Smart, clever, moving novel that reconstructs the relationships of actors Sir Henry Irving and Ellen Terry, and theatre manager/author Bram Stoker, and the genesis of Stoker's "Dracula."
I loved this, and I'm not ashamed to admit that it sometimes moved me to tears.
"'I went to a seance,' she says. 'Out of curiosity, nothing more. The medium told me I knew a man who will one day write a story that will stop the world on its track. Published in hundreds of languages. Whose hero will be unextinguishable.'
'I don't hold with such nonsense.'
'Interesting, all the same.'"
Interesting, indeed.
So many, many, many things to love about this: O'Connor's careful drip-drip-drip feed of the origin story of the Unextinguishable Count, as Stoker gradually builds up the character and the plot and the legend over the years, like a magpie stealing a name here, a setting there; a weird story overheard in the crush bar, after a show. A career spent living with the whims of a domineering -- one might almost say blood-sucking -- personality. It's one thing to be told that Sir Henry Irving was the inspiration for Dracula, it quite another thing to be masterfully shown the character developing, like a photographic plate, in real time.
Beautiful use of language: my spell-checker doesn't recognize 'unextinguishable' as a Real Word -- but it's perfect.
I didn't know that Stoker died thinking that he was a failure, and the his Count had been forgotten. (I'd always thought that he was a "one hit wonder" who spent the rest of his career trying to recapture the lightening in the bottle.) I also didn't know exactly how the clash between his widow and the makers of the film "Nosferatu" worked out, almost magically, to not only protect Stoker's legacy, but also to unleash upon us the unextinguishable Count of fanfic, reboots and endless adaptations. With Frankenstein, our two modern mythologies, endlessly available for reinterpreting and re-imagining, but always interesting to return to the source.
I loved this, and I'm not ashamed to admit that it sometimes moved me to tears.
"'I went to a seance,' she says. 'Out of curiosity, nothing more. The medium told me I knew a man who will one day write a story that will stop the world on its track. Published in hundreds of languages. Whose hero will be unextinguishable.'
'I don't hold with such nonsense.'
'Interesting, all the same.'"
Interesting, indeed.
So many, many, many things to love about this: O'Connor's careful drip-drip-drip feed of the origin story of the Unextinguishable Count, as Stoker gradually builds up the character and the plot and the legend over the years, like a magpie stealing a name here, a setting there; a weird story overheard in the crush bar, after a show. A career spent living with the whims of a domineering -- one might almost say blood-sucking -- personality. It's one thing to be told that Sir Henry Irving was the inspiration for Dracula, it quite another thing to be masterfully shown the character developing, like a photographic plate, in real time.
Beautiful use of language: my spell-checker doesn't recognize 'unextinguishable' as a Real Word -- but it's perfect.
I didn't know that Stoker died thinking that he was a failure, and the his Count had been forgotten. (I'd always thought that he was a "one hit wonder" who spent the rest of his career trying to recapture the lightening in the bottle.) I also didn't know exactly how the clash between his widow and the makers of the film "Nosferatu" worked out, almost magically, to not only protect Stoker's legacy, but also to unleash upon us the unextinguishable Count of fanfic, reboots and endless adaptations. With Frankenstein, our two modern mythologies, endlessly available for reinterpreting and re-imagining, but always interesting to return to the source.
