Saturday, March 18, 2006

Dracula on a winter's night...

The wind howled through the late dark winter trees as wispy shadows crossed the remnants of the full moon as we sat around a roaring fire discussing Dracula.

We spent the first part of the evening having dinner at the Potawattami Inn at Pokagon State Park, a new venue for us. The dining room was quiet except for the eight of our voices often speaking at the same time...gossip, authors...other books. (We were forbidden to speak of THE BOOK until we finished coffee and were cozily sitting around the fire). Finally we could wait no longer and retreated to the foyer. With dim lights we curled up into large leather chairs which we had pulled close to the fire and opened up our dog-eared copies of The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova.

The premise of the book is the hunt for Dracula and his grave. Of course believing in Vampires and things that go bump in the night would help the imagination of this tale. The story is woven between time periods and different lives....from the time of Dracula to the present time. In between the story line was a great deal of culture and history of Turkey, Romania, and Bulgaria. While discussing this book in the darkness of night in front of a roaring fire, it was difficult to differentiate between fact and fiction. But then again, maybe there is no difference. The book was fascinating although there were a few places (about two-thirds through) that you just wanted it to be over, find and kill Dracula and move on!!

I'll not give away the ending in case you will be reading it yourself...but let's say, we all saw the ending in a new light and we left looking over our shoulders. Events actually happened on the drive home to several of our members. You read the book for yourself! We ended up giving the book four stars out of five (quite a disagreement over that one as well!!)

Our next read is the controversial, A Million Little Pieces, by James Frey. OK, so it didn't all happen to him, but what a great imagination. Why not read along with us?

Until next time,
This is Maggie Mae from the Page Turners


Lou Ann Homan is a writer, teacher, and storyteller who lives in Angola, Indiana. She is available for writing seminars, storytelling, and speaking engagements. She can be contacted at locketoftime@aol.com. You can read more at www.louannhoman.com

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