Dracula
Ratings1,153
Average rating3.9
Maybe it was the fact that it took a long time to read (I started it with Dracula Daily but eventually meandered off on my own), so the pacing of an already slow book suffered. Maybe it was the narrator of my audiobook, who had a very pleasant and calming voice.
But whatever it was, I found this book to have only the barest hint of creepiness and barely any tension at all.
Three stars is me being nice. Also, Jonathan's journal at the beginning was very good. I don't know. I'm just glad it's over.
mina and jonathan's deeply profound love for each other is so ... <3
also the cowboy was my favourite
I don't know why it took so long for me to read this book. I loved the movie and I was happy to see that it was very loyal to the book.
Finally finished it! This one took me a while, but mainly cause the edition i got had a tiny font and unending pages. Honestly this is an underrated book, every adaptation of it has been really lazy, the movies are mainly the first 10% of the book. Loved the interchangeable POVs, the diary entries, the epistolary parts, article cuttings, throughout the book we are trying to figure out the mysteries surrounding our characters and how they could be linked. And even though Dracula is the most popular vampire tale, i still got sucked into the mystery. I also really love reading the origin of popular tropes, and this one has a bunch, there's a whole storyline that most probably influenced the biggest reveal in the Harry Potter books (no spoilers) mainly i think, people think they know Dracula so much from the many homages and interpretations, that the original tale has been forgotten. Recommend reading if you're into some spooky vibes and a bit of mystery.
The early part is some of the best horror literature I've ever read. Afterwards the book drowns a bit in dialogue; everyone speaks in full paragraphs. Overall still I enjoyed the experience
Rating: 3.38 leaves out of 5
Characters: 3/5
Cover: 3.5/5
Story: 3/5
Writing: 4/5
Genre: Horror/Occult
Type: Audio
Worth?: Sure
It wasn't bad but it wasn't grand either. I did like the characters and the story but I just think it felt a bit dull. It is hard to explain because I did like the story. Lol. It just was written in a not so good way. It didn't draw me in as much as I would have liked it.
You know... Phantom Blood and Dracula are pretty similar when you think about it...
3.5 stars. It's a classic but it does kind of go on for a while with not much suspense. Definitely worth reading, but I just found it kind of hard to finish.
Took me longer than I like to finish this book, considering that one of my main genres are vampires. You can definitely read that it's an old book, by how it's written. A lot of unneeded repetition, made me skip some parts.
I gotta admit, I was a bit disappointed, mostly with the ending. I did watch the 1992 adaption before reading, but still did not expect that ending... maybe I had expected something more... dramatic??
Ok, I don't want to shit on a classic and maybe reading Dracula was fun and interesting back in the day but for me, now, it was so, very, deadfully boring.
The style of this book was more engaging than I thought it would be going into it. I've never read a novel that was told exclusively through journals and letters. The characters and their slow unravelling of exactly what was happening to them was very well done. Stephen King's Salem's Lot was one of my all time favorite books growing up, and made me fall in love with the horror genre. It's nice to see the original inspiration and the various parallels between the two stories. Definitely the best of the “classic” horror books I've read.
Interesting read. Stoker's decision to tell the story in letters and journal entries allowed you to get into the head of many different characters, but I feel like that took away a lot of the suspense. Not one of my favorites but it was cool to see the origin of the iconic characters.
La primera pregunta que me atraviesa la mente al pensar en este libro es “¿Por qué no lo había leído antes?”.
Ocurre que aunque tenía muchas ganas de leer precisamente un tremendo clásico del terror, por no decir el más grande de todos los de su género (O al menos el más mencionado), también tenía este miedo extraño a que no me gustara, algo que me suele ocurrir cuando un libro se vuelve el favorito de todos, yo no suelo encontrarlos tan magníficos, sin embargo con Drácula no fue así, me fascinó.
Bram Stoker maneja una narrativa muy intensa desde el inicio donde la mayor parte se centra en describirnos cada mínimo detalle, sin exagerar, llega al punto exacto para que tú como lector te sientas parte de la trama, recorriendo con Jonathan todo el camino hacia el castillo del conde, y luego andando por sus oscuros y siniestros pasillos; es increíble la manera en que leer al menos los primeros cuatro capítulos me dejó tan incómoda que me sentía observada mientras pasaba las páginas.
Fue un gran comienzo, y un punto perfecto donde dejarnos con la intriga y las ideas de lo que podría ocurrir después. Sin embargo pasamos a momentos en los que la historia tal vez decae un poco en ritmo porque el autor debe introducirnos a los demás personajes, y no encuentra mejor forma que mediante una repetitiva de cartas entre amigas y algunos pretendientes de una de ellas; al inicio se sienten innecesarias, además de vacías e inconformes, pero luego te das cuenta que era la forma más acertada de que aparecieran estos participantes de la historia que luego, uno más que otros, tomarían las riendas de todo lo que sucedería más adelante.
Así es como llegamos a conocer a algunos de mis personajes favoritos, y tal vez a mi criterio los mejor creados y más interesantes: El doctor Seward, Van Helsing y el loco del manicomio.
Estos tes personajes son los que desde mi perspectiva casi que llevan las riendas de la historia, incluso más que el propio conde que pasa a un segundo plano solo a ser tratado como un antagonista al que temer y el que se tiene el deber de exterminar.
Seward es quien sin duda se para desde el primer momento en la negativa de creer en nada más que la ciencia, por lo que se hace muy interesante ver como debe romper casi todo en lo que cree para hacer caso a su mentor de toda la vida, Van Helsing, un hombre que sin duda te da muchas intrigas y de quién fácilmente el autor podría haber sacado toda una historia independiente.
El poder femenino por otro lado es un factor importante en la historia, y se ve manejado desde tres puntos, Lucy, el alma pura e inocente que luego es corrompida por la maldad; Las tres concubinas de Drácula, que son la viva imagen de Femme fatale, y Mina, a quien pareciera que el autor trató de darle tintes feministas y de poder incluso en su época, pero en los que flaqueó en ciertos momentos indispensables, pero aún así muchos seguramente nos quedamos con la idea de esta mujer que era quien mantenía juntos a todos dentro de la historia para alcanzar su cometido en común.
Todos estos factores, unidos a todo el proceso y la manera en que el autor nos lleva por este viaje de intrigas, terrores, y cuestionamientos sobre nuestras creencias, hasta dudar incluso de lo que puede o no ser real a nuestro alrededor, hacen de esta historia toda una experiencia que disfruté por completo.
A pesar que el final no fuera lo que yo deseaba ni esperaba, y siento que es el principal punto débil de todo el libro, acabé entendiendo, al mismo tiempo que me nacía la duda, que esta historia está incompleta, y que, en orden a cumplir los caprichos de su madre, Stoker le quitó algo de fuerza al verdadero final que se esperaría de una historia que sin duda alguna fue un gusto leer, más aún para la fecha de Halloween.
Totalmente recomendada para cualquier persona, siento que es el tipo de libros que la mayor parte de la gente disfrutaría, aunque también concuerdo en que seguramente todos nos quedaremos con esa sensación de querer un mejor final para toda la aventura.
Solid read. A must of the gothic horror genre and of literature in general. The depiction of Dracula's castle and its overall surroundings were very realistic and the different terms used to express nationalities or romanian cities were very realistic. The book, as Overly Sarcastic Productions states, is a slow burn, and we gradually get to unveil the mistery of Dracula. The end seemed a bit rushed and if came too fast, in just the last 10 pages everything comes down to an end. Van Helsing's decision to bring Mina with him to kill the three vampiresses back at the Count's castle seems pretty stupid. “You are a weak woman and I'm an old man, we shouldn't go with the others to approach and kill the Count, instead, let us go deep into his layer to hunt and kill not one, not two, but three layers. What a great idea!”
Apart from this, the book was fairly enjoyable, given the fact that, you know, ‘tis the season after all. Van Helsing as lovely and as goofy as always.
I enjoyed the beginning of the story so so much! It was great, had a bit of tension and some funny parts, but the ending bored the crap out of me
"A good deal of interest was abroad concerning the dog which landed when the ship struck, and more than a few of the members of the S.P.C.A., which is very strong in Whitby, have tried to befriend the animal”
:-)
Dracula was published 1897, RSPCA was founded 1824.”
“I fear to trust those women, even if they would have courage to submit. What are we to do for some one who will open his veins for her?”
“Ah, then you have good memory for facts, for details? It is not always so with young ladies.”
“you have given me hope that there are good women still left to make life happy”
“Doctor, you don't know what it is to doubt everything, even yourself. No, you don't, you couldn't with eyebrows like yours.”
He seemed pleased, and laughed as he said, “So! You are a physiognomist.”
“You are a clever man, friend John. You reason well, and your wit is bold, but you are too prejudiced. You do not let your eyes see nor your ears hear, and that which is outside your daily life is not of account to you. Do you not think that there are things which you cannot understand, and yet which are,that some people see things that others cannot? But there are things old and new which must not be contemplated by men's eyes, because they know, or think they know, some things which other men have told them. Ah, it is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all, and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to explain. But yet we see around us every day the growth of new beliefs, which think themselves new, and which are yet but the old, which pretend to be young, like the fine ladies at the opera.
I suppose now you do not believe in corporeal transference. No?
Nor in materialization. No?
Nor in astral bodies. No?
Nor in the reading of thought. No?
Nor in hypnotism ... “
“Yes,” I said. “Charcot has proved that pretty well.”
He smiled as he went on, “Then you are satisfied as to it. Yes? And of course then you understand how it act, and can follow the mind of the great Charcot, alas that he is no more, into the very soul of the patient that he influence. No?
Then, friend John, am I to take it that you simply accept fact, and are satisfied to let from premise to conclusion be a blank? No?
Then tell me, for I am a student of the brain, how you accept hypnotism and reject the thought reading. Let me tell you, my friend, that there are things done today in electrical science which would have been deemed unholy by the very man who discovered electricity, who would themselves not so long before been burned as wizards. There are always mysteries in life.
Why was it that Methuselah lived nine hundred years, and `Old Parr'one hundred and sixty-nine, and yet that poor Lucy, with four men's blood in her poor veins, could not live even one day? For, had she live one more day, we could save her.
Do you know all the mystery of life and death?
Do you know the altogether of comparative anatomy and can say wherefore the qualities of brutes are in some men, and not in others?
Can you tell me why, when other spiders die small and soon, that one great spider lived for centuries in the tower of the old Spanish church and grew and grew, till, on descending, he could drink the oil of all the church lamps?
Can you tell me why in the Pampas, ay and elsewhere, there are bats that come out at night and open the veins of cattle and horses and suck dry their veins, how in some islands of the Western seas there are bats which hang on the trees all day, and those who have seen describe as like giant nuts or pods, and that when the sailors sleep on the deck, because that it is hot, flit down on them and then, and then in the morning are found dead men, white as even Miss Lucy was?”
“Good God, Professor!” I said, starting up. “Do you mean to tell me that Lucy was bitten by such a bat, and that such a thing is here in London in the nineteenth century?”
He waved his hand for silence, and went on, “Can you tell me why the tortoise lives more long than generations of men, why the elephant goes on and on till he have sees dynasties, and why the parrot never die only of bite of cat of dog or other complaint?
Can you tell me why men believe in all ages and places that there are men and women who cannot die?
We all know, because science has vouched for the fact, that there have been toads shut up in rocks for thousands of years, shut in one so small hole that only hold him since the youth of the world.
Can you tell me how the Indian fakir can make himself to die and have been buried, and his grave sealed and corn sowed on it, and the corn reaped and be cut and sown and reaped and cut again, and then men come and take away the unbroken seal and that there lie the Indian fakir, not dead, but that rise up and walk amongst them as before?”
“She is one of God's women, fashioned by His own hand to show us men and other women that there is a heaven where we can enter, and that its light can be here on earth. So true, so sweet, so noble, so little an egoist, and that, let me tell you, is much in this age, so sceptical and selfish.”
“Lucy's eyes in form and color, but Lucy's eyes unclean and full of hell fire, instead of the pure, gentle orbs we knew.”
“Ah, that wonderful Madam Mina! She has man's brain, a brain that a man should have were he much gifted, and a woman's heart. The good God fashioned her for a purpose, believe me, when He made that so good combination. Friend John, up to now fortune has made that woman of help to us, after tonight she must not have to do with this so terrible affair. It is not good that she run a risk so great. We men are determined, nay, are we not pledged, to destroy this monster? But it is no part for a woman. Even if she be not harmed, her heart may fail her in so much and so many horrors and hereafter she may suffer, both in waking,from her nerves, and in sleep,from her dreams. And, besides, she is young woman and not so long married, there may be other things to think of some time, if not now. You tell me she has wrote all, then she must consult with us, but tomorrow she say goodbye to this work, and we go alone.”
sigh
I'm ignoring the blatant misogyny bc it truly is a product of its time. HOWEVER, we seriously don't get any commentary from Arthur regarding Morris' death?? Seriously????????
It's hard for me to write a review for this book. I've read this one for the first time when I was a 10 year-old child. The first edition I read was a Romanian one which contains an additional chapter, which scared the hell out of me at that time (it still does even now when I'm 10 years older). I don't know what made it appeal to me so much, but this book changed my life. I have grown to love the stories of vampires since reading this one and I fell in love with fantasy creatures.
This is also the first classic book that I've ever read and it still remains my favourite one. And even my favourite book of all the books I've read. I cannot explain why, it just gives me an amazing feeling of “coming home” whenever I re-read it. It may be due to the fact that some of the action takes place in my home country, Romania, or the fact that I've always been fascinated by vampires. Anyway, the story is so well written and it always makes me want to read and read and read without stopping. I don't mind the pages full of descriptions, I don't mind the longer chapters.
All the characters are amazing. They're strong, they have created some amazing friendships and I love all of them, especially Mina and Jonathan. They create such a beautiful couple, they understand each other in a beautiful way and their love is so strong that you can feel it whenever they talk about each other in their journals.
I also adore the format of the book. It's composed of journal entries from some of the characters, which gives the story a really great feeling. You can see every characters' thoughts and how they feel about what is happening, you can see them slowly understanding everything about Dracula, however weird it may be. They're open minded and they do not back down, even when put face to face with such a monstrous character as Dracula, evil and cunning.
What can I say more? READ this book and see for yourself how good it is!
The most entertaining book written in the 19th Century. I haven't read all of them but they would struggle to top this.
It's elegant, moody and beautifully written, the epistolary style suits it perfectly, and somehow whenever things get bloody they also get a little titillating. I can only imagine how salacious this book must've been in 1897.
A Masterpiece.
Après deux tentatives infructueuses ces dernières années, l'une dans la version originale en anglais, l'autre dans sa traduction française, j'ai enfin réussi à terminer ce classique de la littérature fantastique, le fameux Dracula de Bram Stoker. J'avais choisi la version originale pour profiter directement et pleinement du texte de l'auteur britannique.
Si je n'avais pas réussi à le terminer les deux premières fois, c'est parce qu'après une première partie captivante, qui nous plonge dans l'ambiance étrange puis terrifiante du château de Dracula en Transylvanie, la suite est moins prenante, plus lente. J'ai eu le même ressenti cette fois encore, mais j'ai tenu bon pour aller jusqu'au bout.
Je l'ai dit, la première partie se déroule en Transylvanie, où le jeune avocat anglais Jonathan Harker a été convié par le mystérieux comte Dracula dans son château isolé pour finaliser l'achat d'une maison en Angleterre. Le jeune britannique y découvre un lieu étrange, hors du temps, et un comte Dracula excentrique et inquiétant.
La deuxième partie s'intéresse au destin de Lucy Westenra, l'amie d'enfance de la fiancée de Jonathan, Mina Murray, courtisée par trois hommes différents : le psychiatre John Seward, l'américain Quincey Morris, et l'aristocrate Arthur Holmwood dont elle accepte la demande en mariage.
La troisième partie raconte la lutte entre Dracula, désormais en Angleterre, et le groupe formé par Jonathan, Mina et les amis de Lucy, menés par le professeur hollandais Van Helsing.
Je l'ai dit : la première partie nous plonge dans une atmosphère sombre et glaçante, on reconnait bien la patte de l'horreur victorienne. La suite est moins réussie à mes yeux : les chapitres s'enchainent, parfois répétitifs, souvent ennuyants, et la fin m'a semblé arriver abruptement au vu du rythme du reste de l'ouvrage.
Nous avons donc affaire à une classique de la littérature fantastique, un livre-culte qui a engendré le mythe toujours vivant (sans jeu de mot) du vampire Dracula, mais c'est aussi un livre qui n'a pas forcément très bien vieilli. Certains classiques sont indémodables, tant par le récit que par le style ; ce n'est pas, à mes yeux, le cas de celui-ci, au-delà de sa place indéniable dans l'histoire de la littérature fantastique.