#Powers of Darkness
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Robert Aickman - Powers of Darkness. London: Fontana, 1968.
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So this spooky season I’m listening to Powers of Darkness, a Scandinavian/Icelandic 1890s “translation” of Dracula that’s actually an alternate version with significant differences. (Interestingly, some of the plot changes match details Stoker had in his original plot notes that were altered or abandoned in his finished version, suggesting that he had some input in the changes, but how or why is unclear).
Found the first added scene today,* a brief scene where “Thomas” Harker meets a German speaking teacher who gossips with him about the Count. Interestingly, he mentions that the Count has been married three times but his wives have all died and he has no children. Now, the three vampire women are traditionally known as “Dracula’s wives,” but there’s nothing in the English language text to suggest that they are. Here it actually does seem to imply that! Also, does the fact that this modern teacher knows about them mean that they’re fairly recent vamps who were married and turned within a mortal lifetime of the present, you think?
*I’m 100 minutes in, but the first 90 were introductions and appendices
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Next year the Dracula Daily people should send out chapters from Powers of Darkness (the version of Dracula that was just...rewritten instead of a translation) and just not tell anyone.
#dracula#dracula daily#powers of darkness#i don't even know if that version has dates but god I hope so#the timeloop has changed slightly and now jonathan is named Tom
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... As the maps they make in Transylvania cannot be compared to those created for the War Office* back home in England, I could not locate Castle Dracula on any of them. ...
* ... In Dracula this sentence reads: “I was not able to light on any map or work giving the exact locality of the Castle Dracula, as there are no maps of this country as yet to compare with our own Ordnance Survey maps.” In fact, the military maps of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, including Transylvania, were highly detailed, but not available to the public.
Powers of Darkness: The Lost Version of Dracula (Bram Stoker, Valdimar Ásmundsson, Hans Corneel De Roos)
Let that sink in.
Military maps at the end of 19th century were highly detailed- therefore it took a lot of time for them to be made-, and they were "not available to the public". If an army won't let even their own unauthorised citizens view them, how likely is it that their loss would be simply handwaved, especially in middle of a conflict?!
There should've been an inquiry. None of the cartographers present should've left the camp, hell, why weren't they immediately taken into custody?!
I've written it before, and I'll keep asking- if Alina has such awful issues being discriminated to the point, when she wasn't even fed, how the hell is she allowed anywhere near the skiff after this? Her unit should be no. 1 suspect in sabotage of war effort, she herself volunteered to "help" right after the deed was discovered... how does suddenly nobody suspect her of being a Shu spy?!
#history#maps#cartography#Shadow and Bone#grishanalyticritical#Alina Starkov#self centred and paranoid#Seeing Grishaverse in other works#01×01: A Searing Burst of Light#Powers of Darkness: The Lost Version of Dracula#Bram Stoker#Valdimar Ásmundsson#Hans Corneel De Roos#Makt Myrkranna#Powers of Darkness#books#quotes#V#anti S&B writers
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This seems like a good time to remind the world of Makt Myrkanna, or Powers of Darkness, the insane Icelandic Dracula fanfic by Valdimar Ásmundsson that managed to pass itself off as just a regular translation for OVER 100 YEARS and no one noticed.
Anyway, it’s a great read, check it out
#was it valdimar or was it bram#who really wrote this book#the mystery lives on#maybe it was really Dracula#secret Dracula#the Dracula bram didn’t want you to see#dracula daily#dracula#powers of darkness#iceland#literature#translation#fanfics#Makt#bram stoker#bram stocker's dracula#valdimar ásmundsson#The great literature debates#lit
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The Icelandic translation of Dracula is more like a free interpretation of the story. The Count doesn’t share his place with three hungry vampire girls for one. Instead he, well, kind of practiced human sacrifices with friends underground.
»She was dead. The crowd went berserk upon seeing the blood flow from the wound. The Count went to the girls body, dipped his hands in the blood, and splattered it all over himself.«
So, choose your fighter I guess. The child stealing Count from »Dracula« who murders women via wolves OR the bathing in blood for fun and keeping scared girls in his castle Count from »Makt Myrkranna (Powers of Darkness)«
They are both equally charming in an ultimate villain kind of way.
#dracula daily#makt myrkanna#bram stocker's dracula#powers of darkness#valdimar asmundsson#our friend jonathan harker#count dracula
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Do you know what the most recent research has said on the whole Dracula/Mörkrets Makter/Makt Myrkranna authorship and authenticity?
As many people have no doubt noted, I'm a little behind both regarding Dracula Daily this year and as regards the state of Dracula scholarship in general. I have not, to my great regret, managed to finish any of the translations of Mörkrets Makter that have come out, and I'm unsure as to a lot of what has been done since its discovery. I know that a lot of De Roos' initial speculations regarding Stoker's involvement in Makt Myrkranna clearly haven't panned out following the discovery of the Swedish text, and while I've read Clive Bloom's own speculations that there is some link between Stoker and the enigmatic A---e, I didn't find any of his proposals so compelling that I was immediately convinced of them.
#Bram Stoker#Dracula#Morkrets Makter#Makt Myrkranna#Powers of Darkness#(Sorry I'm not around as much these days--but this year has wiped me out)
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It occurred to me recently that the person who translated Powers of Darkness (the rogue Icelandic translation of Dracula) back into English had the opportunity to be the funniest person alive.
#i want there to be an endless cycle of unfaithful translations#none of which get discovered until after at least a decade#for context:#in 1901 valdimar asmundsson 'translated' dracula into icelandic#but in actually he just... wrote his own version of the novel#and no one realized until 2014#icon behavior honestly#*in actuality#dracula#bram stoker#powers of darkness#dracula daily#(i know this is only tangentially related to dracula daily but i feel like dd fans would appreciate it)
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So we’ve started reading Powers of Darkness, which is the English translation of the 1900 Swedish “translation” of Dracula (where the translator rewrote all the plot elements they didn’t like), and we’ve been reading it alongside the Dracula Daily posts so that we can compare and close read the differences. And oh boy!! Oh baby!
It’s honestly like someone read the original Dracula and went, hmm nice first draft, it has potential and then wrote a more competent book on top of the old one. (Note: more competent doesn’t necessarily = better, but … look. Read it for yourself and tell me I’m wrong)
Thomas Harker (lol) is restyled from outrageously-passive, food-blogging himbo Jonathan, into a calm, capable, unromantic and rational-to-a-fault professional in a world full of superstitions customs that he doesn’t understand. Much of the unintentional humour is thereby removed. Thomas’ motives and emotional states are clear and convincing, and it allows the novel to work with genuine tension and suspense.
Foreshadowing and payoff! Oh my god! This version of the novel executes plot like a beautiful machine, introducing plot elements early so it can pay them off in future. Eg: Harker observes the beautiful but specifically antique nature of Dracula’s possessions as early as the carriage scene, there are bats and wolves in the first chapters, which both accustoms Harker to their presence in these parts, and allows for a kind of non-violent presence of violence to prelude our time at the castle, and, when Harker is asking around the town about Dracula? He finds a fellow rational, who supplies him with the information that DRACULA HAS BEEN WIDOWED THREE TIMES, POOR CHAP, MUST BE LONELY UP THERE
It’s still super visual and atmospheric, and to more purposeful and convincing effect! In Bram’s version - this is a scene that made me laugh when I read it in a Dracula Daily, 5 May update - Jonathan is looking at a whole swelling crowd of people making the sign of the cross and the evil eye at him. And he then seems immediately to launch into a very lush description of the foliage in the courtyard… it’s quite silly. It feels like the camera just zoomed in on a flower while the plot is trying to happen. In Powers of Darkness however, the flower details are introduced just a little earlier, a little more clearly. It turns the whole scene into something from Midsommar, with foliage bracketing and emphasising the action. Mise-en-scene baby!!
New characters are added for utility. For example, the German teacher who reinforces Harker’s rational worldview, and emotionally undercuts all the townsfolk begging him to reconsider going to the spooky castle, or Dracula’s deaf-mute serving woman, who in one fell swoop removes the comedy of housekeeper-Dracula, while still leaving Harker isolated and unable to easily communicate with anyone else.
It’s pacey as fuck! This book wants to get to the good stuff as quickly and elegantly as possible. Harker has only been in the castle for a night where we’re up to, and has already… met one of the ladies of the house.
The early narrative question set up about Draculitz is not the - quite silly - “is he a vampire or is he a WEREWOLF” question that Bram gives us. Instead, this version asks if Draculitz is a supernatural entity… or if he’s a scary man with secrets. When we meet the woman in white, for instance, Draculitz smoothly warns Harker that he should be careful around her. She’s disturbed. She dresses strangely, and seems to believe that she is her great great grandmother! So, at least in the early chapters, we can wonder alongside Harker if Draculitz is evil, eccentric, or if he’s a Mr Rochester type with a woman captive in the attic.
On the topic of Draculitz, he’s much sexier. Sorry, it’s true. The fact that he seems aware of the social currents and how to explain away his own strangeness, gives him a mastery of the situation that extends beyond the literal mastery Dracula has over the space of the castle. He keeps engaging in these little battles of wit with Harker, where he’s kind of revealing his hand in subtext while flattering Harker into not noticing. Examples:
Tragically, the role that paprika has in the narrative is greatly reduced.
TLDR: if you’ve ever wanted to go through Dracula with a red pen making simple sense corrections and yelling WHY IS THIS HAPPENING, ITS SILLY, there sure is a version, just for you!!
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So, I just finished reading Makt Myrkranna (Powers of Darkness), the Icelandic "translation" that changes the story a fair bit, possibly drawing heavily from discarded early ideas that didn't make it into the final novel.
For the most part I'd say it's an interesting read and I'd recommend it... Still enjoyable though I don't like it as much overall as the original. But there was one passage in particular that cracked me up and I want to share:
"But you don't have any of the London fog here in the clean mountain air, either," I said.
"Yes, these fog banks," he said with excitement. "I have also read about them in my books. I think they only increase my longing for London. This fog, which turns day into night and lies like a thick blanket over the streets and squares—all over, more obscure than darkness itself—I want to see it."
"I am afraid that you will soon tire of it. Fog is the main drawback of London. It smothers the town like a vampire sucking the blood and bone marrow of its citizens, poisoning the blood and lungs of the children, and resulting in countless diseases. Not to mention all the pernicious crimes committed under its cloak—crimes that would otherwise be quite impossible to perpetrate."
"Yes," the Count said, breathless with excitement, while fire seemed to spark from his eyes. "Yes, these crimes, these horrible murders; those slaughtered women found in sacks, drifting in the Thames; this blood that runs—runs and flows—with no killer to be found." I don't think I wrongly accuse him when I say that he seemed to be licking his lips with lust when I mentioned the murders. "Yes, it is a tragedy," he said, "and these murders will never be solved—ever. Your writer, Conan Doyle, has written many good books about London, and I read your newspapers. According to them, barely two or three percent of all homicides are solved. Yes, London is indeed a remarkable city."
It's sooo fuckin funny, people talk about the original Dracula having no chill but he's got nothing on this guy. It's literally just like—
Harker: London is dark all the time and really dangerous
Dracula: *heavy breathing* tell me more
...ZERO effort to hide his murderboner. Wow.
#dracula#dracula spoilers#dracula daily#powers of darkness#he's fricking frantasizing aloud while thomas (that's his name in this version) is just sitting there like 😧#i mean to be fair harker mentioned vampires and then said the word 'blood' twice that's basically dirty talk to dracula here
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You know how in "Powers of darkness” Dracula is served by Tatars instead of Roma? I just thought about Dracula according to Tatar/Bashkir vampire lore so:
You know how in 1992 version Drac’s shadow moves on his own? It kinda has some basis in Tatar lore: an ubyr is pretty much a bodiless entity a warlock creates to do his bidding. Later, when a warlock dies this creature takes his place inside the body and lives in his grave.
Which is why Tatar vampires LOVE to steal shit. Like baby animals, forgotten food, gold, you name it, an ubyr will steal your stuff.
Speaking of which, vampires don’t only drink blood. They also eat bread, suck out the marrow and drink milk of the animals and pregnant women.
Vampires can turn into will-o-wisps, pigs, wolves, cats and mice. Also into household items. Imagine a barrel with a handlebar moustache.
Also the ubyr who used to be warlocks in life - myatzkaj - have extremely long red tongues and feed on young girls. So... Yeah. You know.
Also vampires cause sleep paralysis.
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Y’all I looked up Icelandic Dracula and it’s worse than I could have possibly imagined. From the Wikipedia page:
JONATHANS HORNY NOW
#dracula daily#I love weird publication history stuff but I also hate this one specifically#powers of darkness
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If you’re losing your mind over Dracula Daily
I urge you to read my article “Dracula or Draculitz?: Translational Forgery and Bram Stoker’s “Lost Version” of Dracula.”
Learn the bonkers story of how Icelandic and Swedish translators just made up their own version of Dracula called Powers of Darkness -- and how no one realized they’d done it for OVER 100 YEARS.
Highlights include: vampires are monsters of forgery, basically all Western vampire canon is built on plagiarism and fraud, and if you liked the vampire brides you will love The Countess.
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I forgot to post my favourite (and lesbian) girls from the book which I am reading: “Dracula a little to the left”, (“Powers of Darkness” by a-e and Bram Stoker kinda).
And I mean, who could possibly forget the classic and beloved characters of Wilma Murray and Lucy Western. God bless queens.
Timelapse and mild book analysis below the cut.
So when I was reading the original Dracula, there were several things that to me just seemed to come out of nowhere with little to no explanation, and I didn’t really like that. But in this book, things are built up quite a lot more, and events are often framed as being almost predetermined by fate and the such.
I think that the main example of this that I’ve noticed so far, (I’m about halfway through PoD) , is how Lucy is framed by the narrative:
When the respectable and totally not racially charged Romanian people are visited by Lucy and Wilma in PoD, they treat Lucy like she’s this chosen queen for them and even Lucy herself is shown to have noticed some sort of otherworldly connection with this group who are tied to the count. She is meant to become a vampire in this book, and they make sure that you know it. They make it very very clear on multiple occasions. It’s just fate.
But Dracula really isn’t about fate. To me, even though I wasn’t a big fan of it at first, the out-of-the-blue-ness of Lucy’s being turned by the count was what made her death and subsequent undeath and double subsequent re-death so incredibly impactful.
It could have been anyone who Dracula chose to feed on but it ended up being this wonderful person who was a bright light in so many peoples lives. And ultimately, this ended up being his downfall, as the people who loved Lucy were justifiably determined to bring justice to her murderer. And all of this happened by chance! It leaves so much room for what ifs and the spontaneity of it all is honestly what kept me in the edge of my seat for the whole book.
It also kind of resonates with me as a woman. How many wonderful and innocent women are murdered every day simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, just like Lucy was. The tragicness of events which certainly aren’t random, but aren’t specifically targeted either is such a human experience, which ties in beautifully with the themes and messages of “Dracula”.
But if Lucy was destined to become a vampire? If she never did have any hope of living? Well that just erases like half of the stakes. If destiny is a plot point in your book, then fucking anything goes. We practically already know the ending. That’s not to say that the concept of destiny can’t be written well, but I imagine that it can be particularly tricky to get right in the horror genre.
But hey, I am only halfway through the book. It definitely still has time to be saved in this particular aspect, and in my opinion, there aren’t too many other problems other than all of the racism. And boy is there a lot of it. But also a lot of topless women, so that’s a W I guess.
#fanart#dracula fanart#dracula#dracula spoilers#powers of darkness#mina murray#Wilma Murray#lucy westerna#Lucy western#also I know that these outfits likely (definitely) not historically accurate#but guys#I neeeeeed my colour symbolism#also they slay#kinda
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Literary demotion of Vlad Dracul
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