February 3, 2010
Recent Reading: Dracula
Dracula by Bram Stoker. When I was a kid, on Saturday afternoons, our local channel 44 ran Creature Feature, which was typically a cheesy horror movie hosted by Dr. Paul Bearer. This was probably my first introduction to vampires. When, as a teenager, I read Stephen King's Salem's Lot, I was fairly sold on the merits of vampires as entertainment. Over the years, I've read a few Anne Rice vampire books and seen more than a few episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, but I am by no means a vampire junkie (I'm standing firm on not reading any of the Twilight books). If I were a vampire junkie, I would have read Dracula a long time ago, I guess.
The sum-up: I loved Dracula. The flawed characters, the heroes, the villains, the weak-willed women, the strong Mina Harker, the gradual unravelling of the story from various points of view, and the intricacies of the storyline. And a strong Texan never makes for bad reading, does he?
It's a wonder I haven't read this book before now. It's not just a horror classic; I think it is good literature and good fiction. I was intrigued by the art of the storytelling as Stoker spun out the story slowly, dropping hints and planting characters and suggestions along the way. Caught up in the epistolary style--the letters, journals, newspaper clippings--of the book, I was taken aback when Mina Harker started assembling all those pieces in the actual telling of the book. But afterward, whenever her party of vampire slayers would refer to the reams of work they'd collected on Count Dracula, I felt like part of their party--I had the same reams of their work in my very hands. Nice touch.
I am of a similar mind with my friend, Toni, who, upon finishing Dracula, began to read Frankenstein. My shelf of books such as Doctor Faustus, The Adventures of Dorian Gray, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde seems to be beckoning me.
From Leslie • Posted 7 months, 6 days ago • Reply
From Rita • Posted 7 months, 6 days ago • Reply
Rita Diane Devlin
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