Sign in with Facebook
Matthew's Reviews > Dracula
Dracula
by
by
Matthew's review
bookshelves: 2017, audio, horror, classic, library, monsters, completist-book-club
Nov 15, 2017
bookshelves: 2017, audio, horror, classic, library, monsters, completist-book-club
Two things about this book:
1. It is a really great and creepy story that deserves classic status
2. Everything is repeated soooooo much without any obvious benefit.
Here is actual footage of Bram Stoker writing this novel:
If Stoker had just got to the point, this book would have been much more exciting and suspenseful. I understand the exact same mysterious thing happens night after night. I understand that Dracula has some boxes of dirt. I get that you brought Winchester rifles along for protection. Each of these things was repeated ad nauseam throughout the book. Talk about killing the pace - by the time the gruesome scares came I was very disengaged.
Also, funny thing about this book as a horror story - it must be the grandfather of heading up the stairs to hide instead of running outside or cutting through the graveyard shortly after hearing a serial killer is loose. They keep leaving people alone even though those people are repeatedly attacked when they are left alone. Then, when they finally insist on guarding someone, that person insists that they need no one but God to guard them!? Seems like so far God had not been interested in protecting, so why count on him starting now!?
So three stars because it is a classic and I like the story. I especially like Lucy's suitors - their gung ho manliness amuses me. But the repetition and the illogical behavior in the face of a bloodsucking monster are the cause of the removal of a couple of stars.
1. It is a really great and creepy story that deserves classic status
2. Everything is repeated soooooo much without any obvious benefit.
Here is actual footage of Bram Stoker writing this novel:
If Stoker had just got to the point, this book would have been much more exciting and suspenseful. I understand the exact same mysterious thing happens night after night. I understand that Dracula has some boxes of dirt. I get that you brought Winchester rifles along for protection. Each of these things was repeated ad nauseam throughout the book. Talk about killing the pace - by the time the gruesome scares came I was very disengaged.
Also, funny thing about this book as a horror story - it must be the grandfather of heading up the stairs to hide instead of running outside or cutting through the graveyard shortly after hearing a serial killer is loose. They keep leaving people alone even though those people are repeatedly attacked when they are left alone. Then, when they finally insist on guarding someone, that person insists that they need no one but God to guard them!? Seems like so far God had not been interested in protecting, so why count on him starting now!?
So three stars because it is a classic and I like the story. I especially like Lucy's suitors - their gung ho manliness amuses me. But the repetition and the illogical behavior in the face of a bloodsucking monster are the cause of the removal of a couple of stars.
1929 likes · Like
∙
flag
Sign into Goodreads to see if any of your friends have read
Dracula.
Sign In »
Reading Progress
January 8, 2013
– Shelved
November 10, 2017
–
Started Reading
November 10, 2017
– Shelved as:
to-read
November 10, 2017
– Shelved as:
2017
November 10, 2017
– Shelved as:
audio
November 10, 2017
– Shelved as:
horror
November 10, 2017
– Shelved as:
classic
November 10, 2017
– Shelved as:
library
November 10, 2017
– Shelved as:
monsters
November 15, 2017
–
Finished Reading
February 20, 2020
– Shelved as:
completist-book-club
Comments Showing 151-168 of 168 (168 new)
date
newest »
newest »
message 151:
by
Feirdia
(new)
-
rated it 3 stars
Feb 17, 2022 12:53PM
Yeah, hard agree on the sheer idiocy of many of the characters. The smartest person in the entire book was Renfield, the mentally insane man in the asylum. Tried to escape for everyone else's good, helped how he could, and—perhaps most notably—he realised his "dream" wasn't actually a dream! On the other hand, Mina just went "Oh, I'm being attacked in my nightmares just like Lucy was, and we are being stalked by an evil being with unknown powers and abilities. I'm sure there's nothing at all to that. I'd better hide it from everyone and try to get an opiate from the doctor."
reply
|
flag
Matthew wrote: "Well , I was married for years , at the end of the three years I found out that she used me and my son to get a house , since the day we moved out I never had to see her or her crazy son again , so..."Ugh - sorry you went through so much. Glad it sounds like you are in a better place now!
Jack wrote: "Yeah, hard agree on the sheer idiocy of many of the characters. The smartest person in the entire book was Renfield, the mentally insane man in the asylum. Tried to escape for everyone else's good,..."Ha! Yes - exactly! Gotta love it when it is easiest to relate to the nuttiest of characters and con only roll your eyes at the "heroine".
Thanks Matthew, I really am I think in those three years I read seven books , as im sure with anyone if that had an eight year old Damian Thorne screaming in your ears from 4am until 12.30am ...... Every day , you'd just not be able to concentrate reading , I know I read salems lot , however I can honestly they that I didn't take any of it in , I mean yeah if I was asked after a week of reading it yeah I could have talked about it in a discussion but say I read the stand before I moved in the the ex I could discuss loads about that
Matthew wrote: "Well , I was married for years , at the end of the three years I found out that she used me and my son to get a house , since the day we moved out I never had to see her or her crazy son again , so..."Commiserations.
I was divorced 14 years ago and it's still not a happy one. :/
Exactly. Thank you for putting it so eloquently and hilariously!
This sums up how I felt
Matthew, I'm 100% on the same page as you with this. If I had to hear Van Helsing talk about doing their 'dreadful task' ONE more time.....
Ditto all of the other comments - it’s sad how disengaged I became with it by the end. The repetition took the very essence of the story and shoved it down the drain.
I laughed so hard at that gif, and I totally agree Stoker blathered on and on for ZERO reason!!
Arsh wrote: "I'm about 70% completed the book now and I am soooo tired of the conversations they have about rallying their strength and how much of an obstacle stands before them. Each scenario like this gets p..."It ocurres to my ‘man-brain’ that the book itself is a parallel to the story. Every time I picked it up I would have to prepare myself to endure another life sucking episode.
I couldn't agree more.
. I agree to this guy review the book was slow and could have been an amazing book if only he got to the point and wrote it in a nice well pattern it would have been much more exciting and suspenseful. Like he said like in most horror movies, shows, and book they always put something of the main character like running away or like cutting through the highway or grave yard after the killer is on the loose on them. There’s always that one person or group that get left behind. Then those certain heroes either have to risk there life to save them or take a dark turn and kill them then the killer rarely spares there life. It always shown that in the groups the killer is one of them because of a dark history they have with one like scream the movie it was one of the friend who became the killer and went crazy then went on a rampage But one thing I noticed was that the killers know who to kill they know who the hero is going to be and how to kill and how to plan their attack against their own
Interesting ! I read that a lot of folks felt this was way too long but that the readers of the time expected a book to be long so he gave them what they wanted
This is hilarious! I loved the book guiltily and every word you said here is true 🤣
The Romantic movement horse died in 1914. If it wasn’t dead by the end of that war, it was certainly dead by the second. Stoker was writing in 1897, before all our enchantment with nature was blasted away. Your review is spot on for such an age as ours when chivalry is as dead as Neitche’s God. But Stoker’s horse was not dead yet, neither were the horses of his readers. Charlie Mackesey is doing sterling work to try to get us to hear our very much alive horses. They are not dead, it’s just that the two wars deafened us to their beautiful museic.
In fact, I find the slowness very enjoyable to read. It makes it stick and also makes the horror seemingly return night after night. The slow way of writing makes the book manage to cling to your soul making you carry it with you everywhere; even without the physical book. So through repetition, the book itself becomes a kind of vampire; a vampire of your time.
