Dracula, part 6; ch 24-end of book

[Jenn, moderator]

Discuss Dracula part 6.

[[deleted user]]

I read this a while ago, so to avoid spoilers, I'll chip in when you get to the end. >:-)

[Phil]

Well, this book seriously ran out of steam in the end. As I said in the previous section, the reported speech is tiring - especially when they start trying to write the cockernees and Van Helsing phonetically. It's just unbelievable in a series of diaries (one, perhaps - not all 4 of them). And everyone's so disposed to speechify rather than just talk.

And when you have the last 50 pages consisting of 6 people chasing a box and a rushed final chapter, I was - to be honest - a little disappointed.

Ultimately, the character of Dracula is greater than the contents of this book and will be developed better by the movies and popular culture in general.

[Phil]

My Good Reads review:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

[[deleted user]]

Broadly speaking I'd agree with what you've said Phil. I found that the voices were indistinct and the pacing patchy. I thought that the story was excellent - just the writer wasn't capable of doing full justice to his material.

my review (from last summer) is here http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

[Danielle]

But Mina is ultimately the one writing everything down. She records the phonograph diaries and translates the shorthand ones. So all of it is sort of supposed to be in one voice.

But I also totally agree. Not a favorite. And if this is supposed to be Stoker's best work, I don't think The Lair of the White Worm is making it to my "to reads" any time soon...

[Jacob]

Don't count Stoker out completely! A friend introduced me to Dracula's Guest about two weeks ago. I found it very entertaining. His short stories, despite following a definite formula, are very fun to read.

I think the one thing that sets this book aside from other Gothic texts is its storytelling style. Stoker's use of journals, phonograph recordings, letters, newspaper clippings, etc. were valuable contributions to the development of the modern novel as a whole. Stoker uses these formats to add legitimacy to supernatural events. He presents his audience with a (theatrical?) Gothic romance hiding as an historical record of events.

I agree. The book lost steam. But I can overlook the sluggish second half of the book due to its innovative structure.

Interesting note: I read Carrie by Stephen King a couple weeks after I read Dracula for the first time in high school. I remember the similarities between writing techniques being eerily similar. Has anyone else read Carrie?

[Jacob]

Again. Sorry for the double post.

When I Compare the narrative technique in the introduction of Frankenstein with various narrative techniques utilized in Dracula... Dracula wins. Big time.

Even though both works contain minor inconsistencies, Walton's letters to Martha are poorly written in comparison to Jonathan's journal and Mina's correspondences with Lucy in Chapter V.

What do you think?

[[deleted user]]

I'm not sure this is necessarily a dramatic step forward in a means of telling a novel. Wilkie Collins was using multiple characters to tell a story in the 1860s, 30 plus years before this was published. I'd accept it adds to the idea by using a wider range of source material, but I'm not sure that's such a dramatic advance, is it? I accept that it would have lent an air of factuality to the reader when it was published.
but I still feel he ran out of talent before he'd explored the limits of the story. Maybe in a short story (I've not read any) he manages to maintain the pace and interest that he was unable to sustain over an entire novel.

[Danielle]

But in Frankenstein I love the frame-frame-story. It's like this big zoom in - zoom out. That's why I love it.

[Linda]

Since I've written some novels, I can totally identify with the problem of running out of enthusiasm at the end and rushing the conclusion. So when that happened with Dracula, it didn't bother me too much. I've seen it happen with many successful novels.

Also, I don't fault Stoker for his writing shortcomings - for example, not writing the various journals in different styles. I know that writers today are much more aware of this issue because we've read books and dozens of articles telling us how to be the best novelist we can be. Stoker didn't have access to the knowledge we have now. Literary expectations have expanded dramatically since Stoker's time.

I appreciate Dracula for what it is - and very much enjoyed my reading of it. Here's my review, FWIW. I'll write a longer review later, on one of my blogs.

[Ivory]

The conclusion was a disappointment and everyone sounding the same in the journals was unfortunate. The male characters were pretty much the same, the only characters that stood out were Mina, Renfield, and Dracula(Thank goodness for that, since his name is the title). And some of the chapters dragged on and on, but all in all, still an enjoyable read. I did like that the story was told in journals and newspaper clippings. The beginning chapters with Jonathan at Dracula's castle, did make me uneasy and a tad afraid for him.

[Alana]

I was struck several times by the similarities in Dracula/victim/Mina and Voldemort/Harry Potter. The mental connections, the dreams, the needing to seek out all of the boxes of dirt/horcruxes...very similar. Not in a plagiarizing way, just interesting.

Anyway, I'll post my review here for my overall thoughts on the book:

Not being into the vampire genre in the slightest, I was nonetheless curious to read this classic that started it all. I wondered how different the story was, how much of the traditional means of vanquishing the demons showed up in this original work, what storytelling was used for the plot, etc.

On the methods of vanquishing vampires, I feel much more enlightened, although some of them I'd heard of through scattered episodes of Buffy and other sources, but knowing how long ago some of these superstitions existed was interesting. I found it especially compelling in the way Stoker pointed out that Jonathan tended to scorn the religious relics such as the crucifix, because as a Protestant, these objects of traditional Catholicism are nearly idolatrous in nature. There are all the traditions of crucifixes, garlic, stakes and beheading, plus the ability to change shape and other characteristics of which I had previously been unaware.

As for the storytelling itself, some of the thriller nature was diminished in the epistletory and diary format. After all, if the author is writing about the events, they must certainly have made it through alright. The most frustrating aspect was when very obvious symptoms began appearing and the characters, though thoroughly involved in the hunt, somehow don't manage to notice. The constant referring to women as weak creatures who couldn't possibly handle the strain of the fear that the men were dashing off into, while normally something to overlook in older literature, was so repetitive that it became quite annoying, and I wanted to bash the men over the head and remind them that it was the women half the time who came up with all the best plans and solutions! Women are often taken as literally the weaker sex in classic literature, which is not usually done in a disrespectful manner, but it was quite overdone in this story.

The story was interesting, though, and for the most part moved along at a fairly good pace. The "good" characters were all far TOO good to be believable and the bad characters were all completely evil, so there were no scruples about how to deal with each situation. There was little room for gray. The most poignant moment in the novel, in fact, was when (SPOILER) Mina reminds Jonathan that the man that they are trying to destroy was once a good man with a soul and they are truly seeking his salvation as well, so they would be wrong to wish ill upon his eternal soul.

From a Protestant Christian perspective there are so many theological elements wrong with the story that I won't even begin to go into them. That is a topic for a book discussion. Suffice it to say that if there's one thing as proof for the nonexistence of such creatures as vampires, it is that God has not made a salvation provision for anything of the kind, therefore it would not fall under his creation.

For an entertaining tale, four stars. For theology, 1 star. For drama, three stars. Worth reading? Certainly. Overall, three stars.

[Kelsi]

This is it?

The first part of the book completely captivated me. Harker at Castle Dracula, the three sexy vampiresses, Dracula's journey by ship, even Lucy's submission to the Count.

Then the rest of the book was anticlimactic and could not even hold up to the beginning. I was completely disappointed by Dracula's demise and the whole last few chapters of the book were rather dull and had little true resolve. I feel as if Dracula's demise was an afterthought.