On May 26th 1897 the novel Dracula was published. 122 years ago. I can't imagine what my life would look like if that novel had never been released?
The beginning of the month, I looked at the calendar and saw today would be the last Sunday of the month. For me, that has meant book club day for the last few years. The selection had been another vampire novel, Queen of the Damned. Few days ago on May 23rd, it was National Goth Day. A day I had quietly observed but hadn't prepared anything for. I just sort of let it slip past me, not contributing anything online for it. I've never considered myself a "goth" in any modern pop-culture sense of the word, though other people in my life continue to drop me into that label box. With my love for all things vampires, it's easy to understand why.
As I was just flipping through Instagram and facebook pages that people were posting to celebrate all things Dracula, I was thinking would we have the kind of sub-genre pop-culture goth if it wasn't for that book? I can't say we would.
Granted, other such gothic novels that came out around the same time have gathered their own fans; but nothing has come close to what Dracula has created. Okay, Frankenstein would be the next runner up, but still. There's just something about the world Bram Stoker created all those years ago.
When you look at other vampire stories like Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla, or John Polidori's The Vampyre, you just don't get the same reaction as you do with Dracula. As beautifully haunting and romantically tragic as they are, they just lack a bit of something. As I said, I can't imagine what my life would be like if Dracula had never been published? The movies I grew up watching that coloured my world such as Lost Boys, Monster Squad, Near Dark, reading Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat and Queen of the Damned as a teenager in the late 1980's. If Dracula hadn't of been published when it was, it's pretty safe to say those wouldn't have stood a chance. Or even been thought of.
I am sitting here now thinking I should say something witty and punny, some quote from a vampire film but I can't choose just one.
