The Ruthinian 1 - Ruthin School

The Dracula: Ruthinian a modern retelling of the classic story 36 by Bram Stoker
Some of the setting and scenes, characters and tales herein will be familiar to fans and devotees
of the original text of Dracula by the American, Bram Stoker. However, the premise has changed:
all the events described in the original have already happened and the survivors are grappling
with what is left of their lives. Obsession, fantasy and desire all make for a heady brew of
characters bound for conflict...but vampires? the Living Dead, nosferatu? And surely not in
Whitby, of all places? Yes, yes, yes – if the extravagant claims of the characters are to be credited.
Perhaps Dracula the vampire may be construed as a indictment of Old World decadence, with its
myths and atavism, its tradition, its culture of occasional casual and sustained cruelty. Indeed,
the Count exults in his grotesque vision for final world domination.
These themes are familiar to us, having a horrific resonance with events which have transpired
in the twentieth century – events which continue to dominate news headlines. Ideologies,
despots: all are totemic of our modern times. Yet Count Dracula, conceptually, is less an external
and much more an internal manifestation of the darker side of our potential as humans. And
there is hope: thankfully, the beast may be vanquished yet.
Nevertheless, not all emerge unscathed. Fault lines are apparent: Lucy must suffer ultimately
for her dalliance with the Lord of Darkness and Mina is almost lost to his clutches. People are
seduced and dehumanised by their weaknesses and the seemingly easy temptations of the
flesh.
Conversely, Dracula is no seductive siren – his is no sedulous song; his breath is fetid, his
aspect, blood-chilling; his promises, empty. He is the nemesis of life, of everything good, worthy
and true.
Such are demagogues. Hiding behind words, they seek only self-aggrandisement. They are
lost in their lust for power. “One death is a tragedy, a million merely a statistic,” thus quoth
Stalin in a pithy and horrifyingly frank personal aphorism. The Great Dictator’s actions spoke,
as his words, annihilating whole communities and condemning millions to penury and
premature death.
The story has now been translated to North Wales, land of green hills and simpler, more
wholesome values of traditions and community, far, far from the baneful Borgo Pass. Here
refugees from a past horror congregate, and seek strange solace in recounting and reliving
events. They seek to expurgate the incipient darkness. Can Morris, Godalming, Harker and
Mina move forward, in a mutual healing process? Can there be some exorcism, some ‘closure’
on that which has been? Can the past be laid to rest?
NJRB