A Good Read: The Thrill of Being Wrong

Listen to Jonathon, the narrator of Bram Stoker’s Dracula—the locals are giving him panicked looks as he’s about to set out for the Count’s castle:

I could hear a lot of words often repeated, queer words, for there were many nationalities in the crowd; so I quietly got my polyglot dictionary from my bag and looked them out. I must say they were not cheering me, for amongst them were “Ordog”—Satan, “Pokol”—hell, “stregoica”—witch, “vrolok” and “vlkoslak”—both of which mean the same thing, one being Slovak and the other Servian for something that is either were-wolf or vampire. (Mem., I must ask the Count about these superstitions.)

The whole of Dracula is told through this inward voice, through letters and diaries, so the reader feels that she is in the narrator’s mind. What makes this strategy so good for today’s reader is that we know who the Count is—and what the Count does—when Jonathon has no idea! Vampires are as mythical to Jonathon and his friends as they are to us. Yet it is terrifying and aggravating to stand in the fictional body of Jonathon, in front of the most legendary vampire of all time, and say, “You’re a what? Come on, man, cut it out.”

Jonathon is so clueless! To experience and to think what he does throws you for a loop. Stoker gives me the thrill of knowing I am wrong, while, at the same time, in the persona of Jonathan, I can’t control the mistakes I’m making. I usually don’t know of a mistake until I’ve finished making it! 

—Laura Wanamaker