Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I've always been fascinated with Stoker's Dracula novel, but never with any of the movies, books, or countless manifestations of the character he created. I've never understood how the Dracula figure has grown into a pop-culture juggernaut over the last century on the strength of terrible movies, lousy novels, and breakfast cereals. This book addresses all of those issues.
I've never thought of the spread of the Dracula phenomenon as inherently vampiric until I read Sundays with Vlad. Paul Bibeau chronicles the transformation of a fictional character, based loosely upon a vague historical figure from a remote region, created in a novel that was not even mentioned in its author's obituary, into an unrivalled marketing powerhouse that has penetrated global culture with the same viral potency that gave Stoker's figure its true terror. The Dracula persona has been escalated by wave after wave of fans, freaks, and economic opportunists to the point where legend, history, literature, and pop-culture are permanently, and irrevocably intertwined. Sundays with Vlad untangles the mess.
But that sounds boring.
The true strength of Sundays with Vlad is Bibeau's humor.
This book is an impressively thorough examination of the Dracula phenomenon, that transitions smoothly between political, historical, literary, and pop-cultural issues - always with a brisk wit that keeps the matter interesting. Not only does Bibeau examine all angles of Dracula worship, he does it all personally. He goes to Romania on his honeymoon, he marches in a parade dressed as a clove of garlic, he watches every god-forsaken vampire movie he can find in a weekend, he goes LARPing in Kentucky, he speaks to the creator of Count Chocula, he almost gets attacked by hookers and skinheads in Hungary, and he even tries on vinyl pants. None of it is pretty, but it's all there.
The result is a very extensive, very entertaining, journey through a landscape littered with eccentrics in plastic capes and sanguinarians running for political office. Bibeau handles all topics from the sublimity of literature to the absurdity of Aaron Spelling vampire dramas with a sincere touch; non-judgmental, yet crucially observant, and always funny. As he follows the unlikely trail of arguably the most influential icon of the last century, Paul Bibeau's own thoughts, reservations, and shortcomings, often serve as a familiar point of reference for the reader in the face of the absurd. As we walk with him through the ranks of the unrecognizably strange, Bibeau's natural, comfortable wit may be the true appeal of the book.
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Sundays with Vlad: From Pennsylvania to Transylvania, One Man's Quest to Live in the World of the UndeadExamines Dracula as a cultural icon, describing his transformation from a fictional character in Bram Stoker's novel to a figure that has pervaded popular culture.--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.
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