I'm really glad you read _The Historian_ in
particular, Doug. I keep trying to get all my friends
to read it. I don't really remember what I meant by
the trio of works as an exemplum, but I think it had
something to do with the differing perspectives,
voices, and "agendas"--the latter being those of the
respective authors as well as the protagonists'. The
endings are different in each case, too, and there's
the introduction of the motif of "uncleanness" for
Mina after Dracula has pressed her lips to the bloody
vein he's opened in his chest. Jonathan Harker (whose
escape from Castle Dracula is never described in one
or both of the works) marries Mina in full knowledge
that she may turn out even worse than "unclean."
There are several different "I's" used in the 3
accounts, as you know, beginning with Harker's
journal, yet which speakers are "ratified"(to borrow
Christopher's intriguing term) often seems
clearcut--until, that is, the plot takes another
twist. (This applies particularly to _The Historian_.)
But the ratification of the reader is also an issue
for both novels and for the viewer of the film, whose
agenda, btw, involves technology. (Much is made of
Mina's typewriter, for example.)
Well, I could go on, but not to any purpose since we
already know this story--so why do new versions of it
keep coming? _I_ keep coming back to the odd little
disclaimer provided by Stoker as a headnote to chapter
1and in which no "I" occurs, yet which is presumably
written/spoken by a construct of Stoker's, not Stoker
_personally_. Does his avoidance of "I" here muddy the
waters or help to clarify them? Here it is:
How these papers have been placed in sequence will be
made manifest in the reading of them. All needless
matters have been eliminated, so that a history almost
at variance with the possibilities of later-day belief
may stand forth as simple fact. There is throughout no
statement of past things wherein memory will err, for
all the records chosen are exactly contemporary, given
from the standpoints and within the range of knowledge
of those who made them.
Candice
Neglect how in real leaf the surface
changes when unfolding, not how it stitches
petition to earth when unfielding.
(Peter Larkin)
--- Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Ha, well I enjoyed all three too, Candice, but I'm
> not sure what
> exactly the 'exemplum' (or the agendas) here is
> (are). care to
> explicate further, please?
>
> Certainly, with all the various narrators, there are
> many 'i's to see
> through in at least the two novels.
>
> And have you also read Dan Simmons's Children of the
> Night, where Vlad
> dreams in first person, but we never know how
> unconsciously...?
>
> Doug
> On 25-Feb-07, at 4:13 PM, MC Ward wrote:
>
> > There's an exemplum in a triumvirate of works that
> > I've come to appreciate: Bram Stoker's _Dracula_,
> the
> > Francis Ford Coppola film, also called (not quite
> > truthfully) _Bram Stoker's Dracula_, and a
> stunning
> > recent novel, _The Historian_, by Elizabeth
> > Kostova--all three pursuing their own agendas
> across
> > the grain.
> Douglas Barbour
> 11655 - 72 Avenue NW
> Edmonton Ab T6G 0B9
> (780) 436 3320
> http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
>
> Latest book: Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
> http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
>
>
> Some speak of a return to nature --
> I wonder where they could have been?
>
> Frederick Sommer
>
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