Dracula as a phenomenon has pretty much taken on a life of its own to the point where I thought I knew all about it.I mean, Dracula is Dracula right?! Turns out I don’t! Dracula isn’t at all what I expected.
It is told through a collection of diary entries, letters, notes and telegrams following various people through the novel. The story opens with Jonathan Harker traveling from London to the estate of Dracula in Transylvania. It’s all very spooky and mysterious, Dracula doesn’t eat, he seems to disappear during the day and is Mr. Harker his guest or his prisoner? Meanwhile Mr. Harker’s fiancée, Mina, is writing with her friend Lucy Westenra who suddenly seems to be succumbing to a mysterious illness.
The tale is quite quaint if you’re used to modern horror. It’s not graphic or readily violent save for a few places, rather most of it reads like a detective story trying to figure out what is happening. The characters make a lot of basic mistakes that become frustrating after a while. Once they start to realize what they’re dealing with they still leave one of the characters alone. And then they’re all surprised when the vampire gets her? Like, bitch, you knew there was a vampire?!
I liked the slow burn, but I also felt that maybe we could have spent more time on vampire lore. He just didn’t feel like much of a big baddy when all it takes it closing the windows and putting some garlic by the door. In fact in the men just listened the book would have been much shorter.
Still Mina is a great character, she’s smart and resourceful and kind. She furthers the story by gathering information and making conclusions from it. She also likes to memorize train tables which is awesome. There are too many men in this book and they aren’t of much use. But Mina gets the information through to them in the end. There isn’t much in the way of drama and there is much repetition. The final battle falls a bit short for me as most of the book has been sleuthing and skulking around and cutting women out of the conversation.
There are too many men in this book and they aren’t of much use.
After a couple of decades of reading contemporary books written by and about women, this is how I feel about a lot of old classics.
Been working through this as an audiobook with the Annotated Dracula open. A challenge to appreciate on it’s own merits (such as they are) what with the years of additional material. The sexism is so blatant it almost appears to be a satirical commentary. Almost.
There are, in fact, some quite scary tension-making bits. Surprising, given the conceit of ‘written after the fact by suspect reporters’.
Its also proving out a phrase I remember from EngLit (when it comes to evaluating fiction): “‘Dracula’ isn’t about Dracula. It’s about the people who encounter Dracula and how they are affected.’