Infinite Zombies

Hi, I’m the new member of the Infinite Zombies group and I’m a complete beginner at this.  Hoping to have a lot of fun and get lots of help from all of you!

I’m starting to enter Dracula’s world, but am finding it to be quite an adjustment.  For me it’s a combination of factors, the greatest of which is the 100+ years of vampires in our culture.  They’re tapping on my windows and flitting around the shadows in the house.  I know the first column on the Infinite Summer: Dracula site advised us to leave them behind.  I’m not sure that’s really possible and I’m not sure I really want to.  My favorite vampires over the years are all here with me while I read and I’m thinking I want to keep them in view.  Perhaps they can be my counterpoint to Stoker’s creation.  We know from scholars that his Dracula is very different from what vampires have become to us today and we don’t want to read with the mindset of “that’s not right, that’s not how vampires are” but I don’t think we need to banish them all together.  I propose instead to use the difference to reflect back on and illuminate this Dracula.  Not getting caught up in what is different but enjoying those differences.  Marveling at what Stoker’s Dracula has become.  He created a figure so enduring and so attractive that he’s become an icon.  Honestly, we’ve got the suave charming vampires, the ruthless sexual predator vampires, Christopher Lee’s Dracula cavorting with buxom maidens in the great old Hammer Studios films, the sensitive vampires of Angel and the Twilight series, and even The Count on Sesame Street (one of my personal favorites).  Here in Orlando I’ve got a neighbor who decorates his yard for Halloween with a gian inflatable Mickey Mouse decked out in cape and fangs.  Actually, I think that’s the creepiest version!  So I’ve decided that I’m inviting them all along on my read.