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Post by dem on Jan 8, 2014 18:57:48 GMT
Paul Monette - Nosferatu, The Vampyre (Avon, 1978) Blurb: THE IMMORTAL SHOCKER
A daring modern version of a classic story, Werner Herzog's Dracula is not the one you remember, but it's one you will never forget.
Nosferatu is Count Dracula: the pale, wraithlike figure, with the seeking mouth. Lucy Harker is the alluring and courageous, woman who realizes, in mounting terror, that the only way to defeat a vampyre is to give of herself, totally, from darkness to dawn.
Love and innocence, sensuality and death, passion and sacrifice — all are explored with hypnotic intensity in NOSFERATU, a, major event of world cinema, and now, witl Paul Monette's tingling novel, a literary event as well.Paul Monette – Nosferatu, the Vampyre (Picador, 1979) Blurb: Based on the screenplay by Werner Herzog.
Nosferatu … The Undead … Count Dracula … a name that will always whisper of the unspeakable, of sensuous evil, of the pinnacle of the sado-erotic, of death that travels on silken bat wings.
A lonely, wraith-like figure, doomed to wander forever in the realm of twilight in search of the alluring and lovely woman, whose destiny is to defeat him only by submission … the giving of herself from the dusk until dawn.
Nosferatu – the name under which the vampire myth first reached the screen – is now recreated by Werner Herzog as a sensual and haunting masterpiece of cinema. Eighty years after Bran Stoker’s Dracula, Paul Monette’s outstanding novel once more breathes life into the ultimate myth of evil .…Amazing that we've been going so long and still no thread for Vampire, the Vampyre. Have been putting off a rematch with Paul Monette's 133 pager for fear of not living up to my fond memories, but a quarter of the way through and no complaints so far. As the cover illustration suggests, Nosferatu, the Vampyre is a fleshed out, very beautifully written adaptation of Werner Herzog's re-imagining of F. W. Murnau's inspired rip off of Dracula - with added doom. If you can imagine a slicker, morbid take on one of Kim Newman's alternative histories ... 1850. Newly-weds Jonathan and Lucy Harker are madly in love, and all is well with the world. They have set up home in tranquil Wismar - "The stray and the incoherent, the disjointed and useless - Wismar had rid itself of all of that. There was nothing that didn't have a place, that didn't go to make it whole" - where Jonathan is employed as manager with the district's thriving estate agents, Renfield & Company. Mr. Renfield himself is in especially joyful mood today, as he has found a buyer for Red Oaks, a ruin so decrepit, he never thought he'd get it off his books as it would require a fortune to make it habitable. At present, "it wasn't fit for an animal to live in." So who is the lucky new owner? Renfield near spontaneously combusts with delight on informing his young colleague that their client is none other than a nobleman, Count Dracula of Transylvania. It is a done deal. There is just the trifling matter of carrying the deed to his current place of residence - a castle in the Carpathian Mountains. Jonathan's heart sinks. Such a journey would require him to be away from his beloved for at least two months! Then again, the commission alone is worth four times his annual salary ... Lucy is horrified when informed of Jonathan's imminent departure. Last night she had the most vivid nightmare, and a barely glimpsed figure in black has taken to haunting her days. "We're all in terrible danger" she warns, but Harker callously mocks such nonsense. "You're being ridiculous, I tell you. You're as bad as the peasants up in the mountains, Lucy. They hear a wolf, and they're sure it's a ghost. But when was the last time somebody heard a ghost in Wismar? We got rid of them long ago, along with the rats. Now come and help me pack." it is the nearest they have ever been to an argument. Jonathan arranges for his trusted friends to look out for his bride while he's away. These include her brother, Schrader and his wife Mina; Dr. Abraham Van Helsing, the local physician, and of course, Mr. Renfield, who has been behaving like a lunatic over the whole Red Oaks business. The lovers' parting is painful. Lucy hallucinates a rodent invasion of the going away feast and gives every indication of suffering a breakdown. Van Helsing ushers Jonathan away on his horse before he has even time to kiss his distraught wife goodbye. Renfield finds it all most amusing. To be continued ...
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Jan 8, 2014 20:03:34 GMT
Exciting! Herzog's NOSFERATU is one of my favorite films. I had forgotten this book existed. And published by Picador, no less.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Jan 8, 2014 20:33:07 GMT
The author seems to be that unusual thing, a celebrated literary author and poet who also wrote novelizations of films like PREDATOR. Actually, I can think of no other examples, with the possible exception of William Kotzwinkle.
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Post by dem on Jan 9, 2014 7:43:13 GMT
Rats in Paradise ...
Rats in Paradise .... Chapter two is primarily concerned with Jonathan's arduous journey on horseback, which sees him befriended by a gypsy camp who come over all terrified and up sticks overnight when he reveals his mission. It is a similar story at the Inn on the outskirts of the castle. The landlady sprinkles his pillow with Holy water and tactlessly leaves an inappropriate book by his bedside, The Undead. Everyone is pinning crosses and garlic to his clothing. Even the Jack the lad coachman unceremoniously abandons him at the Borga Pass, unwilling to be caught in the shadow of Castle Dracula after sunset. Luckily, a second vehicle, driven by a taciturn fellow with a feather in his hat, appears out of the fog to deliver the traveller to his final destination. the wolves howl. Jonathan, feverish and weary, howls back .... Meanwhile back in Wismar, all are treating Lucy with kid gloves for fear she'll fall into hysterics. Much as she despises him as a lecher, she resolves to visit Mr. Renfield for insider information on this business with the foreign Johnny. Renfield has previously made it clear that he would be up for a session with the parasol-twirling Mrs. Harker, so perhaps, if he's good, a little kiss .... Mr. Renfield is a passionate lepidopterist, and, true to form, when she calls at his home, he is prowling the garden with his net, having just spotted a red winged beauty on a tulip." Cuprakis Narcissima!"he exclaims, gently taking the butterfly between his fingers. Lucy almost throws up. She had no idea he ate them. Exciting! Herzog's NOSFERATU is one of my favorite films. I had forgotten this book existed. And published by Picador, no less. The author seems to be that unusual thing, a celebrated literary author and poet who also wrote novelizations of films like PREDATOR. Actually, I can think of no other examples, with the possible exception of William Kotzwinkle. Even on the scant evidence of a novelisation, the man was a talent. I adored Nosferatu: the Vampyre first time around, and to date the rematch has been an absolute joy. Will look out for Mr. Monette's treatments of Predator and Scarface, though a little less inclined to try his 'serious' work. Incidentally, for photo-inset fans who might not already be aware, you get eight pages of b/w film stills in the Avon edition, but not the Faber.
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Post by dem on Jan 10, 2014 15:32:40 GMT
What I love most about this Dracula - and his 1922 incarnation, Graf Orlok - is his complete lack of suave, debonair, frilly-shirt bollocks. He looks and accepts what he is, a rat-featured, cadaverous, walking appetite on legs, and makes the best of it. He seeks no truce with mankind. You'll not find him lounging around on a psychiatrist's couch or chasing after a blood substitute. He doesn't feel the need to wear his hair in a glorified mullet, keep a unicorn as a pet, or any other namby pamby business. This vampire is the personification of evil. Nothing will satisfy but that he kills the world. And his crumbling castle is brilliant, too.
Harker's flesh crawls on first glimpse of his waxen host, and familiarity over the coming nights does nothing to placate him. Iit is only the silly trinkets presented him by the gypsies that holds the vampire at bay, but not for long. When Jonathan cuts his arm, Dracula can no longer control himself and angrily tears away the strip of bandage to get at the wound. It is then that he notices the miniature of Lucy Jonathan wears around his neck. Where has this wonderful creature been hiding all these centuries? If Dracula had even the slightest misgiving about leaving his ancestral home, it is crushed in that instant.
Before he sets sail, the vampire feasts greedily on the blood of his guest. Only Lucy's demand from across the water that he leave her husband alone stays the inevitable. Dracula is not used to taking orders. "If he'd only been capable of an act of goodness he would have done it now, in homage to her. But all he had to give her was the thronging of his fatal power, and he burned with a fury to lay the world to waste to reach her." Harker can wait. The Count has more important matters to attend.
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