Author: austinfey

Dracula

/ austinfey / Leave a comment

I thought the winter would be a great time to dive into the adventures of the original vampire. The story was somewhat familiar, not least because of the popularity of horror-story creatures in movies and tv shows these days. I think these stories have just about reached saturation, but I thought I’d visit the original tale before enthusiasm completely dies out (see what I did there?).

Since it was published in 1897 by Bram Stoker, the style of writing occasionally meandered a bit more than I’d like, but for the most part the story moves along at a good clip.

The book also consists mostly of diary entries and letters of the protagonists, with very little other narration — an interesting frame to the story. The reader only sees Dracula through the narrative eyes of other characters, which I think heightens the sense of mystery around him.

The Story

The story starts with Jonathan Harker, a solicitor’s clerk, who goes to visit his client, Count Dracula, in Transylvania to inform him of the purchase of a home for the Count in England. After arriving, Harker is trapped in the Count’s Castle and eventually left there for the three vampire women who live with the Count to feast on once the Count has left for England and fresh blood. Fortunately for Harker, he’s clever and escapes.

Meanwhile, his fiancee, Mina, is in England with her best friend Lucy. Dracula is on board a ship that happens to land at the seaside town where Mina and Lucy are staying, which is a huge coincidence. Later Mina notices that Lucy is growing pale and is sleepwalking a lot.

If Mina had watched more tv, she’d have recognized the signs, but alas….

Anyway, adventures ensue, with vampire-hunter Van Helsing arriving midway through the book to help track down and destroy the evil Un-Dead before he can claim more victims. He brings a lot of garlic and a lot of vampire knowledge, which is good for the protagonists and bad for Dracula.

Other Thoughts

Since this story was written by a male author in the 19th century, there were a few times I rolled my eyes at the depiction of Mina and Lucy. When the vampire hunting is in full force, the men decide that although Mina has been super helpful and transcribed all their notes and organized them (to be fair, Jonathan helps her some), for her protection they stop telling her what’s going on and keep her in the dark. Because…she’s a woman and should be spared the worry. They respect her though, because she has a brain that’s shockingly almost as smart as a man’s. Cool cool.

So this awesome plan of protection backfires when the next morning she turns up pale and somewhat blood-drained…. Good job, guys. Never leave someone out of your plans if you’re in a horror story! So other than a few eye-rolling remarks about men vs. women, I enjoyed the tale of suspense.

Also of interest were the abilities Dracula possessed and his weaknesses when compared to other vampires in pop culture. The one thing I didn’t quite understand was that Dracula couldn’t cross flowing water on his own, unless it was at low or high tide? I’m not really sure about the symbolism of flowing water as it relates to vampires, so if anyone knows, pass that along.

All in all, a pretty good horror tale.

Also, at no point does Dracula say, “I vant to suck your blood!” That’s a relief.

Rating

★ ★ ★ ★

Back to the Classics Challenge 2017

/ austinfey / Leave a comment

Well, it’s that time of year again…I make reading goals that I may or may not complete.

Back to the Classics Challenge 2017

I’m going to try to read books from the categories in the Back to the Classics Challenge this year.

For the full rules, visit Karen’s Books and Chocolate blog to see what it’s all about and/or participate.

Here are the 12 categories, with my tentative book choices (I’ll update if I change my mind or pick titles for the categories I haven’t chosen a book for yet):

1. A 19th century classic – The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (A. Bronte)

2. A 20th century classic – TBD

3. A classic by a woman author – Lark Rise to Candleford (F. Thompson)

4. A classic in translation – something by A. Dumas…not sure which one yet.

5. A classic originally published before 1800 – Richard III? Henry IV? …one of the histories (W. Shakespeare)

6. A romance classic – Doctor Thorne (A. Trollope)

7. A Gothic or horror classic – Dracula (B. Stoker)

8. A classic with a number in the title – A Tale of Two Cities (C. Dickens) or The Two Towers (J. R. R. Tolkien)

9. A classic about an animal or which includes the name of an animal in the title – Animal Farm (G. Orwell)

10. A classic set in a place you’d like to visit – TBD…let’s be honest, it’ll probably be something else by a British author because I want to visit the UK next. 🙂

11. An award-winning classic – The Man in the High Castle (P. K. Dick)

12. A Russian classic – TBD

We’ll see how it goes this year! I’m a little over halfway through Dracula now, and I started Doctor Thorne, both of which I’m enjoying. More on those when I finish them.

The West Wing

/ austinfey / Leave a comment

Ah the ’90’s!

No one can watch everything, and for some reason, I missed watching The West Wing. Until now!

Ben and I were searching for something else to watch on Netflix, like you do, and we usually have 2 or 3 shows going at a time, but they have to fall in different genres or slots.

We have one slot for a scary/ depressing/ intense show, and we have one slot for a more entertaining, lighter, or at least less intense show, something we can watch and still go to sleep after watching. The third slot is usually a Star Trek series.

We recently finished White Collar, and needed something else to fill the not-depressing/scary slot, so we started watching The West Wing.

We’re 8 episodes in, and I love it. We may never finish the last 12 episodes of Star Trek Voyager (I like Voyager, but Season 7 was not its finest. We’re struggling to reach the finish line here).

Writing is hard — I feel you, Sam.

But back to The West Wing — Guys, the walk-and-talk is real. There is so much walking and talking! Such long meandering shots through the office — it’s amazing. Bonus points to the directors and cameramen who set up and executed these shots. And to the cast for executing. 5 points for Gryffindor!

Also, I’m so impressed with all the actors because they have so many lines, so much dialogue to remember. Between The West Wing and Gilmore Girls, I wonder which scripts are longer? I thought no one talked faster than Rory and Lorelai, but Josh, Toby, Sam, and CJ could give them a run for their money. Not to mention President Bartlet’s speeches. Was Aaron Sorkin on a high school debate team?

The first episode just drops you in the middle of the action, trying to catch up, listen to the fast dialogue, and figure out who these people are. I like a smart show that expects something of its audience.

The West Wing GIF - Find & Share on GIPHY

Political dramas can be tricky to keep interesting (see the Star Wars prequels for what not to do), but this is how you make a political drama interesting (I haven’t seen House of Cards yet either; I know it’s a big thing). The humor, physical motion and clever dialogue keep the viewer engaged (dear Star Wars prequels, sitting on couches and speaking slowly isn’t a great way to help the audience feel that anything is happening).

I’ve also started listening to The West Wing Weekly, an excellent podcast which covers every episode. They’re currently in season 2, so I’ve just given you some listening for the next couple years.

I can see why this show has a loyal fan base, and I’m looking forward to more political shenanigans with the crew. Also, the ’90’s were not a great time for professional women’s fashions, so I’m looking forward to more shoulder pads. Oh yeah.

2 Creative Outlets, 1 Confusing Piece of Fashion

/ austinfey / 2 Comments

This month, my husband and I have been participating in Inktober. Participants do (at least) one ink drawing a day, and the hashtags are #inktober and #inktober2016 if you want to see examples.

I’ve been posting mine to Instagram and sharing on Twitter and Facebook.

It’s been fun, though I think if I set aside a little more time, I could do much better. Plus, this year, I’ve been really trying to experiment with the fancy Copic markers we bought. They are awesome, and slightly tricky. I want to practice more with blending, which is their real strength. Or one of their strengths.

For November, I’m upping the stakes and attempting to write for NaNoWriMo, which stands for National Novel Writing Month (I’m austin_marie if you want to be buddies). The goal of said challenge is to write 50,000 words in the 30 days of November. That comes to about 100 pages of (single spaced) text, or around the length of a short novel.

Obviously, when trying to write 50,000 words in one month, the first draft is going to be a complete mess. I think the main point of the movement is to encourage people to just write. Writing is hard, and getting started is a hurdle, and you can’t revise what you haven’t written.

So I’m going to make the attempt. We’ll see what happens. I’ll probably need to throw out the whole draft and re-write it, but at least I’ll figure out what works and what doesn’t. Gotta start somewhere, right?

As promised, the confusing piece of fashion. I know, just one! But here it is: cold shoulder sweaters.

Cold shoulder sweater from Guess

Sweater from Guess. WHY??

My thought process on seeing a cold shoulder sweater:

Look at that cozy sweater. Do I need a cable knit sweater? No, I don’t. Hey wait a second, WHERE ARE THE SHOULDERS?? Why is she exposing her skin to the elements!? Why would you ruin the coziness of the sweater by slicing out the shoulders? WHAT IS THIS TREND?

Yeah, I don’t understand. Let me know if you have insight here.

PSLs and an Election Year

/ austinfey / Leave a comment

One a road trip last weekend we stopped by a Starbucks on our way out of town, where I sampled a pumpkin spice latte, seeing as the weather has finally decided to cool.

I found, to my quiet horror, that I do not really like pumpkin spice lattes much.

Gasp. I know, I’m a traitor to fall.

Here’s the thing that makes it even worse: knowing that pumpkin spice lattes are so sweet and syrupy, I asked for half the flavor pumps (1 1/2 pumps of flavor instead of 3) so I could taste the actual coffee in the drink.

It was still too sweet and left a strange aftertaste that I didn’t much care for.

Apparently I’ve become a coffee snob, and I’ve become more sensitive to sweet drinks. While this is probably good for my overall health, it is a little sad that I don’t get excited about the fall-in-a-cup treat that makes the social media rounds. I do, however, still like anything with salted caramel in it, so all is not lost.

Just make the drink with half the normal sugar and it will be fine.

single leaf

It feels so frivolous to think about the relative merits of sugary flavored coffee when the world is in such turmoil. Natural disasters, wars, violence, racial tensions, an especially acrimonious political season, not to mention smaller disappointments, personal failings, and suffering of people I care about – these are all present.

Thinking about all the problems in the world is too much. Thinking about politics alone is sometimes too much, makes me too angry. Larger movements in the world — I have no control over these. Not that this means I should ignore them or disclaim any responsibility to make the world a better place in small ways, but I need not bear the weight of the world on my shoulders.

It’s better some days to focus on small moments of joy:

  • passing a test (after many, many attempts…)
  • friends who are learning to be new parents
  • friends whose child came home after a successful surgery
  • leaves that are just beginning to turn lovely colors
  • coming home to the smell of soup in a crockpot wafting through the house
  • time with my parents and my in-laws over delicious food

The world may be tired and dangerous, torn apart with strife, but the seasons continue, and the leaves will be beautiful no matter who wins the presidential election.

Photo from Unsplash.