Dracula's Guest

Last night I was listening to the first episode of a new radio series called A Short History of Vampires. The first episode was a reading of the story "Dracula's Guest" by Bram Stoker. Apparently it was originally written as part of the novel Dracula but was cut at some point from the main text.

Today was the start of another week at work, and was pretty much the same as usual. It was very quiet in the office today, with a lot of people being either off work or working in different rooms.

Soul Circus

Last night I was listening to a radio adaptation of a Sherlock Holmes story called "The Boscombe Valley Mystery" based on the story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In this story a young man is accused of murdering his own father, but Sherlock Holmes believes that he is innocent, and determines to track down the real killer. It was a really good story, and one of the earliest of the Sherlock Holmes stories.

I also finished reading the novel Soul Circus by George Pelecanos. It's a crime novel, set in Washington DC, where private investigator Derek Strange is determined to protect a particularly violent drug dealer from getting the death penalty, not because Strange believes that he is innocent but because he doesn't believe in capital punishment, however as the tril progresses so does the tensions between rival street gangs. Added to that, Strange and his partner Terry Quinn discover that one of their clients has brutally murdered the woman that he paid them to find. It's a really good, tense and gritty novel, full of action, witty dialogue and laced with dark humour. Pelecanos wrote scripts for the TV series The Wire, and definitely if you like the show (which is awesome) then you should like the novel.

Later on I watched the 1992 movie Bram Stoker's Dracula, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, and based on the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker. In 1897 a young English lawyer (played by Keanu Reeves) heads to the remote Castle Dracula in Transylvania to oversee a property purchase by the mysterious Count Dracula (Gary Oldman) who is planning to move to England. However while in the castle the lawyer discovers that Dracula is a vampire, a dead creature that has existed for hundreds of years feeding on human blood, and that Dracula has set his sights on the lawyer's fiancee (Winona Ryder) believing her to be the reincarnation of his long-dead wife. Despite some major changes the film is relatively faithful to the book. Visually it's very impressive and stylish and filled with visual tricks, for example in one scene where a character has to step through a doorway, they actually had to step over the doorway backwards and then it was played in reverse ro give it added strangeness.

It was another very quiet day at work and pretty dull. I left at five and got a suasage supper on my way home, which was quite nice.

The Shawshank Redemption

Last night I was watching The Shawshank Redemption, directed by Frank Darabont, and based on the novella "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption" by Stephen King. Opening in the 1940s, the film stars Tim Robbins as Andy Dufresne, a banker who is accused of a double murder and sentenced to serve two life sentences at Shawshank State Prison. While he gets used to the prison's regime Andy befriends the prison's "fixer", Red (Morgan Freeman). I first saw the movie at a preview screening in February 1995 and I've always thought it was a great movie. It was not successful at all in it's cinema release, but it really found it's audience on video and then on TV, and now it routinely tops polls of the greatest movie ever made. I think when it was out at the cinema they had trouble with marketing it: it had a strange title, no big stars, no prominent female characters, it's set mostly in prison and it was based on a Stephen King story but it wasn't a horror movie (although I did see one advertising slogan for the film which played up the Stephen King connection and went something like "A Fiendishly Perfect Partnership and a Horror that Goes Beyond Homicide", which makes you wonder whether they actually saw the movie). It is a great movie about the possibility of hope in even the worse circumstances. It's one of really only two movies that have ever genuinely made me tear up (the other being It's a Wonderful Life).

I still wasn't feeling good at all today. My Dad came around to look at my washing machine. We eventually did get it fixed, apparently. The problem was that the draining hose had come loose and that was what was causing the leaks. However it should work now. I went along to my parent's house as usual for my lunch, which was tacos today. The latest issue of Fortean Times had arrived during the week, which this month had a large feature on Dracula, tracing the history of the Bram Stoker novel and exploring it's phenomenal popularity. Pretty much everyone has at least heard of Dracula, even if they've never read the book or seen any of the movies. The cover promised "20 Things You Never Knew About Dracula" and one surprising thing was that apparently Ingmar Bergman had planned to do a Dracula adaptation, but never got round to it. Maybe one where Dracula discusses the futility of existance and the search for the meaning of life in a meaningless universe. Later on I was listening to the third and final part of the radio adaptation of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy based on the John le Carre thriller. It's been really good and very close to the original book.

I sent my brother an e-mail a week ago to find out what he wants for his Christmas present and he still hasn't replied. I have absolutely no idea of what he wants, because he lives in London and we don't really communicate much. Basically if he doesn't let me know by the end of the week then he's getting a book token.

Vampire Stories

Last night was pretty quiet. I managed to get up to 4,054 words on my NaNoWriMo novel, so that was pretty good. I am really hoping that the finished work turns out to be good. The thing is that I'm really pretty bad at writing, and I'm pretty much completely untalented.

It was another really quiet and kind of dull day at work again. I was reading some of the book Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice on my break at work. I have read it before but not for about fourteen years. Because my NaNo story has to do with vampires I've been trying to do some research. I've had a look at Dracula again, and I should probably check out the Twilight books at some point.

Dracula

Late last night I was watching the 1931 film of Dracula, directed by Tod Browning. In the movie, a young solicitor named Renfield (Dwight Frye) travels to the remote Castle Dracula in the Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania, where the mysterious Count Dracula (Bela Lugosi) is planning to move to England. The movie does not stick closely at all to the original Bram Stoker novel, and it hasn't aged very well by modern standards, but it is still a classic. Hungarian actor Bela Lugosi ended up forever typecast as Dracula and his performance has been imitated and parodied countless times since, but the perfrmance is still a really powerful one.

Today I went along and did some shopping. I got the film Choke, based on the Chuck Palahniuk book, on DVD, and a video game called Batman: Arkham Asylum for the PlayStation 3. I'm going to chill out and relax this evening until NaNoWriMo starts tomorrow.

Happy Halloween!

Some Books

Last night I was listening to an episode of a radio show called Fear on Four. The episode was "The Judge's House", based on a short story by Dracula author Bram Stoker. The story involves a student who rents a house which a couple of hudred years ago had been owned by a sadistic judge. He soon finds out that the house contains far worse things than rats. Horror can work really well on radio, I think, and this was a pretty effective story.

Today I had planned to go up to the cinema to see the film Grindhouse, but the only screening was completely sold out and so I went and had a look at the shops instead. I bought some books in a three for two offer: Darkmans by Nicola Barker (which is the next choice for the book group at the end of May), The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky and Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami. Afterwards I went and had a mocha coffee and a chocolate muffin.

This evening I was watching The Galaxy British Book Awards. It was pretty interesting. JK Rowling got a special achievement award.

Radio and Work

Last night I listened to the first part of a radio adaptation of Dracula. It was pretty good, and despite a number of changes in the story structure and a few other changes, presumably to make it more understandable for a radio audience.

Today was another average day at work. It was about as exciting as usual. I left work at about half past six and on my way home I picked up the latest issue of Total Film magazine.