Dracula

[ceelo]

I have just started reading this and am quite surprised at how great it is.
From what I have read about it, in regards to reviews written by other people about it, there seems to be a tone of surprise and affection for the story. It makes me wonder if Dracula is quite the underrated novel.

Any thoughts?

[mtpspur]

For me the first chapters of Dracula were the highlight of the novel but large sections of it hold their own charms as well. If I have ANY real complaint it's Stoker's not centering MORE attention on the esteemed Count much like Sax Rohmer does with Fu Manchu--the effect very much being less is more. It's episodic nature leads the reader on from one chilling event to the next until the fateful finale. If this is your first reading--savour the moments and see how suspense was done when the public had time on their hands and a story to be read and experienced. By the by--if you can-track down Dracula's Guest also by Stoker--it was really the FIRST chapter to Dracula taken out to shorten the length. But is stands quite well on its own none the less.

[inbetween]

I simply love it and although I knew how it would end up I hoped so much the count would survive... (I always favored the bad ones, dragons and stuff... all them misunderstood monsters)
but then, I favor such books anyways... dracula, penny-bloods, francentine, wuthering heights.... I love the 19th century...
but just like you I think dracula is very well written. It's awfully thick but the style carries you pretty well though the story
and perhaps you will realise (like I did) that this story (however wonderfully written it may be) want's to teach all the female readers that the cool boys (the real men...) are all so dangerous... and that they should stay with them (boring!!!) good fellows...(perhaps you won't but anyways)
but it is definitely very enjoyable

[inbetween]

For me the first chapters of Dracula were the highlight of the novel but large sections of it hold their own charms as well. If I have ANY real complaint it's Stoker's not centering MORE attention on the esteemed Count
By the by--if oyu can-track downDracula's Guest also by Stoker--it was really the FIRST chapter to Dracula taken out to shorten the length. But is stands quite well on its own none the less.

by the way, I agree concerning both points

and when you are reading such stuff anyways try polidorys (spelling not garanteed...) "the vampyre" and google for a balad called "Lenor" from which the lines "for the dead travel fast" derive.
and if you should happen to feel like more dark stuff (19th century-gothik-stuff)... ask me

[dfloyd]

CD set last year. The CDs were most enjoyable. The Movie with Gary Oldman may be the best Dracula movie.

It's funny, but I'm not a Dracula follower. That is, I don't read other Dracula books. Do not like Ann Rice, but love Bram Stoker.

[stlukesguild]

As a teenager it was the genre of horror and ghost stories that most attracted me to reading and the gothic literature of the 19th century may have been among the first "serious" literature which I read... and became enthralled with: Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry James, E.T. A. Hoffmann, Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, J.S. LeFanu, William Wilkie Collins, Theophile Gautier, Ambrose Bierce, Heinrich Heine, etc... Eventually, these writers led me to the "Decadents" and the "Symbolists" (Rilke, Yeats, Browning, Wilde, Maupassnat, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine) and even to many of the Modernists who came out of this tradition (Kafka, Borges, Calvino, Garcia-Marquez, etc...)

[Jozanny]

LeFanu captures a certain feverish aspect in Carmilla, but I am afraid I am not all that partial to Stoker's template, naughty me. What Anne Rice did with that template, however, I have found worthy of admiration, as well as the cross pollenation in something like I Am Legend, or Omega Man. Vampirism via Victorian coda, though-- eh.

I'm the next generation kind a girl.

[Perandorrrr]

I had to read Dracula along side Interview with the Vampire for a class I was taking. I had to compare and contrast ideas. I don't remember what I said, but I loved Dracula. I basically skimmed Anne Rice's book that seemed to sell way more than it deserved (liked the film, though). The writing is so sharp in Bram Stoker's work; underrated in my opinion. I plan to read it again one of these days. Coppolla's film stays true the text and is filmed nicely; he could've replaced Keanu Reeves.

[Jozanny]

Pera,

It would certainly be an interesting topical discussion to weigh Rice against Stoker. I can put my analytical cap on and play nice with the old boy's network, if I choose, but Stoker gets all the credit for a series of legendary tales that reach Britain through India, and my training makes me want to go to the source.

I am not a huge Rice fan, as I've posted in the past, but she couples histronic disease paradigms nicely in Interview in a way I liked, and the little girl vampire was based on her (daughter's?) death from leukemia, though I'd have to check that. Rice doesn't know when to shut up, but that is a fault I can overlook.

I like 30 Days of Night type scenarios, or things like Let The Right One In. If I have to have monsters that mirror human proclivities, I prefer ambiguity, or a real feral menace.

[JCamilo]

Do you mean the vampiric hinduish tales as source of Dracula?

Even with Polidori Vampire and Carmilla as close by sources straight from gothic fiction? I think Vampires are urban manifestation folk tales, as long the good side faeries became childish, the evil side became vampiric. Cann't see much of route from India there...

[Jozanny]

Do you mean the vampiric hinduish tales as source of Dracula?

Not as a direct source J Cam, no, but I was up really late one night looking for a modernist (yes!) vampire author I liked, and I had no idea how extensive the pre-Stoker textual sources were.


Even with Polidori Vampire and Carmilla as close by sources straight from gothic fiction? I think Vampires are urban manifestation folk tales, as long the good side faeries became childish, the evil side became vampiric. Cann't see much of route from India there...

Polidori certainly bears a close relation to Stoker, I agree.

[JCamilo]

All depends of what we will determine as vampire, blood sucking creatures (there is asiatic myths, africans and south americans), bat-like night creatures (people often forgot dracula turns in several animals, similar to those old inquisition manuals related to witches), or energy drainers. In a way, two romantic poets I think are fundamental for the transformation of the "night spirit of woods" into vampires, Coleridge and Keats. Coleridge of course for Crysthabel and Keats mostly for La Belle Dame Sans Merci. They were not vampire characters, they have origem more on celtic folk ballads, but they do give this step.

Also, it is curious to know that biology started to decribe bats as blood suckers only around XVIII-XIX century, when the new species were discovered in ameirca. Talking about it, you may be curious to read Horacio Quiroga Feather Pillow.

http://www.horrormasters.com/Text/a0568.pdf

[Jozanny]

I just downloaded Polidori and Viereck on the basis of this discussion, and threw in two Stendhal titles for good measure. I must really believe I am going to live forever, but I assure ceelo I will redeem myself by reflecting on Stoker's good qualities. I read some of his shorter tales last year. I'll cede hysteria in his corner :lol:, but let me think about why I don't like what he has achieved.

Thanks to JCam for the link.

[ceelo]

Read a bit more. Really enjoying it :)

[Armel P]

...he could've replaced Keanu Reeves.

More like should have. Reeves almost ruined the movie for me. If Coppola had not put Reeves in there and if the movie was about an hour longer, it would have been one of the greatest films ever made, let alone one of the greatest horror films. But it missed for me. Even with the incredible acting from Oldman and the amazing style of the film it missed. And that's because Reeves's presence was completely absurd and some of the story felt very rushed. Sometimes I close my eyes and fantasize about Coppola reshooting the movie, shot for shot, line for line, without Reeves, and with the same kind of scale as Apocalypse Now Redux. Don't get me wrong, though, I still love watching the movie and I've seen it many times.

I loved the book when I read it, but it's been so long. I remember being really excited by the style with the reliance on various documents. But when I told my father about it he said that by that point in time that method of writing novels was no longer novel and had been done in France for a long time. I should read it again and give it back it's magic in my eyes. I'm sure what had been done in that style prior did not create the same mood.

[inbetween]

concernign the film I really hated that the count was made so ... animal-like. I mean he nerver was.. he is evel and all that but he's more a representation of human evel... not beastly evel. anyways Oldman was real good. and the film shows the melancoly part of vampirism.
and who else around here would have liked dracular to win???
please tell me I'm not alone. in the book as in the film the count is the only real man!!! ...
(and how can someone like me not fall for a man who calls his books "friends"??)

well...

[JCamilo]

The count was very animal in the book, when described he was a walking corpse, stinking even. There is nothing melancholic about him in the book. (Vampirism is not melancholic until those recent versions)

[jlb4tlb]

A great book, not just a great horror story. Enjoy!

As far as films are concerned, Oldman was the best followed by Lee.

[ceelo]

The movie was on tv recently, first time i've ever watched it (the one with oldman)
and i thought it was fantastic.

[Disagree]

I was tasked with reading Dracula in junior high school. I remember approaching it with this "ugh" attitude which lasted about 10 pages in. I really quite enjoyed myself and instead of reading the two chapters I was assigned I ended up finishing the book. It felt to me that there was this building atmosphere of creepiness and menace, which was very well drawn.

I saw a few of the movies based on the novel...one was an older one with Frank Langella which I did not care for very much. The version with Gary Oldham and Keanu Reeves that came out in the early 1990's was much better. I do tend to agree with an earlier poster in the thread about Reeves though. There is something about him that is so wooden and well, just "blah". Oldham, while not one of my favorite actors, was quite good.

[jocky]

Bram stokers ' Dracula ' is a work of genius which took a lifetime to produce. It is a real page turner which reveals his literary skills, as well as his research into the history of Wallachia , Dacia and Romania. His novel never made him a penny in his lifetime. He failed to reach that high literary standard again. 'The Lair of the White Worm ' was a flop. Compare this with the seventeen year old Mary Shelley who also penned a horror classic, ' Frankenstein, or Prometheus Unbound '. My point being that literary brilliance can come through hard work allied to talent, or just natural genius. Now I am going back to watch ' Night of the Demon ' :)

[Cazzasaurus]

I loved Bram Stoker's Dracula!
Out of curiosity has anybody else read Dracula : The Undead - by Darce Stoker (Bram Stoker's nephew)

[JCamilo]

There is no much to compare between Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker. Mary didnt wrote just one novel and failed on others, they are just overshadowed for the popular success of Frank. She have other interesting and good works, with original vision (albeit her life never allowed her to develop a more sharper writting) such as one of the first apocalyptic dystopian novels (The Last Man).

[Disagree]

I loved Bram Stoker's Dracula!
Out of curiosity has anybody else read Dracula : The Undead - by Darce Stoker (Bram Stoker's nephew)

I have not. I will have a look for it, though. I am sort of uneasy about books which try to continue a deceased author's work. They never quite measure up in my eyes, as I inevitably draw comparisons. But, that doesn't mean that they cannot be enjoyed in their own right.

[mtpspur]

I confess I had never heard of this sequel(?) by Darce Stoker which troubles me a bit at my age I thought I knew everything worth knowing about Dracula having two very excellent books which study the book and the play and movie etc which a great deal of information on Stoker. Of course they are buried in my 'library' somewhere in boxes. Time to dig them up--just HAD to be typed.

I feel better--just checked the net--2008 was referenced in a yahoo entry. I feel better--the digigng stops.

[Jassy Melson]

I love Stoker's book but hated Coppala's film. Why he titled his movie Bram Stoker's Dracula, I have no idea, for it has little to do with the book.

[Disagree]

*snip*

I feel better--just checked the net--2008 was referenced in a yahoo entry. I feel better--the digigng stops.

I was curious myself as I had never heard of Dacre Stoker, and did a little digging also. Apparently (if the folks that do book reviews on Amazon are to be trusted) the story is less of a sequel and more of a "re-write" and a sensationalized one at that. Eh. That's sort of what I meant in my previous post about being uneasy about this sort of thing. If I see it at the library I will still check it out though, because I like to judge for myself.

[faithosaurus]

I haven't read this book yet, but now I'm thinking about it. By everyone's thoughts, it seems it's worth it!

[ceelo]

I love Stoker's book but hated Coppala's film. Why he titled his movie Bram Stoker's Dracula, I have no idea, for it has little to do with the book.


He was more than likely just giving credit - there are actually a lot of similarities between the two.

[Babak Movahed]

Well I really enjoyed the novel as something that was quite entertaining. However, I by no means would say it is overrated. Many scholars consider this novel a that serves a precursor to many new styles exhibited in 20th century novels. Also, the novel isn't wholly devoted to conforming to realist norms that were still quite popular in the 1890s. I believe your question deals with the issue that thematically this novel isn't quite out of the ordinary. Along this same notion, the characters don't exhibit much development, the narrative point of view isn't that intriguing, and the story is quite plot heavy. In my opinion, these factors would undermine a lot of significance that would be attributed to this work. Despite all this, it's worth the read.

[jedimisu]

Bram stokers ' Dracula ' is a work of genius which took a lifetime to produce. It is a real page turner which reveals his literary skills, as well as his research into the history of Wallachia , Dacia and Romania.

I think that the right order is Dacia, Valachia and Romania since Dacia finished its history as a ”country” in 234 and Valachia in 1859. We also have to bear in mind that there are mountains between Valachia and Transilvania.

[Des Essientes]

Bram Stoker made his Dracula not a Wallacian like the historical Dracula but a Szkeller. The Szkellers are a people living in Hungary and Romania. Most Hungarians are Magyars. The Magyars are a Uralic people that arrived in Central Europe in the 10th Century, but Szkellers are thought by many scholars to be the descendants of the true Huns who had arrived in Central Europe several centuries earlier than did the Magyars. Stoker even has Dracula brag that Attilla's blood flows through his veins. Stoker's Dracula is thus not at all the same as the historical Dracula etnically, nor is he royally, for the historical Dracula had been a king whereas Stoker's Dracula is a mere count.

Stoker's book contains quite a bit of Western European fear of the East, as it is about the count coming West to England to instigate a scheme for world domination. Stoker's xenophobic bigotry should surprise no one who has read his other works. The Lair of the White Worm has an African character in it and the heroes of the novel refer to him over and over again using the N-Word. Stoker's Slavophobia is most evident in his treatment of Dracula's Slovak henchmen who are so devoted to the evil count that they remain by his side when even his Gypsy minions have deserted him.