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secretmellowblog · 2 years

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Bram Stoker has a hilariously obvious Kink for sexy men sucking each other’s blood out of love, and it’s funny to see him write elaborate excuses for this to happen in Dracula without being “gay…” Bram Stoker constructs intricate rituals that allow him to suck the blood of other men.

In Castle Dracula we do not get any onpage homoerotic bloodsucking— but the potential of homoerotic bloodsucking is constantly very obviously implied.

Later we’re told that Seward is good friends with Bram Stoker’s self insert Abraham “Bram” Helsing….and that they deeply truly bonded on the day that Seward sucked poison out of his blood. This is like, the Good version of homoerotic bloodsucking, instead of the Dracula’s evil version. But it’s not gay because he hAD to, there was poison —-

Finally we get the “blood drawing Conga line” when Lucy is sick— Bram Stoker’s self insert must constantly draw blood/have his blood drawn by the handsome young suitors. Van Helsing refuses to draw blood from the maids because he believes it can only work with Men, with Good Strong Manly Men who have Sexy Rippling Muscles. But this obviously isnt gay because they’re doing it out of love for a wOMAN. Although when Helsing has his blood drawn it it’s partially because of his love for Seward.

Anyway— other people have posted about Bram Stoker’s complicated real-life relationship with queerness and with Oscar Wilde, and yeahhh. Yeah that makes sense. Even without that context it’s sorta easy to see Stoker has a bit of a Thing for handsome men sucking stuff out of each other, and really wants his self-insert to be involved in it— as if he’s writing elaborate excuses to express some kind of repressed queerness in his story in a way that won’t get him carted off to jail.

#We were talking about this in a discord server I’m in but I wanted to post it XD #Dracula daily #bram stoker was a mess and I don’t respect him #but #the queer background of Dracula is really fascinating!

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rooftopvibes · 7 months

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🍂Books i read in September 🍂

Stefan Zweig / Amok 🌌

(97 pages)

Amok is a short novella. It’s very exciting and interesting so it’s easy to read in one session. It’s about a doctor who works somewhere in an isolated town in India. One day a very proud woman comes to see him and wants to get an abortion. He doesn’t directly deny it but he asks for something in return that she doesn’t want to give him. Then he goes mad, follows her and really wants to help her. The book is about this madness (i wouldn’t say the protagonist is in love but it reminded me of that love madness you read in Dostoevsky’s novels like in „the gambler“.) like the title says, about guilt/regret that lead to ending one‘s life and about abortion, the pain and risk that come with it (when it’s illegal) that even follow you after death which is heartbreaking to read.

As I said parts of it remind me of Dostoevsky’s work and these psychological themes and characters. How the story is told reminds me of „Frankenstein“ since it’s both people telling (confessing) their story some stranger on a cruise. The novel is beautiful, dramatic and really sad, the characters are interesting to analyze. It’s always a pleasure to read Zweig because he has such a deep understanding and these paragraphs describing the sky and the stars give me such a warm feeling in my chest and such nice pictures in my head 💘

Bram Stoker / Dracula 🧛‍♂️

(502 pages)

Dracula is one of the must reads if you like horror and vampire stories. It’s the origin of vampire movies, it’s like the father and it’s worth reading because you can recognize how many modern works are being influenced by this piece! Especially for fall and Halloween it’s a very nice book to get in that spooky mood.

The scenery is breath taking, the characters are lovely and caring that i felt comforted while reading. The female characters are strong and I love them. You travel through snowy landscapes, a very old but beautiful castle, a coast, spooky graveyards, rivers and so much more. The story already caught me during the first pages and I think i‘ve never read a book so fast because it was so exciting from beginning till the end. I found the book sad at times since Dracula appears friendly at first and how it must be the biggest punishment to be Dracula and be immortal like Mina said. The book has a lot of this dead women romance in it like you often see in old paintings: dead women who seem as young and beautiful as never, being surrounded by flowers and so on like Lucy when she was lying in her grave (a picture that stays in my mind). Death seems beautiful but at the same time it’s brutal how they murder the undead, put an arrow through their hearts, cut their heads off. It’s the whole vampire romance aesthetic and the parts in which Dracula is present, sucks blood out of his victims, the undead woman lie in their grave seducing the doctor are erotic, overall that’s one of the main underlying atmospheres. Although the story seems hopeful and happy at times, there is so much pain and darkness and always this old romance. It’s one of my favorite books i read this year. 🖤🖤

Ned Vizzini / It‘s kind of a funny story 🏥

(464 pages)

If you watched the movie that is based on the book, you should read the book too. It’s about a teenager Craig, who is struggling, putting a lot of pressure on himself (because of school) and ends up going to a mental hospital. The main topics of this novel are depression, mental health, love, friendship and therapy. Throughout the book you get to know the other patients in the hospital, you see how they grow and struggle. The author was in a mental hospital himself and processed his time there with this novel since he wrote it shortly after his stay there.

I have mixed feelings about this novel. I have watched the movie some years ago and I liked that a lot. There is a lot of additional information in the book and some characters, important scenes and background information is missing in the movie which is quite sad (so the movie did kinda miss the whole point/the main message). One thing that made me dislike the novel was that i didn’t like any of the characters, they aren’t relatable (but i think to others they are so that’s just personal), some paragraphs upset me a lot because the way how some characters think (mostly Craig and his friends) and the things that they say (about mental illness) were kinda disrespectful and triggering. This topic is very sensitive that’s why it was very difficult to read emotionally so it took me a long time to finish the book. Otherwise it’s easy to read since english is my second language and I had no trouble understanding it. I sometimes had the impression that the book was judging at times and that it made it seem like love can save and heal someone and that just made me sad because i don’t like these kind of books that portray this message. In my opinion romance and the story with Noelle and Nia didn’t fit that well into the book since healing should be only about yourself (but it’s a teenage boy so it’s understandable that girls are a topic in his life). Nevertheless i can see why a lot of people love this book and also like the story with Noelle. The end of the book can give people hope and is positive in contrast to the beginning so that’s a good thing.

Jean Paul Sartre / The age of freedom 🪰

(435 pages)

The age of freedom is one out of a series of three (+ one unfinished) novels. The main topic of the novels is freedom (and ofc Sartre‘s existentialist concepts). The novel revolves around a philosophy teacher who’s lover is pregnant and the question to marry her or choose abortion, somehow get the money for that runs through the whole novel. There also appear other interesting characters, a drug addict singer, a philosophy student, a homosexual person who doesn’t seem healthy in his mind and other people.

I didn‘t find the story too interesting since nothing really happens but it’s Sartre so it’s more about the characters, their values and the moral questions that appear during the whole book. Because of the storyline it felt more like 200 pages. It made me think a lot about freedom and how we build prisons and put ourselves in them. It’s a book that impacts me a lot and made me see the topic of freedom in a different way. I always find something relatable in Sartre‘s work and it makes me feel so understood. I want to read the other novels too since the storyline also seems more interesting in the following works and i liked the characters a lot. Since I read this work I spend a lot of time thinking about it and it is really a novel that sticks with me for weeks, months and years.

Fuminori Nakamura / The thief 🚬

(208 pages)

A quick and easy read about Nishimura a pickpocket, stealing mostly wallets from wealthy looking people. Throughout the book you get to know the character and learn about his past, his partner who got lost/died, his lover and a boy whose mother isn’t taking good care of him. The main character‘s past follows him and gets him in dangerous situations. There doesn’t seem any way to escape.

A boy recommended this novel to read at school and I remember this was one of the very few books I actually read back then so I decided to read it again. I like it a lot, it takes your breath away in one moment and you hope everything goes well. There is a lot open to imagination in this novel, especially the end leaves you with many questions yet not completely clueless. At first I wished the story would go on but actually i think it’s good that it ended at the point it did. It didn’t tell every secret to the reader, it shows that the characters have their own life and their own secrets and you‘re just the reader but at the same time you will feel the atmosphere and walk through these streets of Tokyo. I think I like this novel so much because there’s so much to think about and figure out and it’s like the reader can write their own ending even though there are some points where you can guess what will happen and make your own theories. I understand if people don’t like when stories have an open ending but i still recommend it to everyone because it tells a heart warming and breaking story and the atmosphere is absolutely beautiful and comforting to me. I‘m looking forward to read more by this beautiful writer <3

Paulo Coelho / The alchemist 🧪

(172 pages)

This short novel (or self help book) is about a shepherd boy who is getting signs from the universe to go to egypt and find a hidden treasure. The main character is lead by signs of the universe and the stones of wisdom. An old king always appears in the story who gives advice to the shepherd boy. So the shepherd boy ends up traveling to egypt and learns a lot on his journey about the world, meets a girl and falls in love.

At first I was very critical about this novel even though I heard a lot of good about it. It’s said that the novel is spiritual and very inspiring and I’m not that kind of person who likeses these kind of books but i thought I would still give it a try. It was very unusual to read at the beginning because there’s such a sudden change of the scenery. It’s all about the conversations so the atmosphere and landscape isn’t described that detailed. But i got used to it, so I would say it’s a very easy book to read. There are some quite interesting conversations and i found the novel inspiring and comforting. Regardless of that, it’s not a work that i will remember because I didn’t spend much time thinking about it after reading it, but maybe it‘ll come back to me, who knows. I would say that it doesn’t hurt to read and maybe you‘ll learn something, be inspired and more optimistic about life but if not you just read a short novel and know what the hype is all about.

#just for myself because i want to be better to talk about books #and i want to remember better #literature #classic lit #Dracula #It‘s kind of a funny story #the alchemist #the thief #the age of freedom #amok #Zweig #bram stoker #Sartre #ned vizzini #fuminori nakamura #paulo coelho

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