The Literature Dragon

Loves books. Especially classics. Please ask me about books.

[thelitteraturedragon]

Ough.

I was reading my compilation of Sherlock Holmes works and hit The Adventure of the Yellow Face.

Fucking ow?!?!

I mean, I loved it. The whole thing. Just wasn't expecting the absolute gut punch of a story.

[thelitteraturedragon]

Hear me out.

I love what dark romance is. Fundamentally, I do.

But I do not love what it has become.

I love books that explore taboo topics. That are not afraid to delve deep into the human psyche and pull out the twisted monsters that are born there to expose to the cold light of day.

I even love books that depict toxic relationships. Books that show us all the awful sides of an emotion like love. Books that show us our vices. Our flaws. All the imperfections and horrors that we hide behind the perfectly crafted facade of being human.

I do not like the romanticization of abuse. I do not like "having a stalker is hot".

Dark romance was always meant to be about the darkness within. The cold, cruel parts. It is a counterpart to our perfect fantasies. It tears back that velvet curtain that we so carefully hang to show the rotted wall underneath.

It isn't supposed to be healthy. It isn't supposed to be aspirational.

You aren't reading dark romance.

You're reading a stereotypical romance novel with added edge.

And I want to be so clear about this, in spite of the prose.

If that is what you desire, it's perfectly alright.

There is a reason these books are being made. It is because someone loves them. I used to adore Twilight, because sometimes, I didn't want to think about what I was reading. Sometimes, I didn't want to analyze.

But... I can't help but feel that we should have separate labels for the two. If only for my own peace of mind.

[thelitteraturedragon]

Me, reading: Why is this stupid books so sad?

My friend: You're literally reading a book called "The Miserables", what did you expect?

[thelitteraturedragon]

I know you're getting 20,000 leagues under the sea (from your previous posts)

But I think you should also read Journey to the center of the earth (also by Jules Verne).

Sometimes 20,000 leagues gets too repetetive (it has wayyy too many descriptions of marine life and ocean but it's still pretty good), and I like Journey more (it's more adventure filled and it's pretty fast paced).

I've actually finished 20000 leagues! It was great, and in my Verne collection, I have Journey to The Center of The Earth!

Sadly, I am deep in Les Mis right now. Suffering. But it will be put onto my extensive reading list.

[professional-rat-eater-deactiva]

My detailed plan for a Dracula adaptation that doesn’t inevitably disappoint people:

I get the movie greenlit. The budget is a billion dollars. Everyone wants to know why. That feels excessive.

The trailer comes out. It’s obscene. Explosions. Out of place sex scenes. Someone’s hanging off the side of a train at one point. Also the train is on fire. Quincey lassos Dracula at one point. Wait, there’s a cowboy in Dracula? Gun fights. Dracula with a glock. Those didn’t exist back then. Blood everywhere. Whatever other shit needs to be there to bait people into seeing the movie.

People see the movie out of morbid curiosity. This is the theatre exclusive run. They come in and sit down. The lights dim.

Then they brighten again. The doors lock. It was a trap. There was glue on all of the seats. Now they’re all trapped. The trailer was all that was filmed and the entire budget was used.

I come out with a copy of Dracula. No one is allowed to leave until they listen to me read the entire thing. I do this in every cinema in the world. When I’m done, they can leave. No one will believe them.

Bonus when it comes out on streaming: the victims of the cinema run start posting online. Everyone thinks it’s fake but they watch the movie anyway. They can’t help themselves. They press play. I emerge from the floorboards. They’re glued to the nearest surface. I hold them hostage in their own home and they listen to the entire novel. Then I release them.

Over eight billion people on earth. When I’m done, there will be no one left to claim Dracula is romantically involved with Mina. It’s foolproof.

[thelitteraturedragon]

If your voice ever needs a break, you call me. I once read the entirety of the Illiad aloud to my sister. I can help you in this goal.

[encryptidarchivist]

count dracula? uhhh ok. one

[andromedajones7]

to everyone saying that he's not a one;

yall clearly havent read the book...

He is a remorseless murderer and rapist who delights in the slaughter of innocents and relies on the usage of hypnosis on women to make them easier prey.

He feeds a LIVE baby to his 'brides' in one scene.

He's a irredeemable monster.

And don't let any modern adaption or media fool you otherwise.

[thelitteraturedragon]

THANK YOU!

Like, what happened with Mina was so obviously a rape allegory. I have no idea how someone saw that and went "ah, yes. Romantic".

On another note, Dracula is a -1, Johnathan Harker is a solid 10. Ya boy is completely obsessed with Mina. To the point where he wants her to turn him into a vampire if she turns, but he agrees to kill her if it comes down to it because it's what she wants!

Also, he smacked the rapist and serial killer in the face with a shovel.

[aurevoir-mes-amis-deactivated20]

petition to rename the usa ‘south canada’

[mellowminty]

what about alaska

are we then normal canada

[saahs]

canada a bit to the left

[officialvatican]

[conflagreat]

What about South America? Is that just America? Or South South Canada?

[starshipenterprisee-blog]

[danyinfj]

[te-odora]

i cried my ass of laughing

[plonts]

[prinxessleia-deactivated2016032]

WARM CANADA

i caN’T BREATHE OH MY GOD

[hypnomega]

I’m not even from Canada but I approve this change of names

[pebbles5ever]

[the-archivist-system]

@valentine-villefort

[fizzyfr0g3]

@hellsite-hall-of-fame

[thelitteraturedragon]

Canadian approved. Carry on.

[amerlcanapparel-deactivated2020]

when she says she doesn’t send nudes

[straighthater]

when guys objectify women and expect them to send nudes

[timelordpillbug]

when someone asks you about your nuclear plans for russia

[hikingnerd]

When Russia sends you nudes

[dr-thackery]

[dismantlerepaired]

[ilovepretzelrods]

[thegingerbalrog]

[onwardwall]

[miss-jaxon-flaxon-waxon]

#what the fuck happened here

[her-eyes-dared-me-with-danger]

This is my favorite post in all of tumblr

[kyloschuyler]

reminder that this post is now illegal in Russia

[tree-of-blue-squirrel]

reblog it, because Russia can´t

[maradaisykat]

Thanks Obama 

[my-sisters-eyeball]

Wtf

[roomba-with-knives-taped-to-it]

When Russia makes this post illegal

[earthnicity]

I HAVE ONLY SEEN THIS IN SCREENSHOTS

[dovahdez]

I will reblog this every goddamn time I find it on my dash

[a-wondering-thought-deactivated]

I have a piece of tumblr history on my blog now

[hellsitegenetics]

String identified: atgctactttaatcaaaaattcaTattattatttgaagtcaacatTaaataattgaATCTgtgattaaacttg

Closest match: Bombyx mori BmN4 cell DNA, chromosome 24, sequence Common name: Domestic Silk Moth

(image source)

[willifolts]

When the domestic silk moth sends you nudes

[scp-threats-is-back]

Domestic silk moth is just being friendly

[yoink-a-doink]

Now the moth is banned in Russia

[fantasylover4538]

…well what the fuck is this

[kingofkaumidy2]

Art.

[shower-thoughts-last-responder]

[andromedajones7]

THE ORIGINAL THING CAME UP ON MY DASH THIS IS INCREDIBLE

[thelitteraturedragon]

I want to keep this here.

[thelitteraturedragon]

New acquisitions from the book store!

Jane Eyre

Leviathan- Thomas Hobbes

And a fully translated copy of the Egyptian book of the dead, with heiroglyphics, Egyptian, and English!

[aupple]

👏DON’T 👏 CALL 👏 YOURSELF 👏 AN 👏 ALLY 👏 UNLESS 👏 YOU 👏 GIVE 👏 YOUR 👏 ENEMY’S 👏 DAUGHTER 👏LETTERS 👏 OF 👏 RECOMMENDATION👏 AND 👏 A 👏 MAN’S 👏 PASSPORT 👏 SO 👏 SHE 👏 CAN 👏 RUN 👏 AWAY 👏 WITH 👏 HER 👏 GIRLFRIEND👏

[andromedajones7]

I stand by this. Fight me.

[thelitteraturedragon]

Edmond Dantes, you absolute legend

[thelitteraturedragon]

When you know your friends won't read classics so you tell them about only the LGBTQ+ parts so that they read the whole thing.

[thelitteraturedragon]

What’s 5 classics you think everyone should read asap?

First and foremost, The Count of Monte Cristo. And it isn't even a question. I could write an essay about how good Monte Cristo is, and I will at some point.

Secondly, the Odyssey. Did I enjoy it? Not as much as I liked the Illiad, but once you read it, you'll never see the greatest works the same way again.

Thirdly, Dracula. For movie directors, especially. Please understand that nothing about Dracula and Mina is in any way romantic. But beyond that, it's just a good book.

Fourthly, Frankenstein. People misinterpret this one just as badly as Dracula. Most of them have not read the thing. Please read the thing before you start talking about how Victor Frankenstein was a terrible person.

Lastly, Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven. This one is an exemplary example of how to use descriptive language and symbolism.

[thelitteraturedragon]

Everytime I read a classic book nothing can come close to the masterpiece that is the count of Monte cristo. Do you have any similar recommendations (preferably involving revenge until the other persons life is destroyed and they can’t even show their face in public or they’re dead)?

Well, from what I've heard and read:

For a revenge story, Wuthering Heights has a similar "destroying lives" idea, although it's not nearly as good, in my opinion

For something by the same author, The Three Muskateers. Dumas is a legend

But you're right. Monte Cristo is a class on its own, and I really think nothing will ever match it. All the characters feel real and everybody has a soul that I haven't seen replicated anywhere else.

[thelitteraturedragon]

Things you should never do.

Challenge someone with the last name "Shelly" to a friendly writing competition

[miketalkstrash-deactivated20170]

Let’s not forget to acknowledge Alexandre Dumas this Black History Month

The writer of two of the most well known stories worldwide, The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo was a black man. 

That’s excellence.

[latinagabi]

Let’s not forget that he was played on screen by a white man. And the fact that he was black is barely ever mentioned or the book he wrote inspired by his experiences.

[princessnijireiki]

Other things not to forget about Alexandre Dumas:

chose to take on his slave grandmother’s last name, Dumas, like his father did before him.

grew up too poor for formal education, so was largely self-taught, including becoming a prolific reader, multilingual, well-travelled, and a foodie, resulting in his writing both a combination encyclopedia/cookbook (which just— is fucking outrageous to me) AND the adaptation of The Nutcracker on which Tchaikovsky based his ballet

he also wrote a LOOOOT of nonfiction and fiction about history, politics, and revolution, bc he was pro-monarchy, but a radical cuss, and that got him in a lot of hot water at home and abroad.

even beyond that, he generally put up with a lot of racist bullshit in France, so he went and wrote a novel about colonialism and a BLATANTLY self-insert anti-slavery vigilante hero (which he then cribbed from to write the Count of Monte Cristo, the main character of which, Edmond Dantés, Dumas also based on himself).

(…a novel which also features a LOAD of PoC beyond the Count, and at LEAST one queer character, btw, bc EVERY MOVIE ADAPTATION OF ANYTHING BY DUMAS IS A LIE; seriously, at LEAST one of the four Musketeers is Black, y'all.)

famously, when some fuckshit or other wanted to come at Dumas with some anti-Black foolishness, Dumas replied, “My father was a mulatto, my grandfather was a Negro, and my great-grandfather a monkey. You see, Sir, my family starts where yours ends.”

for the bicentennial of his birthday, Pres. Jacques Cirac was like, “…sorry about the hella racism,” and had Dumas’s ashes reinterred at the Panthéon of Paris, bc if you’re gonna keep the corpses of the cream of the crop all together, Dumas’s more widely read and translated than literally everybody else.

and they are still finding stuff old dude wrote, seriously; like discovering “lost” works as recently as 2002, publishing stuff for the first time as recently as 2005.

ALSO IMPORTANT:

SWAG

[sugaryumyum-deactivated20170907]

I am absolutely ashamed to admit I had NO idea Dumas was black.

[elodieunderglass]

when this post first went around (a year ago apparently) I was like BUT WHAT ABOUT DADDY DUMAS THOUGH because basically

daddy general dumas was an immense fierce french warrior who was a 6 foot plus, stunningly gorgeous and charismatic Black gentleman 

he invaded egypt

the native egyptians said “is this napoleon? this must be napoleon. we for one welcome our majestic new overlord”

then napoleon showed up

napoleon has all the presence of yesterday’s plain Tesco hummus

the native egyptians were like “… no… no, we’ve thought very hard and we’ll have General Dumas actually”

this did not make napoleon happy

in fact it made him jealous

napoleon felt so emasculated that he launched a campaign of revenge against General Dumas, including taking away his pension, that probably inspired a lot of Alexandre’s rather satisfying scenes in which fathers are nobly avenged and the money-grubbing villains are rubbed in the mud

[liza-not-lisa-deactivated202401]

I was never taught that he was Black either. WTF.

[petermorwood]

General Dumas (aka Thomas Alexandre Davy de La Pailleterie) looked like this…

…and like this…

…while “Napoleon has all the presence of yesterday’s plain Tesco hummus“…

:-D

I suspect Alexandre Dumas would have laughed at that, because besides looking like someone who laughed a lot…

…he was also a foodie.

[sicktress]

He was also born in present-day Haiti. Back then, it was the French colony of Saint-Domingue.

[you-are-talking-about-this-deac]

General Dumas was also the highest ranking officer of African descent to have command of a European army. EVER. 

[biblioaesthetica]

His stuff is in the public domain, you can find them on Project Gutenberg here:

Project Gutenberg offers 73,007 free eBooks for Kindle, iPad, Nook, Android, and iPhone.

And for those of you who would like to try audio versions, this is what is on LibriVox, the free, volunteer run audiobook version of Project Gutenberg:

LibriVox

[thelitteraturedragon]

Reblogging one of my favorite authors

[thelitteraturedragon]

A list of questions for you to ramblr:

• a question I have been asked myself in asks before : what do you think of the motherhood interpretation of carmilla

• How do you imagine dracula's castle

• I think vampirism as portrayed in carmilla is a metaphor for bpd (not saying people with bpd are bad but saying vampirs in carmilla are misunderstood as evil). Thoughts?

• I think lucy westerna was a very polite lady who followed social conventions. I love her but don't agree with the interpretation that she was woke. What do you think about lucy

• Mina harker is just perfect she can't exist irl. Not a question a statement

• laura's father was the real villain in carmilla

• have you read the yellow wallpaper? If yes do you think she commit suicide kr that she was actually creeping? I believe the former

• I also like to think carmilla died of suicide and tge illness if hers was depression

• what do you think of the interpretation that Frankenstein is meant to be a portrayal of women are treated? I quite like it

• also heathcliff tell me what you think about him

• Cathy was shut down by her social status I think. She was a fierce child and not racist but she was made to be the way she turned out. Thoughts?

• what are your favorite classics?

1. I haven't read carmilla yet, sadly :(. It's very high on my list of "to gets", and once I finish the Greek epics, I'm getting it and Twenty Thousand Leagues!

2. I imagine Dracula's castle, in my heart, as a very normal looking castle initially. Very square. A few Towers, but built more like a fortress. Grey stone

3. Oh, Lucy was a traditional kind of girl for sure. I think she would be accepting of things, but she strikes me as a very white picket fence type of girly. And that is just fine.

4. This applies to literally everybody in Dracula. Besides the titular character. What do you mean Lucy rejected two men and they were both super cool about it?

5. Also haven't read the yellow wallpaper. This is giving me many ideas to read.

6. Ah, Frankenstein. A favorite. I think that a lot of characters who aren't women still exhibit stereotypically feminine traits. Namely Victor, with his fainting, creating and "birthing" the Creature, and constant fear of being perceived as crazy. Yeah, I could see Victor being a metaphor for that. The more I think about it, the more I see it, actually. As for the women in the story, Elizabeth and Justine are less about lived experiences, but they still show societal inequalities in their own ways. Namely, in the failure of the justice system.

7. I haven't read Wuthering Heights yet, but based on descriptors, Heathcliff reminds me of Edmond Dantes. Make of this whatever you like.

8. My favorite classics are The Count of Monte Cristo and The Illiad, with Frankenstein as another contender. Edgar Allen Poe is my favorite gothic writer, though.

[aurin-avenir]

Every time I go outside, I'm reminded that I was built for lurking in ancient libraries, not functioning in society.

[thelitteraturedragon]

The Dragon yearns for the libraries of old.