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The Science Fiction Fan, v. 4, issue 8, whole no. 44, March 1940
Page 15
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FAN..................................15 after the girl's death, in some inexplicable manner. Finally persuading the Harkers and Dr. seward (who has loved Lucy Westenra) that it is best, they stake down the heart of Dracula's prey, Lucy Westenra. They are convined that Dracula must be wiped out. They go to seek him out, and he gains a hold on Mrs. Harker. Finally, after a wild chase across half of Europe, they reach Dracula and end his un-dead existence. That is the barest outline of the plot. The story abounds with the usual vampire trimmings of garlic flowers, wolves, shining fogs, and the ordinary other things. The book is very very long -- close to two hundred thousand words -- and there lies its greatest flaw. The last third, it has been repeated over and over, is an anticlimax. Or rather, not an anti-climax, for the climax does not come until the end; but it seems to go beyond the point where it should stop. As Arch Oboler said recently, all horror must be cumulative-- and in "Dracula" the ultimate horror comes with the dissolution of Lucy Westenra. After that, what follows is weak in comparison. Naturally, it is not completely convincing. No one, in the day and age in which the yarn is laid, would have written and said the things that the characters said in the diaries, in black and white. And it is certainly questionable whether the characters, faced with such a situation in real life, would work out their salvation quietly without consulting authorities. But these things are merely incidental. The fact that they did not call in the police, of course, helped the story; and had the diaries (Continued on Pages 19-20)
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FAN..................................15 after the girl's death, in some inexplicable manner. Finally persuading the Harkers and Dr. seward (who has loved Lucy Westenra) that it is best, they stake down the heart of Dracula's prey, Lucy Westenra. They are convined that Dracula must be wiped out. They go to seek him out, and he gains a hold on Mrs. Harker. Finally, after a wild chase across half of Europe, they reach Dracula and end his un-dead existence. That is the barest outline of the plot. The story abounds with the usual vampire trimmings of garlic flowers, wolves, shining fogs, and the ordinary other things. The book is very very long -- close to two hundred thousand words -- and there lies its greatest flaw. The last third, it has been repeated over and over, is an anticlimax. Or rather, not an anti-climax, for the climax does not come until the end; but it seems to go beyond the point where it should stop. As Arch Oboler said recently, all horror must be cumulative-- and in "Dracula" the ultimate horror comes with the dissolution of Lucy Westenra. After that, what follows is weak in comparison. Naturally, it is not completely convincing. No one, in the day and age in which the yarn is laid, would have written and said the things that the characters said in the diaries, in black and white. And it is certainly questionable whether the characters, faced with such a situation in real life, would work out their salvation quietly without consulting authorities. But these things are merely incidental. The fact that they did not call in the police, of course, helped the story; and had the diaries (Continued on Pages 19-20)
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