Excellent book on neglected character in fiction
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When the Hugh Jackman movie Van Helsing was released I was surprised it had taken so long for Van Helsing to be given a lead role of his own, although he was given very much the lead in a lot of lesser Hammer Horror productions.
This is an anthology of stories by different authors writing in different styles and perspectives about Van Helsing with an excellent introduction considering the character, much more than a counterpart to the villain in Stokers Dracula but equally as archetypical as the infamous vampire.
All facets of Van Helsing are considered, he is a character who is at once learned and rational, a doctor, lawyer, professor but also given to bouts of melancholy, and the obsessive study of folklore and superstition, his wife has gone insane and his son is dead.
There are two sides to the character and he is fighting the chaos within himself as much as he is in the world in the form of disease and the evil (for vampires are evil in Stokers book and that is long before their valorisation as "alternative" by pop culture) of vampires.
I loved this collection because, as I say, I think Van Helsing is a neglected character in film and literature, even though it isnt difficult to discern the Van Helsing "type" in most movies or books. That is someone who appears with courage, confidence and knowledge to aid and abet the struggling/besieged/overwhelmed good guys against forces they cant properly comprehend.
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