Bram Stoker was an Irishman who considered himself too good to consider himself as much. Living at a time when to better oneself was to Anglify oneself he done as much to the extreme. His magnus opus is the over-rated Dracula. With Dracula, Stoker had the good luck to happen upon an excellent historical character he could capitalise on, but the book has very little else going for it. Based in England with English characters it was when his West Briton condition had gone full-blown.

The Snake's Pass was written several years earlier than Dracula and was in fact Stoker's first book and here he condescends to send his English protagonist to the west coast of Ireland.

The opening chapter of the book is full of promise the young gentleman describes an oncoming storm over the ocean in gothic glory and you warm to the prospect of a horror classic about to unfold.

With his driver the gentleman, Art, takes refuge in a local cottage, where many another travellor has fled to from the rain. Whisky and potatos are passed around and stories are told. Here is where the story reaches its height. Old men tell the tales of the King of the Snakes who once lived in the local mountain in whose shadow they all live. Saint Patrick confronted this snake and it ran deep into the mountain where its golden crown is still said to be. Another tale is told about how some lost French soldiers after the 1798 rebellion got lost with their chest of gold on the mountain also. This is all told in a very accurate depiction of the Connaught accent:

'"Catch me first!" sez the Shnake; an' wid thathe pops undher the wather, what began to bubble up and boil. Well thin! the good Saint stood bewildhered, for as he was lukin' the wather began to disappear out of the wee lake - and then the ground iv the hill began to be shaken as if the big shnake was rushin' round and round to down deep undher the ground.'

Art and Andy his driver then arse about for an unnecessary amount of time until Art comes to meet Dick an old school friend. Dick and Andy go on and on about bogs in an indecipherable way. I think you'd need to have an avid interest and a fair amount of background knowledge to gather what the hell they are on about.

A man known locally as black Murdock an evil money lender has swindled Phelim Joyce out of his land and has hired Dick to help him look for the hidden treasure on it. Everyone hates Murdock, Dick included and his employment under him is made all the worse due to the fact that the woman he loves is Phelim Joyce's daughter Norah and Norah won't have anything to do with him because he's helping Murdock.

Art himself has fallen in love with a woman whose name he does not know and he has also never laid eyes on Dick's Norad or so he thinks. And so a large amount of time is taken up with these love affairs and it's painfully obvious throughout that it's the same woman. Andy knows and it's a Shakespearean style plot with mistaken identities and the fool in the middle who knows everything trying to orchestrate a happy conclusion.

In effect though it's just boring. You wonder how Art could be so stupid and Dick so pathetic and you forget that there's this hidden treasure storyline that is pretty much set aside for a while.

Norah is a horribly empty character. Treated as nothing more than a love object with no personality. The more we get to know about her the more pathetic she becomes. If you have any concept of feminism you'll hate Stoker's Norah to death. So servile to her father and to her suitor and such a weak person as to be nothing more than a caricature

The story is ultimately predictable and badly told. It's a very short hidden treasure story split in half with a big wedge of crap confused love story in the middle and it has too much complex language about bogs that just doesn't make sense.

Art is an arrogant, unlikeable fool and for a tale that "speaks most openly about the contemporary political climate in Ireland" all I see is a rich English man coming over and condescending to the lowly, unworthy, uneducated Irish peasants, as they are portrayed. Their only apparent hope of any improvement is through the English man's benevolence. There's really no commentary on Irish politics to speak of. In fact, I thought it very crude of Stoker to have Art buy off the peasants lands and have them go to America. Are we really supposed to like this man? A book written during the Land War and here we have a English man actually re-taking land of the Irish rather than the other way around.

I really disliked this crap book. Bram Stoker was not a great writer or man.

I liked the mythology facet and at first I really expected to like this book. The tales of the King of the Snakes and the French soldiers hooked me initially but it really doesn't do enough with this. It's like Stoker wrote and made the book up as he went along and after a few chapters went on this bog talking, confused romance tangent that no-one could possibly enjoy.

In story telling and general idea it can keep you interested and though I have my hang-ups I wasn't completely disgusted with it. It can be readable and I think many people will like it despite me. It's nothing along the lines of Dracula though so do not expect horror for this is a thriller/romance novel.

I rate it 3 stars as I think that's fairest. It has an anti-Irish sentiment in it that I can't overcome and it is lacking in overall vision and structure but it has a pulp appeal ( )