibus non disputandum est (or whatever) just means that there are some things that science can't speak to. That's fine ... to me, they are epistemologically complementary.
But religion ... it not only asks that I belief in possibly silly things (as folk wisdom might), but it demands that I maintain such belief as against science. And that, I cannot do. Indeed, it claims the mantle of God, when we all know it's just human. It's the hubris of it that so vexes me, and sets it apart from all of the others.
V. Close
Anyway, some interesting things to think about. Finished it in pretty good time, so I was moved to turn pages, which is to the good. It also seems to have inspired me to think and write about some stuff, also good. If Stoker didn't write-by-Victorian-numbers, I might have liked it all the more.
I might even give it two based on the quality of the writing, but it's an engagement with high modernity, and I am a huge sucker for that. Basically, a bad but interesting book.
II. Bram Stoker: a pulpy Victorian hack
Too much stilted, phony dialogue. I think Stoker is a truly bad writer, and I don't like where he is coming from. There's no irony in it. He really believes, and I think aspires to and loves, pulpy Victorian manly strength and womanly virtue. He meant it, and that makes me not think much of him as an intellect. There's not much heft here.
I need to learn the history of the book. It wouldn't surprise of me it was envisioned as a penny pulp, but just caught fire by random, outliers kind of luck. It became, and remains, *the* Vampire story of record. Dracula is to vampires as Kleenex is to tissues (in the US). I think it has achieved this status not because it's good --it's not-- but because it's a good horror story that hits very resonant primal notes.
III. Characters
Most of the menfolk are very poorly rendered, like stick figures. They're all kind of androgynous equally prone to hairy, phallic violence and warm, most, vaginal tenderness.
A. American and other empty suits
We don't know anything at all about the American except that he is laconic, from Texas, rich, adventurous, loyal, and likes to hunt. I won't go character by character, but there are major holes in all of them.
B. Mina
Mina's treatment is interesting, but could have been more so. She's given lots of smarts and worldliness, she only faints once in the whole book (and at least some of the menfolk fainted, too, right?). I guess how I see her is as late-Victorian England's "Marianne", a shining beacon of what it means to be womanly at the turn of the 20th century. The Bolsheviks and the Nazis inspired some beautiful propaganda art with their own versions of this lady. Certainly not the equal of men, but no sitting room swooner. A pretty Madonna on the Madonna-Whore continuum.
She could have been interesting, but I just end up wanting her to not have to try so hard. The! Exclamations! And! Heaving! Of! The! Breast! about Manly Virtue !! and Womanly Duty (!!!) is all too much for me. Her discourse on the benefits of money is one of the stupidest fucking things I have ever read. Revisiting it in my mind makes me reconsider two stars for the whole book.
C. Van Helsing
Professor Van Helsing interested me most, of course. I like the statement of his polymathism, including traditional and non-scientific forms of knowing, as an antidote to 19th century high modern scientism.
IV. Van Helsing and Knowing
I need to challenge myself a bit more on the ideas of "ways of knowing". I guess we could call these epistemologies. Van Helsing deploys three technologies of knowing --science, religion and folk wisdom. I want to say a word about each and then talk about a fourth, aesthetics. Then I'll scrutinize the contradiction in my own thinking about religion. What we are all after is the best humanly-possible approximation of The Truth.
First, my ontological (theory-of-being) starting point: I view the world as infinitely complex (not just really, really complex, but finitely so -- infinitely complex). Given that I buy into original sin, if you will --human imperfectibility, including, crucially, finite complexity-processing-capacity-- our knowledge of infinity can only ever be incomplete. As I tell my students when I am at risk of putting on airs about my book-learnin', I don't know just as much as you don't know.
1. Science
In my everyday life, am a scientist. "Knowing" here means following certain transparent rules and procedures. These are the rules of logic/mathematics (including, of great importance in my and related fields, causal inference), procedures around the collection and analysis of empirical data, and so forth.
Given that we can never know everything, we do the best we can and we must be willing constantly to question what we think we already know. But, paradoxically, we cannot scientifically question science itself. Given our limitations, we can have no proof that science allows us most closely to approximate The Truth. All we can be certain of is that we cannot apprehend its totality.
Ultimately, then, and many make this point, I agree that belief in science is faith-based. That is, since we cannot prove its superiority, the notion of its superiority (in some domain) must only rest on a subjective belief which itself cannot be verified empirically. Now, we might be able to attach priors to that belief, but it will always be the case that P < 1.0. Let me hold that thought.
In short, doing political science involves thinking that it's a pretty good way to "know" something about The Truth of politics. For me, it's the best way, given my constraints - if interpretive dance about politics were better, I'd be wearing a tutu. But ultimately I must have faith in science, which isn't a very scientific way of going about things.
**possibly offensive views on religion follow - stop here if you don't want to be offended**
2. Religion
Now let me conjure a second technology of understanding, what I will call the "religious way of knowing". I find this way of knowing to be as silly as the silliest old superstitions (on which more below!). I actively discount other information, unless it were to be contra religion (and thus constitute an informative signal), when it comes from a religious source. I can use all of the offensive terms about having an imaginary friend and all of that. That's how strongly I feel that religion is just a childish comfort blanket that we wrap ourselves in to make ourselves feel better about death. Nothing more, nothing less.
I could almost think of the religious way of anti-knowing, since I think the mental procedures it requires us to go through (especially by rejecting pretensions to divinity and embracing our poor, fractured, flawed, biased, messed-up humanity) actually do more harm than good. They drive us further from the The Truth rather than closer to It.
(I know that is a strong set of statements. But that's how I feel about it. The whole point of this ramble is for me to scrutinize the contradictions in my own thinking, so if you have read this far, bear with me.)
Van Helsing's religiosity, like that of all of the characters in the book, is quite pure and comes out quite frequently. He is as certain in his religious faith as he is in his scientific understandings. And this bugs the shit out of me, for several reasons. First, I think less of him for having an imaginary friend who died for his sins. I am a committed Pastafarian in this regard. Second, STFU about it, both Van Helsing and Stoker. I hate being proselytized, I don't like hearing about other peoples' imaginary friends (though I certainly endorse their right to speak as freely as they'd like about their religions and religious beliefs). This amplifies point #1, as well, every time it comes up.
3. Folk Knowledge
Van Helsing's third epistemological pillar is folk wisdom, as found in ancient stories and tails, embodied in local practices, and so forth. The Roumanians and the Slovaks are right to ward off the evil eye in Dracula's presence; their unnamed, unquantifiable, unmeasurable, but nonetheless-real fears are totally legit. They "know" not scientifically or religiously, but quasi-instinctively, or at the boundary of instinct and culture. I'll call this folk knowledge or folk wisdom. (Later I might want/need to separate instinct from this, but no time now.)
I believe in this sort of knowing, too. There is Truth in many old kinds of knowing, especially when we find them to be highly localized. I think this is another way of saying that hyperlocal cultural practices are often (generally?) pretty adaptive. Truth about the world can be known through immersion in it, and the inductive codifications that massively iterated lived (individually but also shared) experiences can provide.
So, I might be inclined to believe in something like vampires in something like the way they are rendered in Dracula. I might be inclined to imagine that the cross and the stake and garlic and other physical (and symbolic) things could work as advertised. I might imagine that certain kinds of rules, whether social (can't enter without an invitation) or quasi-physical (in the various forms the vampire can take, its movements, its relations to the physical and human worlds, etc.) could apply. I believe that Van Helsing might have been able to come to "know" these things, which give access to some part of Truth.
4. Aesthetics
Van Helsing's claims to the mantle of Leonardo fall short in terms of aesthetics. (Note: I am talking out my ear here - I could be misusing the term entirely - these are intended as personal ramblings.) I think of aesthetics as knowledge of beauty. That's pretty broad and probably "wrong" in some important senses. So when the Flatirons take your breath away, or you warm up in the Colorado sun, or you catch a trout from still water in a quiet green and granite canyon ecosystem, and you appreciate the particular beauty of each of these things (and many others besides), that's aesthetics. Literature. Human beauty. Music, books, art, etc. Really really big stuff here.
The point is that I feel that aesthetics is a valid branch of knowing --that we can know Truth through art, literature and music, for example-- and it is an important part of my life. Helsing doesn't have any aesthetic sense which I can discern. That's fine, just making a note.
5. The Point
In the context of Van Helsing in Dracula (yes, I had a point!), I discount his character, I actually find him less admirable, because of his religiosity. Indeed, the religiosity of all of the characters drives me crazy. Yet I love Van Helsing's ecumenical polymathism. So why does this one type of knowing fall short in my estimation? Like science, it depends on faith. Like folk wisdom, it entails supernatural beliefs.
I haven't worked this out in my mind, but I think the others aren't in tension the way science and religion are, and I am a scientist. Folk wisdom can easily give way to science. It's proponents may hold on to their beliefs, but there's nothing inherent in folk wisdom that would cause it to reject contradictory scientific information. They are epistemologically reconcilable. Aesthetics is just extra-scientific. De gustibus non disputandum est (or whatever) just means that there are some things that science can't speak to. That's fine ... to me, they are epistemologically complementary.
But religion ... it not only asks that I belief in possibly silly things (as folk wisdom might), but it demands that I maintain such belief as against science. And that, I cannot do. Indeed, it claims the mantle of God, when we all know it's just human. It's the hubris of it that so vexes me, and sets it apart from all of the others.
V. Close
Anyway, some interesting things to think about. Finished it in pretty good time, so I was moved to turn pages, which is to the good. It also seems to have inspired me to think and write about some stuff, also good. If Stoker didn't write-by-Victorian-numbers, I might have liked it all the more.