Dracula (Critical Edition)

by Bram Stoker

book data

19,891 ratings, 3.86 average rating, 1,885 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		28%
4		38%
3		26%
2		6%
1		1%

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published

December 19th 1997 (first published 1897) by W.W. Norton & Company

binding

Paperback, 492 pages

url

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bram_stoker

characters

Count Dracula, Jonathan Harker, Wilhelmina Murray, Lucy Westenra, ...more

isbn

0393970124 (isbn13: 9780393970128)

description

Dracula is one of the few horror books to be honored by inclusion in the Norton Critical Edition series. (The others are Frankenstein, The Turn of the...more

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08/05/08

Martine rated it:

(review of isbn 0192833863)

bookshelves: british, film, gothic, nineteenth-century

Read in December, 1995

'Welcome to my house. Come freely. Go safely. And leave something of the happiness you bring!'

These are pretty much the first words spoken to Jonathan Harker, one of the heroes of Bram Stoker's Dracula, upon his arrival at Count Dracula's castle in Transylvania, just minutes after a nightmare journey through the landscape of gothic horror: darkness, howling wolves, flames erupting out of the blue, frightened horses. Within a few days of his arrival, Harker will find himself talking o...more 'Welcome to my house. Come freely. Go safely. And leave something of the happiness you bring!'

These are pretty much the first words spoken to Jonathan Harker, one of the heroes of Bram Stoker's Dracula, upon his arrival at Count Dracula's castle in Transylvania, just minutes after a nightmare journey through the landscape of gothic horror: darkness, howling wolves, flames erupting out of the blue, frightened horses. Within a few days of his arrival, Harker will find himself talking of the Count's 'wickedly blazing eyes' and 'new schemes of villainy' and have some hair-raising encounters with the man who is now the world's most famous vampire: 'The last I saw of Count Dracula was his kissing his hand to me, with a red light of triumph in his eyes, and with a smile that Judas in hell might be proud of.' Several adventures involving sharp teeth, mirrors, garlic, crucifixes, bloody-mouthed corpses and big stakes will ensue.

The above quotations should make it abundantly clear what kind of book Dracula is. It's sensation fiction, written nearly half a century after the heyday of that genre. It's a cross between an epistolary novel, a detective novel and a save-my-wife story, and it's full of scares, horror and disgust, all described in a lurid tone that befits the subject: the living dead. Or the Un-Dead, as the book's other hero, my countryman Van Helsing, calls them.

Sadly, Van Helsing is one of my main problems with the book. While I love his heroism, his 'Let's-do-it' attitude and his unceasing struggle for Mina's soul, I find him entirely unconvincing as a Dutchman. I wish to God (with a crucifix and everything!) that I could switch off my inner linguist and appreciate the story for its narrative qualities rather than its linguistic aspects, but Stoker has Van Helsing indulge in so many linguistic improbabilities ('Are you of belief now, friend John?') that it quite took me out of the story, again and again and again. I'm aware this is not a problem that will bother many readers, but I for one dearly wish Stoker had listened to some actual Dutchmen before making the hero of his story one. Then perhaps he also would have refrained from making the poor man mutter German whenever he is supposed to speak his mother tongue. ('Mein Gott' is German, Mr Stoker. I mean, really.)

Linguistic inaccuracies aside (there are many in the book), Dracula has a few more problems. For one thing, the bad guy doesn't make enough appearances. Whenever Stoker focuses on Dracula, the story comes alive -- menace drips off the pages, and the reader finds himself alternately shivering with excitement and recoiling in horror. However, when Dracula is not around (which is most of the second half of the book), the story loses power, to the point where the second half of the book is actually quite dull. In addition, the story seems a little random and unfocused. Remember the 1992 film, in which Dracula obsesses about Mina Harker (Jonathan's wife) because she is his long-lost wife reincarnated? That conceit had grandeur, romance, passion, tragedy. And what was more, it made sense. It explained why Dracula comes all the way from Transylvania to England to find Mina, and why he wants to make her his bride despite the fact that she is being protected by people who clearly want him dead. In the book, however, Mina is merely Jonathan's wife (no reincarnation involved), a random lady Dracula has sunk his teeth into, and while this entitles her to some sympathy, it lacks the grand romantic quality the film had. I guess it's unfair to blame an author for not thinking of an improvement film-makers later made to his story, but I think Stoker rather missed an opportunity there.

And then there's the fact that Stoker seems to be an early proponent of the Robert Jordan School of Writing, meaning he takes an awful lot of time setting the scene, only to end the book on a whimper. The ending to Dracula is so anticlimactic it's rather baffling. Did Stoker run out of paper and ink? Did he want to finish the story before Dracula's brides came and got him? I guess we'll never know.

Still, despite its many flaws Dracula is an exciting read (well, the first half is, anyway), and Stoker undeniably left a legacy that will last for centuries to come. In that respect, Dracula deserves all the praise that has been heaped on it. I still think it could have been better, though. Much better.(less)

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04/19/08

Jason Pettus rated it:

Read in April, 2008

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

The CCLaP 100: In which I read a hundred so-called "classic" books for the first time, then write reports on whether or not I think they deserve the label

Book #13: Dracula, by Bram Stoker (1897)

The story in a nutshell:
To best understand the storyline...more

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4 comments

06/27/07

Eric rated it:

(review of isbn 0451523377)

Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in July, 2007

All cliches were once new. Yet even in Bram Stoker's day, vampire lore had already been around for centuries (indeed, Stoker plundered earlier, though more forgotten, writers on the subject). It is all here in "Dracula": the dark and stormy night, the castle, the funny Eastern European accent, the sexualized nature of vampirism. We've seen it so many countless times by now that we forget that the horror of it all was once fresh...and still is.

"Dracula" remains ...more

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03/22/08

Werner rated it:

bookshelves: classics, supernatural-fiction

Read in January, 1990

recommends it for: Any fan of vampire fiction, or of supernatural fiction in general

Actually, I read Dracula in a different edition than the Norton one (and so can't comment on that edition's critical features). I'd read a dumbed-down kid's adaptation of it as a child; but when I was in the process of writing my own vampire novel, I wanted to read the real thing, just to experience the roots of the literary tradition. I'm glad that I did!

Of course, Stoker's isn't the first treatment of the vampire theme in literature, though it became the first one to have world-w...more

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06/18/07

Andrea rated it:

bookshelves: speculative-fiction

Read in August, 2005

I've never been a huge goth/horror fan. I suppose werewolves and undead and all that are okay, as long as the heroes get to smack them good before the story's over. But if it gets too scary, I don't like it. I don't like being seriously scared, I guess. Suspense, that's great, and adventure, but not horror.

Anyway, I really loved this novel. I was a little leery at first, for the reasons mentioned above, and also because of the sometimes association of vampires with sex. I wanted to r...more I've never been a huge goth/horror fan. I suppose werewolves and undead and all that are okay, as long as the heroes get to smack them good before the story's over. But if it gets too scary, I don't like it. I don't like being seriously scared, I guess. Suspense, that's great, and adventure, but not horror.

Anyway, I really loved this novel. I was a little leery at first, for the reasons mentioned above, and also because of the sometimes association of vampires with sex. I wanted to read it because I wanted to see the source material that many modern vampire stories come from ("Van Helsing", undead in D&D, "Vampire Hunter D", vampires in other video games and movies, etc).

The novel is written as a series of diary entries by the different protagonists, which allows for a lot of emotion and different points of view, even if sometimes you wonder, "If all this stuff is really happening to you, how do you have time to write 50 pages in your diary?". Though the story started out a little cheesy (probably because it's been used over and over as the source for most vampire stories), after the first section, I was riveted.

It has that characteristic of horror stories where you want to shout at the main character, "Idiot! Don't open the window! It's so obvious you're going to be attacked!", but the naivete on the part of the good guys is believable. Van Helsing, the German doctor/lawyer/scientist/archaeologist/gunman is pretty awesome, and the married husband and wife act refreshingly real. I wasn't expecting to find realistic interpersonal relationships in a Victorian horror novel, but I was refreshed by how people, most of the time, were nice and reasonable and polite, letting most of their emotions be private, unless they feel really strongly. I guess I relate to that a little more than the present trend of just telling everybody everything that you feel.

It's kind of funny, the back of the novel talked about how it was about sexual power and seduction, and the introduction was basically an essay on how it was all about sex, but there was actually no sex in the novel at all. Yes, I agree that there are some undertones relating to sex (kind of obvious, since Dracula seems to only choose young female victims), but that's not the whole point of the novel. Deconstructions like that that ignore the whole point of the novel make me mad.

It was also interesting to see how all the characters, at one point or another, questioned their sanity, and you kind of wonder if they are really just making this all up. But, if so, it's a pretty good shared hallucination.

Anyway, if you like adventure stories, and are curious as to what The Real Dracula (tm) is, or just want a book that you will stick to like a Wacky Wall Walker until you finish it, I recommend it.(less)

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03/27/08

Leli rated it:

(review of isbn 0316014818)

bookshelves: classic_lit, fiction_historical-fict, thriller

a great adventure, gak sehoror yg diharapkan, 3,7 *

bram stoker bercerita lewat jurnal dan surat2 yang dibuat tokoh2nya.dekriptif dan mengalir.

dracula, buku impian
vampir, mahluk impian juga
munkin obsesi.., gw sudah kenal mahluk ini sejak umur 4 tahun (pake proyektor keluarga) dan mimpi buruk gw selalu ttg vampir (kualat)

count dracula, tokoh yang diadaptasi stoker dari vlad tepes, pangeran transylvania dari ordo dragul (naga)yang sangat "berda...more

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11 comments

03/06/08

Juushika rated it:

bookshelves: borrowed

Read in October, 2007

When Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania to arrange for an English home purchase for Count Dracula, he becomes a prisoner in Dracula's castle and discovers horrific and unnatural facts about Dracula himself. Not long after, strange events occur in England—a unmanned ship beaches on shore, a madman awaits his master, and a young woman with unexplained puncture wounds on her neck becomes pale and ill. These events bring together a diverse cast of characters who tell the story through their diaries...more When Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania to arrange for an English home purchase for Count Dracula, he becomes a prisoner in Dracula's castle and discovers horrific and unnatural facts about Dracula himself. Not long after, strange events occur in England—a unmanned ship beaches on shore, a madman awaits his master, and a young woman with unexplained puncture wounds on her neck becomes pale and ill. These events bring together a diverse cast of characters who tell the story through their diaries and letters and work to understand and to defeat Dracula. The diary-style narrative, although contrived and somewhat frustrating, makes the book accessible and swift flowing, and the book is of course a rich, classic horror text and a foundational vampire novel. Recommended to all readers, including those that don't generally read classics.

A horror classic, Dracula is both an atmospheric, foundational vampire novel and an accessible, swiftly flowing text. The narrative is composed of a number of chronologically arranged diary entries and sundry letters and clippings that follows a cast of approximately seven characters through one united plot. The diary-style narrative means that the book is composed largely of many short entires within average-length chapters, and these short entries make the book accessible to all readers and make it flow swiftly. As such, this is a good book for readers that don't often read classics (and the footnotes answer any question in period locations and phrases). The letters and diary entires are also personal, honest, and detailed, building realistic characters and meaningful emotions. However, the narrative style has two weaknesses: it's contrived, although there are sections that describe how and why the entires were chronologically arranged, and more importantly it puts the reader in the position of knowing much more than the characters, especially in the first half of the book. This dramatic irony becomes quite exaggerated as the reader, overlooking the entire story, can clearly see the danger, while the characters still bumble about in the dark, constricted to their own points of view—and the more exaggerated the dramatic irony, the more obvious and more frustrating it becomes. On the whole, however, the diary narrative is an effective storytelling style.

And the story itself is exceptional. Stoker intertwines the horror of the unholy undead with the draw of power, sensuality, and beautiful young women. He engages both in equal measure: his vampires are at once grotesque and amazing, from Dracula's pale face, garish red lips, and inhuman animalistic tendencies to the seductive and rawly sexuality beauty of his brides and the growing sensuality of the human women that he seduces and transforms. (Furthermore, the mythology that surrounds the vampires, from garlic to daylight, will be immediately recognizable to modern readers.) Alongside these inhuman forces is a cast of realistically conceived and motivated humans, originally brought together through love and friendship, ultimately united due to Dracula and in order to destroy him. Through the diary entires, the story moves at an equal pace through emotions and plot, the Victorian descriptions are rich and detailed, the horror elements are atmospheric and intense. This is truly a fundamental vampire novel.

I'm glad that I finally got around to reading Dracula, and I was very pleased with the text. It is lengthy, sometimes predictable, sometimes (although primarily because of the narration) frustrating, but on the whole it is also a compulsively readable, detailed, atmospheric, and core horror text. I recommend it to a diverse audience: horror/fantasy/vampire fans, classics fans, and also readers that don't often read classics, who I believe will find the writing style approachable and easy to understand. The Penguin Classics edition includes supplementary material, including footnotes that help clear up confusion, and an introduction and appendixes that provide more information for the curious reader. Very high recommended.(less)

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10/03/07

Núria rated it:

bookshelves: 2006, 3-buenos, decimononicos, literatura-en-ingles, prestados

Read in November, 2006

'Drácula' me parece un libro con aspectos muy buenos, pero algo irregular. Las dos primeras partes están infinitamente mejor resueltas que el final, que me ha parecido que tardaba en llegar y, por tanto, se acababa matando todo el suspense, y aún así el final-final me ha decepcionado, porque me ha parecido muy anti-climático. La primera parte, con el pobre Jonathan Harker atrapado en el castillo del Conde es lo mejor. Tiene toda la emoción que no tiene el final. Quizás sea la mejor parte ...more 'Drácula' me parece un libro con aspectos muy buenos, pero algo irregular. Las dos primeras partes están infinitamente mejor resueltas que el final, que me ha parecido que tardaba en llegar y, por tanto, se acababa matando todo el suspense, y aún así el final-final me ha decepcionado, porque me ha parecido muy anti-climático. La primera parte, con el pobre Jonathan Harker atrapado en el castillo del Conde es lo mejor. Tiene toda la emoción que no tiene el final. Quizás sea la mejor parte porque es cuando realmente vemos en acción al Conde: en el resto de la novela es sólo una figura amenazadora que está allí escondida, pero a la que no vemos directamente. Y se le echa de menos, porque es malo, sin duda, no tiene nada del glamour y del romanticismo al que nos han acostumbrado las películas, y además es tan feo que da grima, pero es casi entrañable: es un aristócrata decadente que vive solito sin amigos en un castillo aislado, alguien que ha conocido tiempos mejores y que ahora sólo le queda el consuelo de recordarlos, de recordar cuando era un gran señor respetado y temido por todo el mundo, es alguien que es un inepto social y que ha tenido que aprender el idioma inglés y las costumbres de forma autodidacta encerrado en su castillo. Venga, es incluso tierno.

La segunda parte, centrada en Lucy, también consigue mantener el tono. Es sólo después que la cosa empieza a desinflarse. Del mismo modo, lo de que sea una novela hecha a partir de diarios y cartas de diferentes personajes al principio funciona muy bien, pero luego, cuando los caminos de todos se cruzan definitivamente, la cosa deja de funcionar, porque ni siquiera puedes distinguir quién es que está escribiendo: los personajes son perfectamente intercambiables. Creo que en el fondo el principal defecto de la novela es que los personajes no son nada consistentes, son totalmente planos y están exclusivamente al servicio de la acción.

Básicamente lo que pasa es que los buenos son tan buenos que dan rabia. Aunque la personalidad del Doctor Seward al final también se acaba diluyendo en medio de la acción es el único que como personaje ha llegado a fascinarme: le han dado calabazas y tiene unos momentos emo realmente entrañables, lo analiza todo (lo que le rodea pero también a sí mismo), se refugia en su trabajo porque no le gusta su vida personal, y es el único que me ha convencido de que realmente tiene inseguridades, sentimientos y deseos que no son de cartón-piedra.

Por supuesto, también me han encantado el montón de prejuicios que tiene el libro: de sexo (porque las mujeres, por más que Mina sea muy lista y apañada, sólo son unos seres frágiles que los caballeros tienen que proteger), de raza (lo roñosos y miserables que son los gitanos), de turista occidental (cuando Jonathan va a las tierras del Conde se comporta como el perfecto señorito turista que viaja a lugares exóticos, lee muchas guías y quiere ver todo lo que se tiene que ver, pero en el fondo no le importa nada conocer realmente el país), y sobre todo de clase (como todos los de clase bajas son unos bastos que se dejan comprar por cuatro duros).

Y es que, para mí, de lo que acaba hablando más 'Drácula' es del poder del dinero. Es gracias a las propinas que van dando a diestro y siniestro que los buenos consiguen triunfar. Es una novela tan burguesa. La mayoría de personajes (Jonathan y Mina sobre todo) son personas que se han hecho a sí mismos, que con el valor del esfuerzo y del trabajo han llegado a prosperar (¡ja!); y no hay nada más burgués que esto. Y como buenos burgueses prácticos que son, los personajes incluso saben aprovecharse de los privilegios aristocráticos que da ser un Lord Goldaming. El Conde, por contra, es un aristócrata y su reinado ya está acabado. (less)

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02/22/08

Shaindel rated it:

recommends it for: anyone, vampire lovers.

I hate to admit how many times I've read Dracula; let's just leave it at my first Master's thesis was on Dracula, and let your imagination take it from there. Although Stoker does make errors in the writing of this novel that can make you cringe, it is going to be entertaining, thought-provoking reading until the end of time. No matter what perspective you take it from--feminist, historical, Marxist--it's a brilliant read.

This go-round, I'm thoroughly enjoying thinking about the na...more

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15 comments

11/22/08

Callie rated it:

(review of isbn 0743477367)

I love the way that the story is presented. It consists of journal entries from various characters, so no one but the reader has the full story. I'm not one for murder mysteries or horror novels, but I loved this book! It's a tale that keeps the mind going, while sending chills down your spine.

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04/20/07

Shellie rated it:

(review of isbn 0451523377)

Read in April, 2007

recommends it for: Men

Forget the Hollywood adapatations. This is the tried and true original and is much more of a buddy novel than a love story. While it does follow the courtship of Mina and Joanathan, there is zero love between the count and Mina as portrayed in the 1990's film adaptation. If you are into hokey special effects and botched storylines, then by all means watch the movie. This on the other hand is a great book, and a very interesting story. Its layed out as several intertwined diaries, letters, an...more

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04/10/09

Jesse rated it:

(review of isbn 0140623396)

Read in March, 2009

Admire it, certainly, but I can muster up precious little affection for Stoker's famous novel, for despite its reputation as the central progenitor of an enduring mythology I can't but help but find it more as a closing off point than anything else. It discards a lot of the more fascinating elements of vampire mythology that had been developing (I'm thinking specifically of Sheridan le Fanu's Carmilla, read just before), instead establishing precedents that are comparatively dull in their clean...more

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01/13/09

Kristen rated it:

(review of isbn 1840681284)

bookshelves: 2009

Read in January, 2009

I decided to read Dracula inspired by the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and with the hope that it wouldn't be boring or irrelevant. Luckily, it turned out to be a compelling read, with a solid story and some likable characters (who double as narrators). Dracula also sets in stone much of what we still see in novels, movies, and tv today regarding the vampire myth. And though some things about the novel definitely belonged to another era, it didn't hinder the experience. In fact is was a bit ...more

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02/04/09

Madeline rated it:

bookshelves: the-list

FINALLY finished it. Assigned reading, in addition to being painfully boring, takes away serious time from The List.

Anyway, on to the bit where I review the book: it wasn't exactly what I was expecting (for instance, the whole novel consists of diary entries and letters written by the main characters - not Dracula, though), and no one even says the word "vampire" until page 165. And they're talking about the bats.
It was genuinely creepy, but the towards the end of t...more FINALLY finished it. Assigned reading, in addition to being painfully boring, takes away serious time from The List.

Anyway, on to the bit where I review the book: it wasn't exactly what I was expecting (for instance, the whole novel consists of diary entries and letters written by the main characters - not Dracula, though), and no one even says the word "vampire" until page 165. And they're talking about the bats.
It was genuinely creepy, but the towards the end of the book the pace suddenly overdosed on NyQuil and started riding a sloth towards the climax. (why does that sound like a porno? Ahem, moving on) Seriously, our merry gang of vampire hunters have figured out that Count Dracula is, in fact, a bloodsucker (took them long enough; I spent the first half of the book mentally screaming at the pages "He's a fucking vampire! Vampire vampire vampire!"), and are traveling to Transylvania to go all Buffy on his undead ass. Great, but first we have to read pages and pages of "and then we made our travel arrangements", "and then we bought lots of fur coats because it is cold out", and "we were all super patronzing to Madam Mina, because in case you've forgotten she is a delicate flower and her weak lady-brain cannot handle the stress of this trip."
Let me talk about Mina for a minute here: after finishing the book, I'm very, very tempted to write a Dracula fan fic entitled "Mina Harker: Vampire Hunter". She will be super badass and wear lots of leather and kill tons of vampires (first on her list: Carlise Cullen), and I guess Jonathan can come too. I want to do this because, for the entire book, I kept waiting for Mina to unleash her inner awesome, because I knew it was there. She's super smart - she's the one who figures out how Dracula is getting back to his castle - is actually really brave, no matter how often she says she was scared shitless by the various undead goings-on; and since she has a psychic connection with Dracula towards the end of the book she's a hell of a lot more useful than Jonathan's whiny ass. She needed to leave him, and then run away with Van Helsing so they could fight vampires together.
It would look exactly like this
http://api.ning.com/files/RC0Zuusf3l-EXg...

and it would be MADE OF AWESOME.

(less)

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01/28/09

Newtie Jeff rated it:

Okay, up front I will admit that most of this book I did not "read", but listened to in audio version (hey, what else do I have to do on buses that are too crowded for me to move my arms?). By reputation I wasn't expecting much, but wanted to get to the bedrock of the vampire fiction genre.

It's a gripping story, well told. Not great literature, but really good story-telling. The standard interpretation of the book (vampire as a metaphor for sexuality) seems right to me, bu...more

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10/20/08

Colin McKay Miller rated it:

Read in October, 2007

I saw “The Godfather” trilogy a year ago, years after seeing all the movies it has influenced. As a result, “The Godfather” movies seemed somewhat unoriginal, even though they came first. I knew certain scenes and lines because of pop culture. I knew the betrayals and plotting because of the influence on similarly-styled stories. Bram Stoker’s Dracula suffers from the kind of same foreknowledge. You know the story. Everyone does. That’s actually the greatest flaw of reading the novel...more I saw “The Godfather” trilogy a year ago, years after seeing all the movies it has influenced. As a result, “The Godfather” movies seemed somewhat unoriginal, even though they came first. I knew certain scenes and lines because of pop culture. I knew the betrayals and plotting because of the influence on similarly-styled stories. Bram Stoker’s Dracula suffers from the kind of same foreknowledge. You know the story. Everyone does. That’s actually the greatest flaw of reading the novel in this era where its influence has overshadowed the text. Should the book be tarnished because the influence it caused has taken away from its story? Even though it’s surely a factor, not necessarily. Still, the novel has structural difficulty that takes away from its horror impact. People die in horror. You know that, right? Well, the plot is revealed through journal entries (and occasional newspaper articles), so if you’re reading that person’s journal entry you know they lived. Plus you can see there are pages left and so you know there’s more to come. It’s a head thing.

The first journal writer is Jonathon Harker, a new, English solicitor taking the train to a client’s castle in a remote part of Transylvania. The owner is Count Dracula, a man who Harker initially finds quite accommodating. As the Count’s creepy nocturnal habits increase, however, Harker comes to the realization he is trapped and that Dracula appears to be some kind of monster (something not initially stated). Next is a captain’s log from a seemingly abandoned Russian ship that rolls right onto the English shore during a tempest. Other journal keepers include Harker’s loving fiancée, Mina; her beautiful friend, Lucy Westenra; an asylum psychiatrist, Dr. John Seward (especially regarding his patient, Renfield); and Seward’s mentor, Dr. Abraham Van Helsing, a man who knows how to deal with the evil that connects them all. Unfortunately, the reader knows what’s happening—not just from pop culture knowledge, but from previous journal entries—so there’s this feeling of being trapped outside the book.

One good thing about reading a story you already know is that you notice parts you didn’t see before. My favorite part is a minor point from Van Helsing’s journal, a blurb at the bottom of the page, nothing essential to plot. Van Helsing talks about the reason why Dracula got away with so much for so long is because people don’t have the faith to believe in that kind of evil. They think they saw it wrong because that kind of stuff doesn’t really happen, does it? I thought it was an interesting point—faith in evil.

Despite knowing the story, the tale of the Bloofer Lady vampire is actually scary. That’s impressive. By the time the reader gets to the crew fighting Dracula though, the horror has gone and the pacing is too slow. Then the ending is so quick that there’s a feeling of let-down after so much build. Though it’s undeniable that Bram Stoker’s Dracula set the rules and standards for vampire horror to come, I can’t help but feel like, at this point, other writers (and quite frankly, other mediums) have done the genre better. Three stars.
(less)

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09/26/08

Ashley rated it:

(review of isbn 0375756701)

bookshelves: book-club

What is it with vampires? They keep resurfacing in pop culture and we all know that right now there are hundreds of women and teenage girls in love with that one named Edward. So, because of the popularity of vampires right now, I thought it would be fun to read the Father of All Vampire Novels--I don't know what I was really expecting save a lot of garlic and crucifixes, but Count Dracula is no sparkly, hot, sexy vampire. He is a monster. Although this novel is written in an epistolary style, I...more

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08/27/08

Lorena rated it:

(review of isbn 0743477367)

Read in November, 2008

When this was suggested for a group read in one of the book clubs in GR I just couldn’t believe I had never read this book before, it is only natural that I had, I love the genre and love the whole vampire phenomenon.

I went into this journey thinking the book, being the first one to introduce us to Count Dracula (not vampirism in general but him) as the ultimate vampire, to be about Him, Dracula. Well, I was wrong the book was actually about the emotional journey those who take i...more

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08/23/08

Kristin rated it:

(review of isbn 1402523017)

bookshelves: audio-books, classics

Read in August, 2008

recommends it for: any one with a long car ride!

I've recently discovered books on tape and grabbed this one as a) I was going to be spending some time in the car and b) I hadn't read it yet. This was an unabrigdged version of Dracula, 18 hours long with 15 CD's.

I don't think I'll review the plot as it's so widely known, but expound on the reading.

It was, to put it simply, amazing. The two readers had a way of bringing each and every character to life with subtle inflections in mannerisms and speech. Though, I must ...more

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08/23/08

Kirsty rated it:

(review of isbn 014143984X)

bookshelves: classics, horror

Read in October, 2008

recommended to Kirsty by: The Next Best Book Club

I wasn't particularly looking forward to this book, but agreed to read it with others during October as it fitted in nicely with Halloween. I was expecting it to be relatively dull, but thought that it might have the occasional thrilling passage.

I was pleasantly surprised. In the early chapters, Stoker does a brilliant job of describing the characters and scenery. This works wonders at building the dark, brooding atmosphere of Castle Dracula. Having read more up to date thriller/horr...more I wasn't particularly looking forward to this book, but agreed to read it with others during October as it fitted in nicely with Halloween. I was expecting it to be relatively dull, but thought that it might have the occasional thrilling passage.

I was pleasantly surprised. In the early chapters, Stoker does a brilliant job of describing the characters and scenery. This works wonders at building the dark, brooding atmosphere of Castle Dracula. Having read more up to date thriller/horror stories, I was expecting something more frightening; however this book is more of an atmospheric horror. I wouldn't say that it is scary per se, but I think that it is certainly eerie and makes for a chilling read.

After Harker left Transylvania the story seemed to lose some of its pace, which I found disappointing; however I didn't feel that it stalled the story too much and I still felt compelled to keep reading. There are points in the book where the action picks up again, but mostly it wasn't as fast-paced as the beginning chapters.

I liked the way the story is told from multiple viewpoints. This especially works as each character is explored well and therefore I felt like I could connect with them. I do think that some of their musings regarding right/wrong and good/evil could have beem omitted (therefore picking up the pace somewhat). These musings tended to come right in the middle of the juicier parts of the book and I found them to be more of a distraction than an enhancement of the plot.

The ending of the book was, for me, too rushed. I felt like this could have been thought through more and written in more detail. I would have liked to have seen more action in the final chapters than there was. I think that too much of the latter part of the book was spent talking about what they planned to do rather than focusing on the actual happenings.

Overall, I found that the book wasn't at all as dull as I was expecting and despite the slower pace, I found it an enjoyable read.(less)

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What is your favorite book genre?

Young Adult (Twilight, The Book Thief)

11 votes, 19.0%

Biography (Anne Frank The Diary of a Young Girl, Angela's Ashes)

0 votes, 0.0%

Horror (It, Dracula)

2 votes, 3.4%

Historical Fiction (The Eight, Embers)

1 vote, 1.7%

Humor (Me Talk Pretty One Day, Pure Drivel)

0 votes, 0.0%

Non-Fiction (One Red Paperclip Or How an Ordinary Man Achieved his Dream With the Help of a Simple Office Supply, Typhoid Mary An Urban Historical)

0 votes, 0.0%

Fantasy (Poison Study, The Lord of the Rings)

34 votes, 58.6%

Science Fiction (Ender's Game, 1984)

3 votes, 5.2%

Romance (Outlander, The Notebook)

1 vote, 1.7%

Thriller (Velocity, The Pelican Brief)

0 votes, 0.0%

Mystery (Knit One, Kill Two, One for the Money)

2 votes, 3.4%

Chick-Lit (Bridget Jones's Diary, Confessions of a Shopaholic)

0 votes, 0.0%

Literature (To Kill a Mockingbird, Wuthering Heights)

3 votes, 5.2%

Graphic Novel (Sin City, Vol. 1 The Hard Goodbye, V for Vendetta)

1 vote, 1.7%

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"The last I saw of Count Dracula was his kissing his hand to me, with a red light of triumph in his eyes, and with a smile that Judas in hell might be proud of." More quotes...