Dracula was published in 1897. It’s not the first vampire story, but it is the most famous. Probably everyone who reads this post will have some idea what the story is about.
Dracula had been on my short list of things to read for a long time before I got to it and it wasn’t quite what I expected.
Plot
Jonathan Harker is a young solicitor who is employed to help Dracula with the purchase of a property in England. While visiting Dracula’s castle in Transylvania he is held captive but eventually escapes. The experience is so traumatic for him that he blocks out much of the ordeal and doesn’t remember what happened. In the meantime his fiancé back in England has a friend named Lucy with several suitors. Lucy becomes ill when Dracula starts feeding on her and her friends band together to help with her recovery. One of her suitors Dr Seward calls up his friend Dr Abraham Van Helsing for help taking care of her. Van Helsing becomes suspicious of what might really be going on with Lucy but doesn’t dare say it outright because he’s a professional man. Lucy eventually dies and becomes a vampire. Her friends decide that Dracula has to be stopped and put together plans for his destruction.
Favorite line
Van Helsing is Dutch and English is not his first language. I listened to an audio book where he had a heavy accent. Several of Van Helsing’s word choices are interesting and sometimes funny. At one point he tries referring to someone as level headed and says “his head is what you call in plane with the horizon”.
Van Helsing is not quite what I expected. The author’s name Bram is short for Abraham and I like that he gave his name to this character. Dracula has been adapted to film over 30 times and several of the characters including Van Helsing have become part of popular culture. In the book he doesn’t come across as some powerful vampire hunter. He’s an old academic type who does what he thinks is right.
Rating 4/5 stars
This is an excellent book. The story was ahead of it's time, it's very deserving of it's classic status and I can see why it's been adapted to film so many times. The book is written like a compilation of letters and journal entries. The story as a whole seemed a bit drawn out in comparison to the final confrontation with Dracula which packs a nice little punch but ends up a little anticlimactic for it's brevity.
I am hoping to share plenty of book reviews. What sort of information do you like to see included in book reviews? I’m hoping to keep them fairly short and sweet. What do you think of my format for this post?
I love reading, but don't completely love writing. That being said I would like to improve my writing. If you have any recommendations for ways to improve my posts, please share them. I hope this post has been helpful and informative. Thanks for reading and thanks for all the upvotes, reblogs, comments and follows.
Lastly, I'm hoping that this book club will be interactive. I would love to hear your comments and considerations if you happen upon a review for something that you've read yourself. I'll try to do the same for you when I stumble onto a book review for something that I've already read.
