Dracula

I started reading this because of the Dracula Daily emails, since it was free to sign up and hey, why not? But I Never expected to actually LOVE Dracula this much!!!!!!! I owe a lot of my affection for it to the emails, since they got sent to me in actual chronological order, and I know I wouldn't have liked it as much if I didn't read it in chronological order!!!!!!!!!! Either way, absolutely LOVED it!!!!!!!!!!!!

Used the Dracula daily and it was even better in many ways to reading it as originally written because it was sent on the day. Could feel passage of time.

I didn't expect to enjoy this as much as I did. I often struggle with some of the older classics and how flowery the language in them can be, but the writing was very evocative and I could easily follow along.

1860onwards challenge - Book 1 - Dracula (1897)

Atmospheric and haunting beginning - the castle, the crawl down the wall, being kept prisoner. Enthralling moments such as the arrival of the boat in Whitby. Interesting characters such as Van Helsing, Renfield and his conversations with Dr Seward. Tense ending, never sure how it was going to end. Overall a clever structure and a fun read throughout. Perhaps needed some more detailed character development.

Characters ***

Atmosphere *****

Plot ****

Emotion ***

Style ****

3.8

This remains a wonderful story. The opening is the strongest - super creepy journey through the Carpathian mountains and subsequent guest visit (which morphs into imprisonment in a very unsettling way) at Castle Dracula.

After that the story can drag at times, due to far too much phonetic dialect, too many iterations of Lucy coming back from the brink of death, and rising action toward the climax that sometimes feels like reading the time tables for trains & ships. Still, even in audio form when one can't skim these passages, the investment is well worth it.

The full cast Audible recording is delightful, and it's nice to get an extra helping of Tim Curry towards the end, as Van Helsing writes a lengthy account of his journey with Mina. Alan Cumming is great as well, and the actor reading Harker is also really strong.

The parts concerning Dracula were interesting, specially the beginning, but they amount to maybe 8% of the book. The way the story is told, read from the diaries of the involved people, felt like a detailed account of an actual events, not the work of literature I find enthralling to read. So, too much useless details, not enough mystery, horror, fantasy, character development or whatever.

By the way, Van Helsing is a completely asshole. In multiple occasions he possess the facts of the situation and chooses to withhold them from everybody for days, leading them on and asking them to trust him utterly, without asking any questions. Then he acts all sanctimonious when he reveals what he knows.

Siempre quise leerlo, es un clásico me decían. Me encantó, simplemente podría leerlo hasta el cansancio.

The first half is suspenseful and well-paced, and the second half slowed down so much that I almost couldn't finish.  Way, way too many preachy monologues.

Loved it!!

This was an amazing book. No movie has been able to.capture the amazing story housed within these pages

Probably one of my favorite books

It's actually way better than you think it'll be.

This book surprised me. I found it to still be very fresh and impactful despite the cultural familiarity of its story. Some of the passages of dialect seemed slightly obtuse, but other than that, it was a very engaging read. I particularly enjoyed the characterizaton of the Count and the other vampires as actually being quite evil–a refreshing change from the banality and wimpyness of the vampire as portrayed in current television and movies.

so so racist

An instant favorite! I’m shocked that it took me so many years to read this, but it will certainly remain at the top of my list of favorites.

I initially started with the Re: Dracula podcast which releases episodes on the actual diary entry date. I found the voice acting to be good and I enjoyed the novelty but I could not abide by the ads and content warnings so I eventually dropped off in mid September and I only picked it up again with the audible version several months later. This turned out to be a much better way of listening.

Content wise Dracula is something of an oddity. Its first third is excellent with the parallel stories pushing the story along at a satisfying pace. It starts to slow down as everyone eventually converges on London, at times it feels like we are reading through pages of meeting notes as our heros deliberate endlessly. The final third is so drawn out that I started to suspect that the novel was serialised (it's not).

Another irritation is that the novel is very much a 'male-fantasy'. The women are sidelined except as either recipients of the men's noble blood sacrifices, articles of the men's demeaningly progressive compliments (Mina being told she has a "man's brain") or by parroting just how brave and bold said men are.

This is not to say that the novel is bad, just flawed, and I did enjoy listening to it, especially the first half. It's cultural reach is also undeniable and you can feel it's influence well over a century on.

Renfield before Mina comes in the room:


Stoker certainly did not in and of himself earn four stars, but (this hurts to say as a public library employee) the full cast Audible exclusive rendition was very good. You were right, Meredith.

Except for when the women characters did more informal accents, which I found intensely grating and incomprehensible, I do not know why. But for the most part it felt cinematic and expressive.

Ever since [b:Regarding the Fountain|23404|Regarding the Fountain A Tale, in Letters, of Liars and Leaks|Kate Klise|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1311778035l/23404.SX50.jpg|24375], I have loved an epistolary format. There is something about that patchwork of memory and clippings forming a narrative that I find intriguing and fun.

In Dracula (spoilers from 1897 I guess), a lawyer visits a client living in Transylvania, looking to relocate to London. Imagine the lawyer's surprise when the client turns out to be a vampire who is holding him hostage. Meanwhile, his fiancée at home is starting to worry, both about him, and about her friend whose old habit of sleepwalking has resurfaced, leading her on wild adventures each night.

With time multiple doctors and good strong brave Christian men find themselves wrapped up in accepting, then vanquishing the reality of Count Dracula, with a backdrop of dust-caked castles and so-called lunatic asylums.

The pacing is...weird. It feels intentionally slow-moving at some times, but towards the end it becomes really repetitive and non-eventful, only for everything to happen in a rush. Leading up to this, we stay with the two characters for whom the least is going on, so we're kind of in the dark about what's actually going on. Maybe this is a choice to build suspense, but for me it kind of had the opposite effect.

Things I found funny, but I don't think they were supposed to be: - Descriptions of the Count going out in his “lizard fashion” scaling the walls with his toes.- How much of the text is spent with people talking about how much they love the other people who are fighting Dracula with them. As soon as they meet another guy they're like, “He's the bravest most wise and devoted genius hero who I worship and he's also hot and strong and I would gladly fall on my sword for him and we will remain friends forever and I will take care of his wife who I also love and so too do all of our other friends we did in fact just meet twenty minutes ago at the train station but we love each other all the same because we are dear and sweet and poor and God's will be done.”- All the men urging Mina to stay behind because this is men's work (not even that doing this made her extremely easy for the Count to prey on, although like, yeah obviously), only to immediately almost be tricked into freeing Dracula's known devotee from an insane asylum because he convincingly said “I am better now.”- When Van Helsing said a very confusing sentence, and I said out loud to an empty room, “What??” and he followed it up with, “Sorry, that was a really confusing sentence.”- When Morris left the room mid planning session without talking to anyone to try and shoot the problem with a gun. How American of him.

If you do read this, I recommend the Audible version. But you must only get it for free and then cancel your free trial immediately, and then use Libby and hoopla for everything else. For the stakes are greater than life or death.

I've started the year with a hyper-fixation on gothic stories/vampires thanks to the release of Nosferatu, and thought it was about time I read Dracula. This classic is surprisingly easy to read and I enjoyed it so much more than I expected! Nothing was super scary to me but there were some genuinely creepy things that I couldn't stop thinking about after reading the book. 

• I think this needs a reread for me to fully appreciate the ending because on first read, it felt like a fizzle after a strong start. My initial reaction was: Dracula is monster, cunning and ruthless and with such means that he's survived for centuries (and is able to migrate from country to country!). You're telling me he doesn't even put up a fight and our boy band just kills him in his sleep?? But it IS more logical than the idea of a conscious Dracula being defeated by the group. It makes sense that the true climax was the group's race against the sun and the fight with the Romani group, even though my conditioned brain was expecting more of an action movie Dracula vs Van Helsing & co. 
•  I know this was written in 1897 (therefore, sexism) but still couldn't hold in some of the eyerolls while reading this. That said, I loved the two women and the book's reflections on sexuality and gender (in my head at least half the characters here are queer). Loved the portrayal of Mina as a powerful heroine and example of the New Woman, even if she didn't consider herself so. She was a key player and the main reason they were able to defeat Dracula. Thank goodness for her ‘man brain'.
  
  

• Dracula throwing a tantrum after losing his cool when Jonathan cuts himself shaving. The transition from reaching for Jonathan's throat to reigning his fury in, to blaming the ‘wretched' shaving glass (‘“Away with it!” And opening the window with one wrench of his terrible hand, he flung out the glass,'). Bit dramatic.
• Jonathan describing this interaction as ‘very annoying' because he can't see himself shave now without the mirror. Diva.
• Jonathan's realisation that he was alone and there were no servants around after he catches Dracula making his bed. This weirdly made Dracula endearing to me and I couldn't shake this image of him as a lonely boy just wanting to play house, making the bed and scuttling off to make Jonathan's next meal. No wonder he got mad at the three brides for their attempts at Jonathan. It wasn't their turn yet!
  
  

I kind of had a love/like/WTF relationship with this book. It's so darn clever and yet ridiculous at the same time. The characters are exaggerations and silly. And the dialogue, Gah!

On top of that, the “rules” for this whole vampirism thing make no sense at all, and there are no explanations for how they figured out those rules. The good doctor just knows from some dude who told him and assumed it all to be true, no matter how far fetched.

But still, Dracula is an enjoyable romp that explores some interesting themes that I'm unsure the author knew were even there.

This Everyman Library edition (they are always the best editions) includes an introduction by Joan Acocella who concludes with “Dracula is like the work of other nineteenth-century writers. You can complain that their novels are loose, baggy monsters, that their poems are crazy and unfinished. Still, you gasp at what they're saying: the truth.” I think I can agree with that.

book & cook club October Horror Books choice!!

I won't lie, the book is a classic for a reason! However, I do see.... some flaws. The book is INCREDIBLY repetitive and does not need to be nearly so long. Overall, I did really enjoy this re-read, and I would suggest others to read it too <3

Having read them both recently, I think Frankenstein is the better book but Dracula will forever be my favourite. The first Goth song wasn’t Boris Karloff’s Dead now was it?

This book is a classic. Having said that, it is important to keep in mind the following:

-Ideas put in the book are hardly compatible with today's views (religiously, familiar, even in gender matters)

-Pacing and events considered important back then may be boring or irrelevant today

-Writing style is different from modern writing

All of the above may be obvious to some but I wanted to put them as a reminder for all who read this review.

Now, even considering the points above, and having read Jules Verne, who is contemporary of Bram (yeah, different genres but still gives an idea of what was considered interesting back in late 1800s), to me this book was ok, boring at times and very entertaining at others.

I wish it wasn't as repetitive, and the foreshadowing was quite obvious (like I was screaming "Lucy is turned!", "Mina is targeted!", "He hypnotized them!") By the time the characters deducted what was happening my reaction was like "you don't saaaaay! What gave it away, like the last 50 pages or so?" Especially since they were supposed to be documenting and sharing everything around half the book forward, so they were supposed to be on the same page at all times...

I think the scene that just kept my eyes rolling was when Jonathan saw Mina paler by the day, weaker... and his deduction was that her state was due to her affliction for not being included in the men's conversation instead of what was obvious -she was attacked by Dracula... like come on... really dude?

The pacing was very slow as well, and not to mention the dialogues with some locals or seamen with weird accents that just made the whole thing completely hard to understand, let alone to follow.

So overall I rate it with 🌟🌟🌟 because it is not as bad, I still wanted to know what was going to happen and how they were going to end it all, even if at times I lost interest and will to go on. I'm glad I got through it, though, I think it was worth it, just maybe not a re-read for me.

this guy loves the word "sleepy"

My rating: 3 stars

What I Liked:
-the epistolary format which adds suspense to the novel
-Mina Harker is an excellent protagonist, and often the only person in the Dracula hunting party with a functioning brain cell. She is one of the few characters who has a somewhat defined personality, even though at times it is very evident that she is being written by a male author.
-The relationship between Jonathan and Mina is astonishingly healthy, with both possessing an equal devotion to the other. They are couple goals.
-Dracula, for the most part, was an interesting villain. He is not a being whose motivations is blood thirst alone but rather bringing fear and torment seems to be his primary motive as proven with his insistence on draining Lucy even when it requires more energy and effort than selecting a new victim.

What I disliked
-the book's pacing went off-rhythm after Lucy's death , resulting in a final product that could stand to have fifty or so pages removed by an editor.
-Almost all characters in the book have an incredibly shallow characterization which results in many characters feeling like cardboard cut-outs serving as unnecessary additions or plot devices.
-Bram Stoker refused to give even the POV characters like Lucy, Mina, Jonathan, Seward or Van Helsing a distinct voice in their journal entries, leaving one to rely on the subtitles which inform the reader of the POV. The closest the reader gets to having a character with a distinct voice is Van Helsing's incorrect grammar.
-I found Stoker's insistence on writing dialogue in the accent of the character speaking annoying and it grew frustrating as time grew on.

To this day, this one is very much an unputdownable book. And to think, it was written so many, many decades ago. The writing is quaint and there were occasional terms and phrases that I could not understand fully. The dialects used were also quite unintelligible to me. But the story, the characters, the atmosphere were all so on point. One totally feels the sense of urgency and terror throughout the story but more prominently, during the final chase. Many literary classics are a pain and a toil to read through, but Dracula is one among the few that are literary masterpieces and yet a breeze to read.