Happy New Year 2022!

 

New Year’s Eve.

I must admit, I love the holiday. One last night to wallow in one’s personal failings, then boldly resolve to do better. Phoenix rising from the ashes, with an eye towards self-improvement, or attaining some goal or goals, or vowing to correct some yawing character flaw.

I love it. But to be honest, like the vast, vast majority of folks out there, I’ve never kept a New Year’s Resolution in my life.

Doesn’t matter.

A few weeks back I thought it a grand resolution to read books of only 150 pages or less. The book nerd in me tracks and grades every book and short story he’s read (with a nerdy grade assigned to each). The most books I’ve put away, cover-to-cover, in a year was 60, done way back in 2014. My floating annual par is 40, based on what I’ve noticed I can comfortably complete from over two decades of avid reading. This year ending, 2021, I’ve read only 32, the lowest number I’ve put away since 2008, back when I was dealing with an extremely difficult boss in an extremely difficult job with an extremely difficult newborn at home.

A lot of the books I read this year had a lot of pages. That’s doesn’t necessarily deter me, but pages = time. Commander-in-Chief had about 550 pages. The Witnesses had 450. Science and Health had 700. Even my fiction books were thick: Dracula with 400, Red Mars with 375, Little Big Man 400, my three Sharpe books at 350 apiece.

Thus the 150-page limit resolution.

Then, I got into Bernard Cornwell’s Napoleonic books, the aforementioned “Sharpe books,” and bought/was gifted ten of them this Christmas season. That’s 3,500 pages. And I’d rather read them books than stick to that resolution, worthy though it be.

So what else?

Well, I’ll let you in on a secret.

Hopper is now a Fatty.

Yes, I’ve put on the weight since summer. I’m now at the heaviest I’ve ever been in my life. The reason is simple: I stress eat. And face it, regular reader(s), ’twas quite the stressful year for your host. Quitting an old job, moving out of a house he’s lived in for 17 years, relocating across country, navigating two teenaged girls through such a move and a readjustment, finding new employment. Stress! So I’ve packed on the pounds. Since I’m due to start working in the office January 17 (two days in, three days home per week), I realized that I don’t want to be a fatty at work.

So my resolution is to drop 25 pounds, tone up and get flexible. As quickly as possible.

Yeah, get flexible. I have the creaky joints of an 80-year old man.

I did real well when we first moved down to Texas, from mid-July to mid-September. Got down to 200. Muscles got firm from hurling the iron. Got fit from a daily 2.5 mile walk in 100-degree weather. Ate Keto and the spare tire melted off.

Then I got employed, and the stress eating kicked in big time. Since Halloween I’ve been a mess.

Tomorrow morning I’m doing my stretch routine (hams, quads, calves, lats, plus a few yoga moves to hit my hips and neck). Then the 2.5 mile walk (it’ll be 63 degrees here at 8 am). Then the gym in the garage, the newly-Christened “Thunderdome” (“House of Pain” seemed to have too negative a connotation for my old carcass) to do some curls, some bench presses, hack lifts, leg dips, tricep curls, rows, etc.

Time to get back into shape. Time to not be a fatty at work.

Anyways …

 

HERE’S TO A SAFE AND

HAPPPPPPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

  

2021 Best-Ofs!

Is it time already, everyone’s asking, for the 2021 Best-Ofs?

Yes, kids, it is. It is indeed. And in a whirlwind year I’ve had only a few moments to relive the past twelve months, the ups, the downs, the highs and the lows, the awesomenesses and the could’ve should’ves. Yes, it’s the end-of-the-year post where Hopper evaluates the best (and the worst) of the past year. At least as far as his normally random, esoteric and highly selective interests go.

So, without further ado, let’s hear the winners (and losers) of each category …

 

 

Best Book, Fiction:

Sharpe’s Waterloo, © 1990 by Bernard Cornwell

This deserves its own post. Sharpe’s Waterloo is my first foray into world of Napoleonic soldier Richard Sharpe. A world completely devoid of political correctness and thus completely alien to our current culture. Author Bernard Cornwell has written twenty-four such novels over the span of thirty or forty years. Each novel is a stand-alone, yet all form the chronology of the dangerous toxic masculinity of Sharpe. I’ve read three so far this year, all A-plusses, but this, being the first, gets the award.

 

Best Book, Nonfiction:

Pearl Harbor: From Infamy to Greatness, © 2016 by Craig Nelson

A great, page-turning read that really, truly, honorably goes into depth into what happened on December 7, 1941 in the Pacific. Lots of detail, lots of trivia, lots of hair-raising turns and inspirational motivational stories. I loved it and will probably read it again in a few years.

Runner-up: The Physics of Immortality, © 1997 by Frank J. Tipler

One of the longest-lived books in the On-Deck Circle, making its first appearance 24 years ago. Finally read it for a different perspective of, well, immortality. It’s a physicists-version of life, death, and all that matters, all the big questions. Satisfied yet did not satisfy me, and begs for another re-read as I probably understand half of what I read. Not sure if I will, the whole life-is-too-short thing, but I am definitely pleased I climbed this Mt. Everest and it did give me lots of new ideas to chew over.

 

Worst Book:

First Lensman, © 1950 by E.E. “Doc” Smith

Not really “worst,” in the sense that I don’t waste my time on bad books, but I did read the fifth book in this series years ago and had some fond nostalgic memories of it. So I decided perhaps the first book, which I read during the most turbulent times of our move southwest, would take my mind off its troubles for a more innocent time. But I never got into it, and I think it’s because of the “Asimov problem” I have: every character acts and talks like it’s the 1940s, only it’s supposed to be 500 years later.

 

Best Movie:

Doctor Sleep (2019)

Watched this one earlier in the year with Little One, and then a second time with Little One and Patch. All of us love it. I think it strikes a perfect balance – not too cornbally Steven King, not too violent or gory (except for one terrible scene), somewhat epic in scope, and does not destroy the legacy of the original characters from The Shining, Little One’s favorite movie. Yeah, it hit some diversity cringe, but overall it was the best movie I watched this year, with the caveat that I did not watch many original movies.

 

Most Disappointing Movie:

The Many Saints of Newark (2021)

I think I am not alone in saying we were all looking for more Tony Soprano and less, if any at all, of Dickie Moltisanti. Good gangster flick that doesn’t quite make it into the classics. I hope the poor performance does not stop a second movie featuring on Tony’s rise into the mob.

Runner up for Most Disappointing Movie: Bird Box (2018)

Yeah, too much wokeness in this one. Perhaps 80 percent PC and 15 percent stupidity. An even better way to spend your time is to watch that youtube kid’s video on how to beat the monsters in Bird Box – what refreshing clarity and intellect packed into 10 or 12 minutes.

 

Movies Seen in an Actual Theater:

Just one, A Quiet Place 2. Not as good as the first, but definitely worth a watch. Would make a great back-to-back pairing with the first one for a horror night movie party.

Best Music:

Listened to a great variety, I have to admit, but nothing new and / or groundbreaking. Revisited all my old classic rock, all my old classic classical, plus some jazz fusion stuff I’ve chilled to in years past. The few original musicians or genres I explored did not leave any deep impressions. Only “new” thing I can recall is the last Van Halen record, c. 2012, with Dave, a CD of the Van Halen family modernizing the band’s old demos from the 70s. I listened to it a bunch of times back in October.

  

Best TV / Worst TV:

Not really a year of TV watching. At the beginning of 2021 the family re-watched the entire Office series, which never gets old, and since then we’ve been working our way through Hell’s Kitchen season re-runs on Youtube video. For myself, I had no new shows and thus didn’t waste too much time via the bube tube.

 

Best Youtube Channel:

Dunno. Kinda watched a lot of true crime stuff, particularly Dr. Todd Grande’s channel, and a lot of stuff on the Chris Watts and Jodi Arias cases. Still watching movie reviews, like Off The Shelf Reviews and Red Letter Media, as well as Critical Drinker and Hack the Movies. Watched a bit of historical channels, especially on WWII, but they require more concentration.

 

Moments of Creativity:

Wrote another album. By my reckoning, I now have three album’s worth of material. No lyrics, just somewhere around thirty songs more-or-less complete musically. A long-term goal is to buy a multitrack recorder and get these songs down on tape, with me playing all the parts save drums.

 

Best Podcasts:

(tie) Dr Taylor Marshall and Valuetainment

 

Other Internet Picks

Started following a few people on Twitter. Not sure as to the wisdom of this. Mostly – 99 percent – of it is griping. Griping about something – politics, religion. May stop this though I try to follow the more positive and less poisonous folks

 

Phases:

Selling the Old House / Buying the New House / Moving halfway across the country / Getting acquainted with a new state

Movie watching phase (primarily Stephen Kings) with both girls pre-move

New job in corporate

World War II

Electric guitarsmanship

The Napoleonic Wars

Sharpe Novels

Minor excursions into the Lord of the Rings, the JFK Assassination, Saucerology, New Thought, Classical Greek literature and mythology

Lifting, Walking, and Keto (mainly second half of summer)

 

Best Phase:

All – or None! – of them!

Bahahahaha!

No, seriously, it was a good year, despite being one of the more erratic ones. A hopper like me craves stability, so here’s to some stability in 2022!

A+ Books, continued ...

 

In light of yesterday’s post, here are my “A +” rated non-fiction books I’ve read over the past twelve years, grouped broadly by topic:

 

Religion

The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, by Anne Katherine Emmerich

The Journey, by Billy Graham

Believing is Seeing, by Michael Guillen

Jesus Shock, by Peter Kreeft

Come Meet Jesus, by Father Cedric Piscegna

The Divine Exchange and Ultimate Security, by Derek Prince

The Life of Christ, by Bishop Fulton Sheen

What On Earth Am I Here For? and The Purpose-Driven Life, by Rick Warren

Autobiography of a Yogi, by Paramahansa Yogananda

 

Philosophy

The Golden Sayings of Epictetus, by, yes, you guessed it, Epictetus

The Doctrine of Awakening, by Julius Evola

 

Science and Math

Prime Obsession, by John Derbyshire

Mathematical Mysteries, by Claude Clawson

Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, by Carlo Rovelli

 

History

History of Ancient Egypt, by Bob Brier

 

Sports

Watching Baseball Smarter, by Zach Hample

 

Civil War

A Short History of the Civil War, Never Call Retreat, and A Stillness at Appomattox, by Bruce Catton

The Red Badge of Courage, by Stephen Crane (technically fiction but really about the Battle of Chancellorsville)

Killing Lincoln, by Martin Dugard (and some guy named Bill O’Reilly)

Gods and Generals and The Last Full Measure, by Jeff Shaara

Pickett’s Charge, by George R. Stewart

Lincoln and His Generals, by T. Harry Williams

 

World War II

The Guns at Last Light, by Rick Atkinson

Commander-in-Chief, by Eric Larrabee

Pearl Harbor: From Infamy to Greatness, by Craig Nelson

The Longest Day, by Cornelius Ryan

 

Self-Help

The 10X Rule, by Grant Cardone

Old School Grit, by Darrin Donnelly

How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare, by Ken Ludwig

The War of Art and The Warrior Ethos, by Steven Pressfield

The Science of Getting Rich, by Wallace Wattles

Discipline Equals Freedom, by Jocko Willink

 

 

In these dozen years I’ve also read the King James bible cover-to-cover – Genesis to Revelation, and how does one grade that? In my notes I gave every book of the Bible an “A”, though some books struck a deeper chord with me than others – Genesis, Exodus, Daniel, Matthew, John, Romans, James, the Apocalypse, for example. Additionally, I’ve read some Biblical books in other translations – the Douay-Rheims and the Challoner version of the D-R. These books could also obviously be “graded” an A+, but for the fact that they last raised goose bumps on my arms during my first read-through, back in 1992.

 

A+ Books

 

For the past twelve years, since 2010, I’ve been “grading” every book I’ve read cover to cover.

So … how many A+ books have I read in that time?

91.

That’s 7.6 books a year. Slightly less than an A+ book every month-and-a-half. An A+ book every seven weeks. (But, in fairness, some of these books I’ve read more than once. Well, actually, only Tolkien’s books fall into this category.)

Anyway, it seems to me life is way too short to be reading anything less than A+ books all the time. But this is kind of a Pollyanna-ish way of looking at things. Sometimes a book just slightly misses the mark. I’ve read a heckuva lot more “A” books. Probably a third of all the books I’ve read in the past twelve years fall into the grades A- or better.

Here, though, be the A+ books, by category, for those who might be interested in this sort of thing:

Fantasy Fiction

The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien

A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin (these are Game of Thrones books)

Watership Down, by Richard Adams

 

Science Fiction

Downward to Earth, Lord Valentine’s Castle, Nightwings, The Face of the Waters, by Robert Silverberg

Horus Rising, by Dan Abnett

Prelude to Foundation, by Isaac Asimov

Venus, by Ben Bova

Time for the Stars, by Robert Heinlein

Vacation Guide to the Solar System, by Olga Koski (not really fiction, but not quite fact, yet…)

Man Plus, by Frederik Pohl

This Immortal, by Roger Zelazny

“The Life and Times of Multivac,” “Waterclap,” and “The Bicentennial Man,” short stories by Isaac Asimov

“The Howling Man,” by Charles Beaumont

“The Lizard of Woz,” by Edmund Cooper (very punny)

“Strangers,” by Gardner Dozois

“The Problem of the Sore Bridge,” by Philip Jose Farmer

“The Mouse,” by Howard Fast (brought tears to these old eyes)

“Outer Concentric,” by Felix Gotschalk

“The Bible After Apocalypse,” by Laurence Janifer

“The Thirteenth Voyage,” by Stanislaw Lem

“Hunter Go Home,” by Richard McKenna

“Scanners Live in Vain,” by Cordwainer Smith

 

Horror

Weaveworld, by Clive Barker

“Edifice Complex,” short story by Robert Bloch

“The Basilisk,” by Paul Kingsnorth

“The Graveyard Rats,” by Henry Kuttner

“The Colour Out of Space” and “Out of the Aeons,” by H.P. Lovecraft

 

Westerns

The Long Riders, by Dan Cushman

Little Big Man, by Thomas Berger

 

Napoleonic Wars

Sharpe’s Waterloo and Sharpe’s Rifles, by Bernard Cornwell (more of these to come)

 

Classic fiction

The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas

The Hunchback of Notre Dame, by Victor Hugo

Moby Dick, by Herman Melville

The Bridges at Toko-Ri, by James Michener

Mutiny on the Bounty, by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall

All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque

Richard III, by Shakespeare (A+, but not The Tempest? Hmmm….)

“The Second Stain,” a Holmesian short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

“Batard” and “To Build a Fire,” brutal short stories by Jack London

 

And my most glorious, weird, and exciting read, one to spend a lifetime delving into seeking interpretation and meaning:

Finnegans Wake, by James Joyce

 

 

Tomorrow: The Non-Fiction A-plusses ….

 

 

Alien Aliens

 

So the plague has visited my home this past week. No, not the Wu Flu. No, this was its older, more mature cousin: the upper respiratory tract infection. Little One brought it home from high school and spent four days at home after I took her to the local Care Now for diagnosis. She passed it along to my wife, who then spent three days at home. Me, since I work from home, I have been exposed to these sickos all week, but since for some unknown reason God has made my immune system Schwarzeneggerian, I simply laughed at their attempts to infect me.

One thing I did with the Little One was have a movie Saturday. And what did we watch? The classic, classic science fiction movie, 1979’s Alien. We tried to rope Patch into experiencing it with us, but she would have none of that, off on her own tangents creating this and that. Instead, the two of us dug into our sub sandwiches and chips while watching the horror from LV426 unfold upon the crew of the Nostromo. But before I let you know what a Gen Z thinks of one of my all-time favorite SF movies, note that when we finished she immediately said, “Let’s watch Aliens.”

So we did. We spent about five hours in front of the tube this past Saturday. And we both loved it.

I first was exposed to the Alien way back in 1979. Since I had just turned 12, and my parents weren’t exactly moviegoers, I didn’t get to see it in the theaters. But my uncle bought me the paperback novelization, which I devoured in no time. Soon I was creating my own version of the alien story, with different characters and scenarios. I remember playing with my Star Wars action figures and using a curved rock as the alien creature. I even wrote a short story about it, long lost to the ages.

But I didn’t see the movie until video rentals became a thing, probably three or four years later. Surprisingly, I have no memory of the first time I watched it. But since I conservatively estimate I have watched it a minimum of twenty times.

A few years later I saw James Cameron’s Aliens in the theaters the summer of ’86 with my friends. That was one of only two movies to ever physically jar me as I watched it. (The other was the 2005 War of the Worlds with Tom Cruise.) Physically shaking. Incredible, but true. As we were leaving, my pal noticed and said, “Don’t worry. If an alien jumps on the car I’ll just do this – ” and he switched on the windshield wipers.

About a decade ago my wife bought me the Alien Quadrilogy for a birthday. Four movie collection on eight disks, though I’m not a big fan at all of the last two movies. I’ve watched these DVDs maybe half a dozen times over the years. The last time was with Little One when she was about 12. The same age as me when I first encountered the Xenomorphs.

Well, as of last Saturday, she insisted she barely remembered anything about the flicks this time around. Which was kind of a good thing, because she went into it with fresh eyes. And, I’m pleased to say, she was hooked into it right from the start. When the Nostromo first crash lands on LV426 to investigate that “distress” signal. She remembered the groundbreaking chestbursting scene, but that was about it.

Immediately after we threw Aliens on. She remembered more of this one. She remembered Hicks, Hudson, and Newt. Also she recalled the climactic battle with the alien queen. I think she enjoyed this one better, which struck me as a bit odd, as she has a huge preference of haunted house horror over the typical fights and explosions action flick. And the tagline that Alien is just a haunted house in space is, well, in fact, true.

These first two movies of the Alien franchise are undoubtedly my best movie-sequel pair. A runner up could possibly be Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. Godfather I and II. Terminator and T2. Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade would qualify had it not been for that icky middle movie. I dunno what else. Frankenstein and The Bride of Frankenstein? Regardless, I think Little One would agree with my Alien assessment.

What a great way for a father to bond with his daughter. I heartily recommend it … but only if you’re slightly askew as we are here at Chez Hopper.

Napoleon by de la Mare

 

“What is the world, O soldiers?

It is I:

I, this incessant snow,

This northern sky;

Soldiers, this solitude

Through which we go

Is I.”

 

– by Walter de la Mare (1873-1956)

 

N.B. I am rethinking my opinion of Bonaparte after reading Barbero’s The Battle and, naturally, Cornwall’s Sharpe’s Waterloo.

 

Newest Member of the Family

 

So proud of Patch, now a thirteen-year-old Middle Schooler on her way to High School in ten months! She saved up all her allowance money, plus the money we’ve paid her for doing odds and ends and projects she promoted to us since we’ve moved down her to Texas, and decided to buy this little guitar, to the right of mine in the picture above.

Wow!

At first, two weeks ago out of the blue, she sprung on me that she wanted to buy a ukulele she saw hanging in the music store we frequent every now and then when they need reeds for their school instruments or I need a new gadget for my electric guitar setup. Why a ukulele? Well, she tried my acoustic guitar and thought it was too big for her hands. She wants to play guitar eventually, as two of her good friends do, and she thought a uke would be a good stepping stone.

When we got to the store yesterday, we discovered the price was $20 more – $90 – than advertised on the pic she took. Turns out it was on sale back then, but that was over. Now, rather than haggling over price with the sales staff (I’m not a good haggler), I spotted a small starter guitar for $110 hanging on the wall. Well, it took little effort to convince her on purchasing the more expensive (and better) product, especially since I sweetened the pot by stating I would throw in $10 plus pay for the sales tax and a bag of picks, so she’d only have to put up a cool C-note. She agreed.

Last night I taught her the names of the strings, the G-chord, the D-chord, and a simple blues progression. Oh, and the notes for “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” That’s it for now. Maybe in a week I’ll teach her how to tune it, and maybe the E and C chords. She’s a personality that has to be pulled, not pushed.

But I did give her this ultimatum: I want her to be able to play songs with me this time next year.

Return to Middle-earth

 

Despite my heartiest efforts, my children are not Tolkien fans. Perhaps it’s the coarsening of our culture and the desensitization that entails; perhaps its oversaturation of all things from the pen of the Professor since the dawn of the new century. All I knew was that when I first read it forty years ago as a young lad entering high school, no one else seemed to know about it except for one uncle and one of my pals. It opened up a world of magic and hope, goodness and virtue, my first encounter with an entirely new world. After reading through the novels I’d spend hours and hours soaking up the information in the two massive Tolkien encyclopedias that were out, piecing the history of Middle-earth together, part detective, part archaeologist.

I wanted this thrill for my two daughters, for at least the past six or seven years.

But despite a passing interest in The Hobbit, and a ten-year-old Little One inexplicably forcing her Grammy to buy her a ratted and torn used copy of The Fellowship of the Ring, neither one read much of Tolkien. That fire never ignited.

So I was quite surprised when three weeks ago they suggested we do a Lord of the Rings movie marathon.

I’ll take it!

Thrifting is one of their hobbies, which they normally do with their mom. Now that we’re here in Texas, they’ve discovered about a half-dozen quality stores to hunt at. The last one they dragged me to one Sunday afternoon. I go in with them initially, for two reasons: to make sure the place ain’t sketchy, and to see if there are any used books for sale. This place was borderline acceptable, and they did sell books. They also sold DVDs. So, for a dollar, I picked up a three-DVD set of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings theatrical releases. Nine hours and twenty minutes of Tolkien. I found the movies acceptable interpretations, not without fault but with some certain charms, when I first saw them in the theaters nearly two decades ago.

I hadn’t watched them in at least a decade, so I figured I’d do a marathon of all three on a day I found myself alone should the ladies go out for the day.

A week or two after this the Mrs. had her sales meeting come up. She’d be flying up to New York City for six days, and I’d be watching / entertaining / chauffeuring my two teenaged hellions, in a new land navigating a new job. So it was to my utter surprise and delight when they suggested the marathon.

It took us eight days to get through the trilogy. Usually because we only had an hour a night to watch it after homework was done and dinner was prepared, eaten, and the kitchen cleaned. We do maintain a strict 9:30/10:00 curfew for them (basically electronics get turned off at that time). And the girls prefer showering before bed. Factor in a late night dining out over the weekend, and that’s the reason it took eight days.

And they were into it, right away! Didn’t hurt that as teenage girls they had certain crushes on certain actors and / or teased each other about potential crushes. Even the Mrs. infatuation with Viggo Mortensen was brought up several times, with various “Ews!” and “I can see that.” But even better, they got into the story. Patch was a little rusty on the geo-politics going on in the background, so I’d have to explain that to her on her early morning school drop off, which told me she was ruminating about it over the night.

[… clenches fist in glee …]

But what a wonderful eight days! Imagine spending such a drawn out time in Middle-earth! The Shire, Bree, Rivendell, Moria, Lothlorien, Rohan, Isengard, Fanghorn Forest, Helm’s Deep, Rauros, the Dead Marshes, Gondor, Minas Tirith, Osgiliath, … Cirith Ungol, Mordor, and Mount Doom, ... and then the Grey Havens.

I hope they got an appreciation for the physical, mental, and spiritual ordeal Frodo went through. I hope the message of courage, perseverance, loyalty and friendship sunk in. I hope they got a sense of the wide-scale cold war between Good and Evil that occasionally erupts into hot war in our current contemporary culture, as seen in metaphor in Tolkien’s writings. I hope they can decipher the hidden Catholic imagery in the story. I hope …

Right now the best takeaway is a possible budding interest in the Professor’s works. Little One is not a reader at this stage of her life (the only non-school-assigned book she’s read recently is Stephen King’s The Stand, which she’s been working her way through over two years, which translates to a rate of about two pages a day). But Patch is a reader. Her most recent notch was Dean R. Koontz’s Lightning, which I bought for her as a birthday present two months back. I can see her wending her way through Middle-earth. She’s about the age I was when I first did.

So that was my highlight early in November. Perhaps this time of year, when the sun sets noticeably early, when the frost first drifts over the Texas plains, when the cold bright moon casts wraithlike shadows … maybe I’ll have to start a new tradition of watching and re-watching some Tolkien with the girls

(But not The Hobbit trilogy!!!)

Book Review: Dracula

 

© 1897 by Bram Stoker

I’m kinda ashamed of myself, amateur literati of science fiction, fantasy, and horror that I claim to be, that I’ve never read Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Yeah, I saw the Bela Lugosi black-and-white Universal movie as a kid. I saw the Christopher Lee Hammer version around the same time. And not only did I see Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 Bram Stoker’s Dracula, I even visited his vineyard, which has an entire wing devoted to all his film memorabilia. As the lady giving us our tour said, quoting the great director, and I’m paraphrasing: “Godfather bought me a mansion in Napa; Dracula bought me the vineyard.”

Well, this year I cracked it. Took me about ten nights over the course of … thirteen days … to finish it, read over the Halloween holiday down here, just as the nights are starting to turn a bit crisp. It was a good mood setter, as I read most of it at night after everyone went to bed, in the semi-darkness of my living room. I’m glad I now have this notch in my reading shelf, along with Frankenstein read a few weeks earlier. This was like a bucket-list kinda thing.

First thing to note, is that, similar to Frankenstein, Dracula is an epistolary novel. That is, a novel made up of letters, or, more specifically, diary entries. It seems everyone not only kept a diary at the end of the 19th century, but all these diarists were quite prolix and prolific. No detail escapes the pens of these observers, all presumably written in the twilight hours before sleep. Even dialects are written out in their diaries phonetically.

The 19th century epistolary letter is like the “found footage” movie phenomenon that began with The Blair Witch Project and continues twenty-five years later to this day. And readers of epistolary novels must do what viewers of found footage movies must do: suspend belief, and allow the story to unfold, however it may be told.

Which is what I did.

In truth the experience was a mixed bag. I’ll assume you know the story; the Lugosi and Coppola films do not deviate too much from it. The novel can be divided into three parts: Jonathan Harker and the Count at the castle, the turning of Lucy and the reaction of her three suitors, and the hunting of Dracula. The first part I found creepy and page-turning, though I couldn’t get the image of Keanu Reeves out of my head. I thought the second, by-far-longest part regarding Lucy, though eerie in areas (“Bloofer Lady”), dragged a lot. I bet in abridged versions of the novel this section is cut nearly in half. The third part, which begins with Van Helsing’s exposition regarding the Count, was quite interesting in a cat-and-mouse way. This was the best part.

I liked how Stoker dropped some clues through Van Helsing of the vampire’s origin, such as veiled references to a school of the devil (which I had heard about from other sources years ago). Whether truth or myth, it was legitimately spooky. I enjoyed how the Count stayed one step ahead of his pursuers, and even tried to bluff his way to overwhelm them with his powers. Stoker portrays the vampire as a filthy evil beast deserving of no sympathy, and he got none. However, I did feel a pang of sympathy for the one of Lucy’s suitors who succumbs to his wounds in the fight with Dracula at the very end.

Overall, I award the novel a B+.

It got me thinking of what else should be on the bucket list regarding horror. In my twenties I read a lot of it, mostly King and Koontz. But since then, reading three or four horror books a year, I filled in the holes in the history or horror quite nicely. A lot of Lovecraft and Poe. Forays into modern horror with Clive Barker and Peter Straub. Classics here and there like The Haunting of Hill House, The Exorcist, Silence of the Lambs, and The Terror, to name but a few.

But what else? Who else?

Nothing really sticks out at me as far as modern horror goes. I do have a curious interest in gothic horror of the middle to late 1700s. Maybe for next Halloween I’ll read The Castle of Otranto (1764) or Vathek (1786) or The Monk (1796). It all depends on what I can find and what my gut tells me about each book. Oh well. The quest continues …