it's the count and he's scary... (Dracula - Bram Stoker)

Member Name: strange_child

Product:	Dracula - Bram Stoker
Date:	07/07/02 (306 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: classic, interesting

Disadvantages: long winded, complicated words and expressions!

Dracula is one of those books that if you either like vampires or you simply like reading, you have to read once in your lifetime! After vaguely knowing the Dracula story from a few films (not that I really paid much attention though), I suddenly had the urge the other day to read it! Unfortunately, our family copy had been thrown out my mum, because she was scared of the cover, so after a quick trip to the library I finally sat down to read it.

The story is written with a narrative by several of the main characters, starting off with a journal by Jonathon, an English lawyer who has been sent off to Transylvania to do business with their newest client, Count Dracula who is looking into a property in London. There are also journals by Mina, his new wife and Lucy, Mina's friend who slowly dies and turns into a vampire.

I found the first 100 or so pages the most interesting of the novel, there are lots of descriptions of the people in Transylvania, the strange castle, the strange land, it's all really interesting. This interest turns to fear as Jonathon realizes that the Count isn't all he seems - he would never eat in front of him, he had no reflection and would only emerge during the night.

Then the Count pays his visit to England, arriving at Whitby on a cursed Russia boat, and Lucy, a girl who has only just got engaged falls sick. The doctor, actually the head of a lunatic asylum, calls for the help of his Dutch fellow doctor and together they solve the mystery of what is wrong with her - the Count is really a vampire and has been feeding off Lucy and when she dies she will become a vampire as well! A lot of the book involved the Dutch doctor convincing his fellow vampire slayers that vampires do actually exist! They then have to track down the Count and destroy him, I was quite confused when they were searching from some boxes of Romanian earth, then my dad explained that it was the earth that sustained him, not that the boo
k explained that, you had to work it out for yourself!

Then they have to travel to Transylvania themselves to follow the Count who is fleeing back to his homeland and there is the predictable ending, but it's good!

To be honest I only really kept with the book because I really wanted to read it, and because it's a classic rather than because I found it vitally interesting. The rest of the book seems to be centered around the characters having 'civilized talks' about what they are going to do and how upset they are that Lucy has died and that Mina may die as well. Another annoying thing, although I can imagine that this is the case with a lot of Victorian novels, they used a lot of words that I didn't understand, and Latin phrases, but luckily my edition had a glossary at the back so that I could look back and find out what they meant.

It was a good book, even if it wasn't exactly a relaxing read - I really had to concentrate to understand sometimes! And of course it was the basis for all vampire novels since - for example the Vampire Trilogy and even things such as Buffy. Stoker either invented or presented (I'm not sure which) all those things that we associate with and what defines a vampire - no reflection, being burnt by the sun, and garlic. I would defiantly recommend this to people, but be warned it's not that interesting at some points!

Summary: