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June 30

In which Jonathan finally has enough and grows a spine! Go Keanu!

For those working with abridged versions looking to know where we are in the story

This entry marks the end of our time in Transylvania. We read the first few bits of what is happening in England earlier but they were largely introducing us to the rest of the cast.

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I’ve been getting into a bad habit of missing several days and catching up later (since I’m trying to be more consistent with my Spanish), but at least I’m caught up?

June 30 marks an important transition point: at this point Jonathan has attempted his final escape from the castle. Will he be successful? Thank you for the quick overview @nopenopenope; how’s everyone else doing? Do we still have some other participants?

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I am currently reading it in English (I already read it in Spanish years ago), mostly as a refresher - I’ll probably attempt to read it in Japanese next year, should be fun :bat:

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I have definitely fallen behind, but I will play catch up eventually. :see_no_evil:

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Small update for today:

July 8

More observations on Renfield; his pets are slowly sizing up. For some reason I find the Spanish word for sparrow, ā€œgorriónā€, oddly cute.

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A new update!

July 18

Ah, I’ve always really liked the Demeter setup; it’s a perfect little slice of horror and not just because of all the new sea/boat vocab. Did anyone see the move they recently released? Like, last year or so? Know if it’s any good?

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I haven’t. Nor Renfield though that was supposed to be rather bad. But it does speak to the cultural power that Dracula continues to have, that even the tertiary characters and short interludes like this continue to fascinate. I did check the listing at my local library and the Demeter DVD has a spanish dub, could be worth it for some?

And, yeah, this was a fun chapter.

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July 20

In which Renfield ends up doing the inevitable (oh! poor little sparrows!). And Dr Seward reminds us that none of us are as far from madness as we’d hope (oh! the things he’d like to do to poor little renfield)

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July 22

In which we return to the Demeter for a short update in which the captain makes the mistake of heading straight past Gibraltar rather than sunning himself and his crates of dirt under the wonderful Andalucian sun for a few weeks. The Alhambra is fantastic and they do a moonlight tour that even Drac would enjoy. I suspect that the Captain will regret passing up this opportunity.

since, I’m not allowed to post 3x in a row, I’m adding this here …

July 24

In which the Captain of the Demeter is definitely regretting not going to the Alhambra when he had the chance.

This is also my last contribution for awhile. I’m turning off my internet for a few months of self-care so as to avoid turning into a crazed, little Renfield, endlessly doomscrolling and stocking up flies in anticipation of the end of the world.

I’ll continue reading along but from a little greater distance.

Happy reading!

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Posting for you, though looks like you won’t need it for a bit. I hope everything goes well for you, and look forward to hopefully seeing you again!

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July 24

I haven’t had my normal Spanish copy on me for the last few weeks; instead I’ve been reading the Querido Draculario version. So I don’t know if it’s different than my usual, but anyway: I think this might be the first entry with a character speaking with a heavy accent. Iirc the Japanese translation I read didn’t bother trying to recreate any of them beyond a token effort; the translation given in Querido Draculario does appear to have some dialectal speech, but again it doesn’t seem all that thick. In addition, interestingly, the dialectal speech is italicized, which ends up being kind of handy. One look and I know whether I’m not understanding a ā€œstandardā€ Spanish word or not.

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We’re rolling right along~ It’s been an interesting week or so; we’ve been bouncing between the mostly-idyllic English countryside and ship of horrors Demeter. Mostly still set-up; I suppose nothing can really get rolling until the Count reaches dry land.

Anyone else here still reading along who doesn’t mind putting down their thoughts every once in a while? I’m at the 3 post limit, and while I may be exempt due to being the thread creator, I’m not sure there’s much point in me continuing to post if I just talking to myself.

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I have fallen behind, but I like reading your thoughts. :pleading_face:

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July 30

One advantages of having poor memory and having reading this book so many years ago, is that I can’t remember almost any of the details :sweat_smile:

I imagine our dear Count doesn’t plan to eat (drink?) every person on the ship as he probably needs it to reach harbor safely and not get the cargo where he’s in inspected.

I enjoy the Demeter entries since they have this classic horror feeling of something dreadful lurking in the shadows, so it’s a bit sad they are so short (but makes sense for a captain’s log, I guess).

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I’d love to read this book again with fresh eyes. I suppose that’s one reason why I like to re-experience stuff I like in different languages: trying to chase that high of first contact.

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August 1 marks the first day in a long while that I can officially move my book progress forward on Natively. :partying_face: 15% → 18%! Just since the daily entry jumps around so much, I end up having jerky progress from waiting for the sequential page count to tick forward.

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August 3

Finally, the mystery is solved! I can’t believe the captain’s second-in-command killed all those people; you never can tell with people these days, I suppose. :fearful:

You know, I’ve always wondered, how often does the Count eat? He’s going through these sailors like candy; is it because he’s that hungry, or needs to look ā€œhealthyā€ for his London debut? Or he’s concerned about witnesses seeing all his boxes of dirt and wanted to off them early? :thinking: Which then makes me consider, how well does he know his way around ships? Like, I always kind of assumed he was picking people off strategically so as not to interfere with the running of the ship, but maybe he’s just gotten lucky?

(And I’ll need someone to post after me, thanks~)

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Aug 3rd

Same questions.

At this point there’s no way to properly maneuver the ship to the point it might sink. Can the Count swim? I mean, generally the tradition is that vampires don’t breath, so their lunges don’t have the air to stay afloat. Then again, maybe he can breath, just doesn’t need to? Maybe he can just turn into mist or a bat :bat: !?

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Aug 3

Vampires also have a thing about running water and/or large bodies of water, right? They can’t cross them?

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