Dracula

Rating:
Summary: An entertaining work of literature.
Review: Everyone, no exception, knows about Dracula. Almost everyone can relate the names Mina, Lucy, and Van Helsing to Dracula. This is the original work where all these characters were created. Basically, the story tells of Dracula (!) who leaves Transylvania for England to find new prey and enter the society of learned men and the modern world.

Stoker's narration style is brilliant, told through journal entries, newspaper clippings, and letters. Though it does slow down a bit in the middle, the general pace is fast and the story is action packed. It is perhaps a little predictable, but what do you expect from a story that's been told and retold so many times. The chilling account of Jonathan Harker's adventures in Dracula's Castle is the best part of the story. The dangers he encounters, the dark, dusty rooms and creaking doors, his discovery that he is a prisoner, his attempts to escape and the Count's unvoiced knowledge of Jonathan's distress alone make the whole book worth reading! What I found makes this book truly wonderful is the beautiful use of language in descriptions of the castle, the Transylvaninan landscape, sunsets and sunrises (as it is a vampire story), storms, the moonlight, etc., and this without slowing down the pace.

The book does have some very scarry moments, but if you're looking purely for horror, blood, and gore you might not be satisfied. I have read many reviews and many complain that it is dull, not as frightening as the movies, too cliched, etc. Remember that what scared people in the 19th century or early 20th may not scare us today, with all our alien movies and violent video games. But this is the book that started the whole Dracula/Vampire tradition. It is due to the *un-dying* merit of this great work of literature that so many others have borrowed Stoker's ideas, changed, and adapted them. After a century of adaptations, ofcourse the original will be different. You must place the book in the context of its time to judge it fairly. Second, put aside what you already know from movies and other books about Dracula and vampires. When that's done, you'll see it is really a very enjoyable and enlightning read.

There is one flaw, however. The characters are too dry. The women are all pure and virtuous and the men all brave and dutiful, and before long they all become one happy family. I know these were Victorian times but I still felt they could have had more depth. In any case, the character of the Count and everything else in the book quite makes up for this downfall, and it is not worth taking away a star.

If you are a literary mind, the book has plenty of symbolism, dualism, and other isms to wonder at and analyse. The beauty of prose will add to your pleasure. If you are a Vampires and horror story fanatic, it'll be worth your while to read the original story, but don't expect to be scared out of your wits. In the end, it is at the very least a very enjoyable, thoroughly entertaining and rewarding read for anyone.

Rating:
Summary: Extraordinary.
Review: Power over vulnerability has been a theme in the arts since the petroglyphs were formed. That and survival, but the overall power is in those who want to protect the lucious Lucy; there is exhilaration in keeping people safe. When you can't keep someone safe, you always question yourself. Bram understood it all.

Rating:
Summary: I'm trapped in agentia!!!
Review: ... And when I write a review like this, more of a meta-review, really, admitting that yes, I do own Dracula, and I've probably read it 2.7 times and enjoyed it some each time, and I recommend it to anyone who likes their gore discreet and their horror genteel, it doesn't do me any good, because they don't post them. You see, you have to really mean it. Or else.

...

Rating:
Summary: Gothic Classic
Review: This is one of the great gothic classics, and probably the most readable. It does not have the thematic depth of Frankenstein or the popularity of Anne Rice, but it is a good read.

Rating:
Summary: Classic Horror
Review: Don't be mislead by the various movies you may have seen that were made using Dracula as a blueprint. This is actually a great piece of psychological horror. After a slow start, during which not much happens, beyond introducing the characters and your basic travel type novel of the day, the action suddenly takes off back in England. There is a certain slow dread that grows when you read this novel. Most people already know what happens in the book before they ever set hands on it. My advice is don't be gready for blood and gore. There is more an element of suspensful drama than a large body count.

This is a book worth the read.

Rating:
Summary: Dracula
Review: This book is about a man named Jonathan Harker, a man named Dracula, and two girls named Mina and Lucy. The story is about Dracula trying to suck everyone's blood. My favorite part is when a wolf jumps in Lucy's window. I like this part beacuse it is scary. I like Jonathan beacuse he is nice and helpful. I think other kids my age would like this book beacuse it's scary and fun to read. Read to find out if Dracula can be stopped!

Rating:
Summary: Dracula
Review: Dracula By Bram Stoker has a very good story to it but it doesn't have much exitment in it. The book is written through journals by people who all become connected together through out the story to stop Dracula. The book would be alot better if it had more excitment and also some suspense.

Rating:
Summary: A great story.
Review: Bram Stoker's only popular novel is also one that starteled me to my core. Based in 1800's England, five men, Jonathan Harker, John Seward, Dr. Van Helsing, Queincy Morris and Aurthur Holwood (later called Lord Godlaming) take up the harrowing challange of destroying the most evil being to ever walk this earth: Count Dracula.

Very mellow dramatic and with stark discriptions, this book takes you through variaties of emotions and feelings, mostly about the female characters, Lucy Westerna and Mina Murray (later called Mina Harker).

Although long and strenuous at times, you always wonder "what next," even though you know the answer...maybe. The book is written in the form of several journal entries, which enhances the effect in the fact that you get each persons perpective in a varity of way and from each person, but also harbors it by limiting what each individual can think at certain times. Stoker brings you through feelings of pity for the victims of the vampires also, playing with the most basic of human emotions.

The tone of the book increases steadly while the characters develop better than expected. My second vampire novel, it barely tops "Interview With The Vampire," which also left me breathless.

Rating:
Summary: Best Book Ever
Review: Stoker makes frequent reference to Hamlet in Dracula, and that is fitting; like Hamlet, Dracula will never have an entirely faithful film version - and perhaps that is for the best. With all the vampires that have come before and after him, Dracula is still the best. It's all here...the bats, the brides..."The Children of the Night, what music they make!" If your only knowledge of Dracula comes from pop-culture (and you are a fan) you should definitely read this book. Told in a series of letters, Dracula himself is all the more scary because he spends so much time offstage. True, the novel is now more than a hundred years old, but it is the best example of Gothic literature there is.

Rating:
Summary: Dracula
Review: A beauifully written novel that touches all the sences and fills our mind full of ideas beyond belief. If you are into horror movies or like macobre ideas you will enjoy reading this classic novel clevorly written by Bram Stoker. All aspects of Gothic literture where met and surpassed in this novel. The setting takes place in Transylvania, in a dark in mysterious castle where Count Dracula dwells. The ancient prophecy of vampires on the undead reign surpreme all throughout the novel. The damsil in distress is used to its maximum potential to show how overwrought emotions control or daily interactions and unmost control the soceity we live in. If you are lookin for an enjoyable novel to indulge all of your senses in consider reading the novel Dracula.