11.30.2007

Bram Stoker's Dracula

I planned to read Dracula for Halloween, so I checked it out 10 October and finally got to reading it 14 November, and now I've finished it with Christmas just around the corner. I must admit, a strange story to be reading during the holidays, but this book definitely had the ability to take me out of the merry world surrounding me and into the dark mist of Count Dracula. I can definitely see why this story has held it's own over the years. Written in first person by several characters through the use of journal entries and letters, mixed in with some newspaper articles and telegraphs, anyone can die at any moment. I didn't know whether this story was going to end happy or sad. And I like that in a book, when you've not a clue of what the author intends for you in the end. True, I found some inconsistencies in the writing (e.g., characters were extremely smart in discovering the important details of Dracula in one chapter, but in the next they'd unfortunately forget that discovery and make a grave mistake), but overall it was a fun tale. Some of my preconceptions were also disabused: Dracula has a moustache, Van Helsing is nothing like Hugh Jackman, and sacred wafers are really the secret weapon against vampires.

4 comments:

jo said...

wait... you're telling me that van helsing really isn't hugh jackman?

I don't believe it.

Janice said...

I need to add this book to my "To Read" list.

Annie said...

Hey Ash! So funny to see a comment from you today, cause just last night I was thinking about our funny childhood...our talent show dance to Howard Jones, watching Ghost Writer, making the great movie "BUMS" etc...ha ha - geez I hope those movies are locked up safe somewhere. Good times.

P.S. For some reason I never got your email, I just thought you were ingnoring your old friend...anyway, I'm adding you to my link list cause I look at your blog and the agreeable recipe book all the time. Take care and have a fantasitc holiday! Are you going home?

Jess said...

You think that Sherlocke Holmes would have taken care of Count Dracula since they seemed to have been contemporaries. The British should be ashamed that they had to rely on some crazy Dane in Van Helsing armed with garlic and wooden stakes (how primitive!)to take care of Dracula when they had one of the greatest minds in all the Western world sitting in his study apparently doing nothing more than smoking on his pipe and bossing Watson around.