TIMELINE NOTES
1. J.H. left Munich, Germany at 8:35 p.m. on May 1st
2. J.H. arrived at Vienna, Austria on the following morning, May 2nd. He was supposed to arrive at 6:46 a.m. (His train was an hour late, so he actually arrived at 7:46 a.m.)
3. J.H. left from Vienna to travel through Budapest, Hungary that same day.
4. After nightfall on May 2nd, J.H. arrived at Klausenburg, Romania where he would stay the night at the Hotel Royale.
5. J.H’s train to Transylvania was supposed to leave a little before 8:00am. He was, almost, late to the train station – arriving at 7:30 a.m. on May 3rd. He sat in the train carriage for over an hour before the train “began to move.” (This would have him leaving the station at 8:30 a.m., at the earliest.)
6. J.H. arrived in Bistritz, Romania after nightfall on May 3rd. He was instructed to stay at the Golden Krone Hotel, and so he did.
Seeing as though Johnathan Harker is writing in a journal -a format that can only be created after an experience or upon reflection- it is interesting that he makes such a fuss about punctuality. As the reader, we are “experiencing” his story with some delay for time has passed between (1) the actual story taking place, (2) the time/date that the story was written, and (3) the reader’s reading of the text.
In many ways, our experience of J.H.’s story is untimely… Almost like a cascading set of train delays…
EAST V WEST
The East and the West are different in many ways. The specific cultural difference that has piqued my attention, however, is the underlying relationship that Johnathan Harker has with knowledge/the methods of learning that are endorsed by the West.
As the story is told, it is obvious that the Western methods of knowledge aquisition -or learning- are (1) formal and (2) intitutionalied.
When wanting to learn more about Transylvania, J.H.’s instinct was to look for information about the country in the British Museum of London. When a Western man desires to learn of the East, he looks to the institutions known to him: Western institutions, built by Western men with a Western sense of what it means “to know.” What complicates this epistemic issue, then, is how little was “adequately” documented in the British Museum regarding Transylvania. Per J.H. the Carpathian Mountains are “one of the wildest and least known portions of Europe.” Of course, “known” in this application is to be known in the Western sense of the word.
The Carpathian Mountains are not unknown, it’s simply that the parts that are “known” are limited by the West’s conception of what it means to know.
So, then, what does the West know of Transylvania?
The first detail provided about this region is the distinction between the four nationalities that live ithere: the Saxons (in the south), the Wallachs (descendants of the Dacians), the Magyars in the West, and the Szekelys in the East and North (descended from Attila and the Huns). There is no particular insight offered by the descriptions of these people, aside from the fact that J.H. will be traveling among the Szekelys. Presumably, this puts him at risk. Attila was not known for his hospitalities, after all.
The second detail, as noted by J.H. regarding Transylvania, is the following: “I [Johnathan Harker] read that every known superstition in the world is gathered into the horseshoe of the Carpathians [mountains surrounding Count Dracula’s castle], as if it were some sort of imaginative whirlpool; if so my [J.H.] stay may be very interesting.”
Considering that this claim comes from the Western perspective -from a culture interested in facts, logic, and formal studies- it is interesting to ask whether the lack of knowledge about Transylvania stems from (1) an actual knowledge gap or (2) an inability of the West to describe the mysteries of the East. “Superstitions,” by Western standards, do not have the same sort of credibility as facts. “Superstitions” are evidence a local mythology or lore, something that is to be taken as part of the imagination and nothing else.
This highlights an implicit hierarchy of knowledge. If facts are more reliable than superstitions, then to know of a place is to have studied its facts. Objective truths about a place are discovered in that place’s maps and books; its texts and language; its history and people. This is how a place is “made known” to us… Right? There is no factual truth found in superstitions? Is there?
OTHER OBSERVATIONS
– Paprika & Thirst
– The Western Urge to gather and document information (J.H.’s journal, the various recipes that J.H. mentions wanting to acquire, etc.)
– Shorthand
ENTRY LEVEL 