The Lair of the White Worm by Bram Stoker

Reading this novel by Bram Stoker made me very sad, not because of the contents of the plot but because the talent which produced Dracula in 1897 had so tragically and obviously diminished by 1911, when this novel was published. Stoker had suffered the first of the several strokes that led to his death in 1912, so the wonder is perhaps that he was able to write a novel at all. It's unfortunate that his inadequacies were exposed so publicly.

While Dracula certainly had its faults, the cumulative effect was to make the unbelievable believable. The plotting was tight and logical within its created framework; the method of exposition (letters and diaries from different characters) was effective; the tone of horror and increasing danger built to a satisfactory climax.

In contrast, The Lair of the White Worm reads like the script for a B-grade horror movie, one so bad that it becomes funny in a perverse way. It suffers from all the faults usually present in such movies: lack of focus, with too many different perils; inexplicably stupid actions by the "good guys," which constantly place them in danger; plot holes so enormous that the story hardly makes sense; a general lack of discretion and restraint.

The plot concerns Lady Arabella, a seductive woman always dressed in tight-fitting white clothing who has a hole in her ancient house in which apparently lives a large white serpent. Could they be one and the same? Also, a nearby wealthy landowner has powers of mesmerism, and engages in staring bouts with two of his neighboring young ladies, eventually ending when he stares one of the girls to death. He also constantly flies a huge kite shaped like a hawk which scares away all the birds in the neighborhood and has a supernatural effect on the neighbors. Also, the wealthy landowner has a frightening and hideously ugly servant brought from Africa who is a practitioner of voodoo. Although the servant's actions are very threatening toward the young lady heroines in the early parts of the book, he is removed about halfway when he is dragged into the hole by Lady Arabella, when he mortally offends her by a romantic (sexual) proposition. See what I mean by lack of focus.

A discussion of the inexplicable actions of the characters and the holes in the plot could take many pages. Just take my word for it.

As far as lack of discretion, Stoker openly displays an unbelievable amount of racial bigotry in his depiction of the African servant. As an example, here is a quote: "If you have the slightest fault to find with that infernal negro, shoot him at sight. A swelled-head negro, with a bee in his bonnet, is one of the worst difficulties in the world to deal with. So better make a clean job of it, and wipe him out at once....the law doesn't concern itself with dead negroes. A few more or less do not matter. To my mind it's rather a relief." Not only the quoted character but also the omniscient narrator displays this attitude, never failing to attach derogatory descriptions and comments whenever the servant is mentioned.

Stoker also fails to employ restraint in his Freudian subtext--he might as well have written in all caps: I FIND THE SEXUAL ASPECTS OF THE FEMALE TO BE REPULSIVE, SMELLY, VILE, AND GROTESQUELY BLOODY. His description of Lady Arabella's "hole" is so over-the-top suggestive as to become one of the funny bits.

Another funny bit: the manly young hero comments, "I never thought this fighting an antediluvian monster would be such a complicated job."

I would not recommend this book to anyone. And that's sad.