One in a Million | Dracula (Signet Classics)

The original classic horror. | Dracula (Signet Classics) | Bram Stoker

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	• Dracula (Signet Classics) Bram Stoker Signet Classics, 1986 - 400 pages average customer review:based on 342 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Dracula

Bram Stoker uses a distinctive writing style. Dracula is made up of letters, which are written by Mina and Lucy and journal entries by Jonathan and Dr. Seward. Dracula is 450 pages long and Bram Stoker uses a large variety of words. Many of the words in this book are old fashioned words. These words are not used in everyday life. The beginning of the book has useless information to the readers. Dracula get confusing because there are all these journal entries, and people who are not explained clearly. The letters go from Lucy to Mina to Dr. Seward and back again and it loses your interest.

Dracula starts off with Jonathan traveling to Dracula's castle for business. Once
Jonathan Harker finds out whom Dracula really is, Dracula locks Jonathan in the castle so he can't escape. While Dracula travels to England and he lures women into his houses so he can suck their blood, Jonathan had escaped from the castle and finds that Dracula is after Mina and Lucy. Van Helsing and Jonathan are on the hunt to capture Dracula and kill him.

This book wasn't how I expected it to be. There was a lot of letters from Lucy and Mina, which made the book boring to read. The exposition of the book dragged on and never ended. Also the use of vocabulary, some of it was hard to understand. In Dracula, there was a lot of traveling going on. I would recommend this book to people who like long books that are 450 pages long, and the choice of words he uses in the book. Other than that, this book is not for you. This book is very confusing and complicated to read.

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One in a Million

Vampire novels are popular and it seems that every horror writer has written their own take on these popular folklore "monsters." But where would readers or writers be without the original?

Stoker has taken folklore and superstitions of the people and the historical figure of Vlad the Imapler and created a horror-character so legendary that it became a house-hold name.

Stoker has taken a unique perspective in telling his tale. It is not a narrative like most novels. Instead, it is written almost as a documentary. Through the telling we read the notes of Van Helsing, Harker's diary, and letters written between Min and Lucy. These gives readers a perspective into each of the character's and their opinions on the situation and Dracula. Rarely do authors tell a story in this manner and Stoker is such a genius at it that the story is seamless. To tell it in the traditional sense would not have the same impact.

You know the character...now read his story.

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The original classic horror.

Bram Stoker's Dracula is the original horror novel, personifying one of the most feared and beloved characters in the history of horror. Dracula has been a source of more rip-offs, movies, graphic novels, and all other sorts of paraphernalia - even lines of action figures.

Bram Stoker himself was a energetic and brilliant man, having managed and acted in theater, engaged in lectures, wrote several novels, and finally published Dracula when he was 50. Set in old Transylvania, the story was progressive for it's time: it features surprisingly detailed accounts of violence, and a female protagonist with surprisingly strong character, while still possessing some of the era's flaws modern feminism looks down upon.

The premise of the story is simple enough, and well known: Dracula, based in Transylvania, moves out and enters England in search of more and more fresh vitality. His encounters with several individuals lead to a banding together of several individuals who hunt down and destroy the monster. Despite this simple summary, Stoker's brilliant telling evokes a sense of mystery and wonder about this mysterious count.

The driving purpose behind Dracula is readily achieved, though perhaps not as effectively as it once would have. Despite it's age and comparative `tame' nature next to modern horror novels, it still retains an aura of mystery throughout that will leave first time readers suitably impressed. The books central theme of Good vs. Evil is so timeless that readers of any era can enjoy it. Characters within the book take on distinctive personalities, and Stoker possesses the all to real ability to make them interact with each other throughout the book in a believable manner. The only failing comes in the novel's sometimes slow pace and the format of letters and notes, which sometimes force Stoker to skirt around telling things directly.

Despite a few minor flaws stemming from the temporal gap between when it was written and modern day readers, Dracula remains a compelling and rich read, full of dreary gothic horror of the most original variety.

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A jewel of the genre

Over vacation, I read Dracula by Bram Stoker. It is a classic science-fiction horror novel about a vampire traveling to London from Transylvania in the late 1800's. The novel opens with a journal entry from one of the main characters, Jonathan Harker, traveling by train to Transylvania to meet Count Dracula. During his visit, Jonathan notices abnormalities in the castle and even more strange incidents with the Count.

Eventually, Jonathan is forced to escape from the Count by jumping into a river from the top of the castle. Jonathan, however, accidentally entices the Count to meet Jonathan's fiancee and their friends and pulls him into their world.

After the death of one of their friends, the main characters become obsessed with ridding the world of the Count. The reading is difficult at times because the story is written in journal entries by the main characters about the same subject other characters are also writing or talking about.

All and all, I enjoyed Dracula very much, and encourage all who like horror or suspense novels to read it. If you saw the movie from the early 1990's, the story lines are quite different.

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A classic reading experience

All my life I have heared and seen movies about Dracula, Frankenstein and Dr. Jeckel and Mr. Hyde. Normally I do not read/science fiction, but I was curious about these three and decided to find out how these literary characters attained their long lasting lives. The time spent reading the three books was worth it. It was an entertaining cultural experience.
I'll leave it to the experts to try to tell you why they are classics. But if you are always short on time, like I am, my order of preference is as I listed them in my first sentance.

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, page 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19

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