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Dracula Daily: Scenery
May. 15th, 2022 12:10 pmI have to agree with the meta: yes, by this point it's very clear he knows he's a prisoner and he's trying to escape and he's not at all caught up "okay maybe this actually is a normal situation" anymore, but it's very amusing that he's still writing these lengthy descriptions of the scenery. "Yes, I am held prisoner; in addition to recording my frantic attempts to escape, I will also record how very pretty this country is and how stunning the views from the castle are and how very romantic the old furniture in this room is!" (He has not yet wished he had his Kodak, but it would not be out of place. And yes, I was also surprised by Kodak apparently having been a thing in the late 1800s.)
Also, Jon, hon, that door may have been locked but you have a pretty good idea that you're still not supposed to be in that room, so maybe wait to sit down and record things until you're back in your room, because I'm sure something is about to go horribly wrong. And you left your crucifix over your bed where it will do you no good. (Then there's how the reason we know this part of the castle used to be occupied by women is it has comfortable furniture. Because only women could possibly want comfortable furniture. The thing is, given the time period, he is probably not wrong in that assessment.)
The locks being new is another interesting point, because this implies Dracula deliberately set out to add locks to a bunch of rooms of the castle in preparation for inviting his solicitor there to imprison him. (And the solicitor in question was supposed to be Jonathan's boss who has gout; I wonder if that changed Dracula's plans any? Certainly he wouldn't be able to take advantage of that "I don't want to let my boss down" impulse in that situation and would have had to make more of an effort to shield his solicitor from the "no, this really is creepy" element in the lead-up.) I presume Dracula learned to install locks himself, because I can't imagine any of the local locksmiths being willing to go up to that castle given the amount of effort they put into stopping Jonathan going up there.
I did not initially catch--and this is why we all read it together--the modernity thing. Jonathan is reflecting on how modernity has not touched the part of the castle he's in... and "modern," for him, is the 19th century. We are reading this a hundred years later and doing essentially what he's doing: reflecting on the foibles and monsters of an earlier time period and writing it down in our journals. Which is why this book has a certain timelessness to it.
Also, Jon, hon, that door may have been locked but you have a pretty good idea that you're still not supposed to be in that room, so maybe wait to sit down and record things until you're back in your room, because I'm sure something is about to go horribly wrong. And you left your crucifix over your bed where it will do you no good. (Then there's how the reason we know this part of the castle used to be occupied by women is it has comfortable furniture. Because only women could possibly want comfortable furniture. The thing is, given the time period, he is probably not wrong in that assessment.)
The locks being new is another interesting point, because this implies Dracula deliberately set out to add locks to a bunch of rooms of the castle in preparation for inviting his solicitor there to imprison him. (And the solicitor in question was supposed to be Jonathan's boss who has gout; I wonder if that changed Dracula's plans any? Certainly he wouldn't be able to take advantage of that "I don't want to let my boss down" impulse in that situation and would have had to make more of an effort to shield his solicitor from the "no, this really is creepy" element in the lead-up.) I presume Dracula learned to install locks himself, because I can't imagine any of the local locksmiths being willing to go up to that castle given the amount of effort they put into stopping Jonathan going up there.
I did not initially catch--and this is why we all read it together--the modernity thing. Jonathan is reflecting on how modernity has not touched the part of the castle he's in... and "modern," for him, is the 19th century. We are reading this a hundred years later and doing essentially what he's doing: reflecting on the foibles and monsters of an earlier time period and writing it down in our journals. Which is why this book has a certain timelessness to it.
