Jonathan Harker may be my favorite dumbass in English literature. His finest moment comes early in his sojourn in Dracula’s castle. The count visits him in his room while he’s shaving. Wolves are howling right outside (“Children of the night, what music they make!”), there is a blue mist creeping everywhere, and when Dracula notices that Jonathan sees that he casts no reflection in the shaving mirror, he shatters it with his mind.
Jonathan’s reaction: oh no! Now I can’t shave.
I felt a bit like that when I woke up this morning and noticed that there was an uptick in the number of visitors to my blog. Where did they come from? The link in my stats read “The New Yorker.” Surely that couldn’t be right. I clicked.
My reaction: huh. Well, this explains the increased traffic to my blog.
Followed by an intense surge of nausea, which is how I react to all strong emotions, especially the positive ones. So–wow. That was amazing. So–this is what it feels like to be caught in the gaze of an animal much bigger than me. (Hello! You are a stunning entity. Please don’t bite.)
Inadvertently brilliant casting, or just brilliant? Discuss.
Elena Mauli Shapiro 
I love the line the last few lines of this post: “So–this is what it feels like to be caught in the gaze of an animal much bigger than me. (Hello! You are a stunning entity. Please don’t bite.)”
–Hilarious and so true. Congrats, Elena!
Thank you! What a totally surreal way to wake up in the morning…
I also find the “Please don’t bite” part delicious.
But am I the only person who thinks Reeves/Coppola totally made Harker look like a dumbass compared to the book? Harker knows he’s in massive trouble fairly quickly and only pretends to be stupid to extend his life span a bit longer in hopes of escape. Reeves-Harker actually doesn’t get it. Big difference. And I’ve read the book and watched the movie several times. I try to imagine the movie isn’t based on the book because, well, it isn’t. 🙂
I do agree that naming that movie “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” was a pretty big misnomer, but, though it’s been a while since I’ve read it, I do recall Harker being a pretty epic dumbass in the book. I definitely remember running to my husband to read him the “oh no, now I can’t shave” bit.
(perhaps a more charitable way to put it than “epic dumbass” would be “definitely Victorian…”)
Hahaha, I think it’s less him being a dumbass and more him being in denial. Victorians didn’t hold with anything creepy, after all. 😉
Oh yes, the Victorian repression is definitely one of the more fun aspects of the novel. I love the scene where they find Dracula in his coffin. The description of the “fiend” being all turgid with blood pretty much screams PENIS; it is such a wonderful encapsulation of what the Victorian age was really demonizing!