Misc #2: On Rereading

Possibly a Part One because I might reread this later and rewrite it and then reread it...You get the picture.

While taking a class on literature and contagion last semester, I had the chance to reread Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla. This was my first time rereading both books since writing my undergraduate thesis. The experience was serendipitous, as if I was reading them for the first time. In many ways, I was reading them for the first time. I have changed a lot since my senior year of college. I’ve moved across the country, lived in three states, worked a full-time job, and entered a graduate program. I like to think that these shifts have improved me as a person–making me more observant, less reactionary, better with my words, and, to get to the point, more intelligent. I share with my previous self a passion for vampire literature, but that passion now contains a bit more nuance. It was through rereading these books, books that I felt I knew well, that I realized these changes in myself and the way I interpret literature.

Rereading is a habit that I’ve lost as I’ve gotten older. When I was a kid, I read my favorite books repeatedly. My tattered copy of Wendy Mass’ Every Soul a Star still sits on my bookshelf, its pages warped from years of wear. As I entered adulthood and started earning paychecks to support my reading habit, old books fell away for new ones. There was a point in my life where I had read every single book on my shelf. Now, I have a recently-purchased second bookshelf just to accommodate my TBR. My demanding reading schedule for school makes it even more difficult to justify rereading when I do have free time. So, when I saw there was a class that featured Dracula on its reading list, I pounced–eager to return to my first love and, admittedly, write something that could serve as a sample for future graduate applications.

What I didn’t expect was how much Dracula had changed since we’d last met. Funny, since vampires are supposed to be eternal. When I read Dracula for my thesis, I was so hellbent on fitting it into my argument that I didn’t have time to enjoy its storytelling. My more recent experience was much lower pressure. Rather than search exclusively for examples of gender subversion (and, boy, are there a lot), I kept an open mind. At the start of the semester, we read Michel Foucault’s Madness and Civilization, along with Daniel Defoe’s Journal of a Plague Year. With these in mind, I discovered instances of animals and madness in Dracula, along with quarantine and the language of disease. I was amazed at how these seemingly unrelated topics blended with my original thesis, how animals tied into dehumanization tied into madness tied into depictions of the New Woman. Reading for class also gave me permission to enjoy the story as a story, rather than as one of many sources in a research project. The scenes of Jonathan’s imprisonment in the castle are truly terrifying, as is the log of the Demeter, the ship that Dracula takes into London. I was also reminded of the parts I disliked about Dracula. I remembered that there was a reason I didn’t enjoy it as much as I expected to, but I couldn’t say exactly why. Now, I know that it’s because the novel’s second half falls a little flat. I find the threat of the vampire conveniently diminishes, enabling the noble hunters to clear him out of London without much trouble. I think Stoker missed out on some exciting plot opportunities in forcing the Count to only drink from women.

Inspired by my experience rereading Dracula, I chose to return to Carmilla for my final paper. As with Dracula, I recalled impressions from Carmilla but could not offer very many details beyond its main plot points. Using my class’ subject matter, I examined the novel through the language of disease. Moments I had forgotten returned with renewed significance. Pulling from the works of Priscilla Wald and Pamela Gilbert, references to disease in the novel exploded with social meaning. I came to understand the portrayal of illness in Carmilla through the book’s cultural context. The Victorian government’s use of health and disease to separate citizen from noncitizen is shockingly evident in Carmilla, even though the story takes place outside of England. Furthermore, the role of the home in Carmilla was entirely new and wondrous to me. How I could have missed it the first time, I am not sure. The home, or schloss, is its own character in the story. The novel is bookended with references to the home. The protagonist Laura introduces herself in relation to the Styrian schloss and concludes with the phantom sounds of Carmilla’s footsteps entering the drawing room. Descriptions of the home and its many rooms frame entire chapters. The home foreshadows Carmilla’s capacity to transform Laura into one of the infected–the vampire, the lesbian, the foreigner. The plot also stands the test of time–both the 150 years since its initial publication and the five years since I last read it. I found myself staring wide-eyed in the dark, imagining the terror at waking up to see a beautiful, bloodied creature watching me from the end of my bed. There were a few times I turned my bedside lamp back on, checking for any lurking monsters. I had also forgotten how explicitly queer the novel is. While its depiction of same sex desire is not unproblematic, Le Fanu leaves the story open-ended, insinuating a tenderness between Laura and Carmilla (“And to this hour the image of Carmilla returns to my memory with ambiguous alternations…Sometimes, I start from a reverie, certain that I heard the light step of Carmilla at the drawing-room door”). In comparison to Dracula’s subtext, there is something refreshing about the romantic portrayal of Laura and Carmilla’s relationship.

Rereading is an essential scholarly practice. If I were to write a dissertation about Dracula, Carmilla, or some other text, I would reread the stories over and over again, giving myself time to digest their symbolism from a few different angles before developing my argument. With that said, I shouldn’t need a thesis or essay to justify rereading. Rereading is valuable outside of academia. Even in casual reading, we can find plot points we missed, characterizations that went over our heads, and sentences that we might’ve previously skimmed. If writing is all about communication and relationality (and I, for one, certainly think it is), then rereading enables us to better understand the messages these books aim to convey. And, equally important, it helps us recognize changes in ourselves, in our capacity to understand and to respond.