Ghost Upon the Floor

 Today, November 8, 2012 is author Bram Stoker's 165th birthday. A day which has brought us a quite thoughtful Google doodle, and-- to my welcomed surprise-- a popular interest in Stoker's life and work online and in social media. 

Stoker has always been one of my favorite writers, even though I have read so little of his work other than "Dracula." As a man, Bram lived an incredibly interesting life-- one that would take many blog posts to get into, and one I am always looking to read more about. (I currently have an appealing and large biography of him sitting on one of my many bookshelves.)

 In looking through clips and passages and images to mark this post for Stoker's birthday, one comes up with a lot. Few other novels have been capable of creating a character which becomes larger than the book itself-- larger than the other books written because of it, than the movies made based on it, and so on. Although the legend and mythology of the vampire predated Stoker's work, Count Dracula has become synonomous with vampires, and certainly stands as the father of all modern appearances of vampires in popular culture-- as well as the father, in many regards, of modern horror in general. Devices that appear revolutionary in modern horror such as the pseudo-documentary that claims to be real evidence (for instance, the film "The Blair Witch Project") was done years ago with "Dracula" a novel written as all first hand accounts and diary/journal entires. At once, Stoker's novel is atmospheric, truly perfect Gothic horror tale; and, a very worthy piece of serious literature. I've written a bit about readings of "Dracula"-- there is so much in the novel; social commentary on what it means to fear the other (nationally, ethinically, sexually, religiously) abounds, but never hinders the effect the novel has at being such a successful horror story.

 I have many copies of "Dracula," and often can't resist buying new ones I see because I like a cover or a design. Perhaps my favorite copy (other than the worn paperback I devoured in grammar school when I first read it) is this hardback copy featuring the Edward Gorey illustrations. For all the wonderful movies spawned from "Dracula," all the pop-culture art and so on, there is nothing that has ever come up to the experience of reading the book. "3 May. Bistritz. - Left Munich at 8.35..."

 Happy Birthday, Bram.

Oil painting, Ray Bradbury

"'Mr. Moundshroud, will we ever stop being afraid of nights and death?" 
"When you reach the stars, boy, yes, and live there forever, all the fears will go, and Death himself will die...'"


-Ray Bradbury, "The Halloween Tree" 


 I last wrote about Ray Bradbury this past October. And how, as with each best and busiest autumnal season, I want to read the beauty of his novel "The Halloween Tree" yet again. From as early an age as I can remember, Ray's voice was one of the few which spoke to me, when he perfectly understood that which comes with the fall, and the Halloween season. As I've continued to read and reread him further into life, I find that, while perfect for youth, his voice understands and speaks to October's children so complexly, so personally, all their lives long. 


 This week, Ray passed away at age 91. The man who famously (and encouraged others to do so) wrote every day, amassed in his 91 years a body of work a canon all to his own, and one which I'm sure will cement him a giant in twentieth century literature. Working so often in the mixing genres of horror, science fiction, magical realism and all which lies between his many worlds, I know I have not read anywhere near all the Bradbury I should, or will. Among my favorite novels, I count the dark orange flickering lit jack o'lanterns peering from the many branches at the young friends in "The Halloween Tree," the threat of the deceptive, dark, weird and tortured carnival train bearing the witch and like wickedness coming to your small town with "Something Wicked This Way Comes," and the family of monsters assembled in "From the Dust Returned." 

Bradbury and family, 1958

 I believe we are all put here to, in our own way, beat death. The ways in which we do this so differ, but I know Ray's was all his own. With his words, with the enduring legacy of his novels and stories, Ray will forever live there in the stars. Cheers to Ray, and a life well lived, worked. 


"'Mr. Moundshroud, will we ever stop being afraid of nights and death?" 

"When you reach the stars, boy, yes, and live there forever, all the fears will go, and Death himself will die...'"

Each start of October for the last few years, I've felt a desire to reread what may very well be my favorite novel of Ray Bradbury's-- "The Halloween Tree." A writer of science-fiction, the paranormal and tales not so comfortably labeled (but always with an October bent), Bradbury's seemingly young adult novel follows the lives of several young friends on Halloween night. "It was a small town by a small river and a small lake in a small northern part of a Midwest state," begins Bradbury's novel, which is no small literary feat.

 Throughout the boys' night, they come to know and understand the origins of All Hallow's Eve, as they are taken on a fantastical tour through history of humanity's ability to deal with the harvest, the darkness, the coming death. The passages in the novel, as the boys literally travel the history of Halloween night and are confronted with their own mortality, are simply beautiful. Rarely has Halloween been so perfectly captured, described, explored than in this book.

 And while the inevitable animated adaptation is not in so many ways the novel-- it is a very respectable job. Narrated by Leonard Nemoy and with a script by Bradbury himself, the adaptation, rarely shown and hard to find on VHS even on the internet, does the work proud.

 I think I'll go find my copy, and crack the spine.