From the Bookshelf of Should have read classics…

Dracula

Bram Stoker

Start date: May 1, 2014

Finish date: May 31, 2014

Discussion: Group Book Discussions

Why we're reading this: This is the group read for May. Please remember spoiler alerts if the discussion is in the early stages. …more
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What Members Thought

May 21, 2011 Pat Gerber-Relf rated it it was amazing

I have read this book often, the first time when I was 14 years old and now again with 77 years, always something new to discover

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May 06, 2011 Library Lady 📚 rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: book-club, classics, banned-books

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I found Dracula a bit too...dry? Mundane? Boring? I’m not sure the word I’m looking for. It just seemed...I don’t know. Old. I know, I know...this coming from someone whose soap box is made of classics.
But I didn’t like this one. I don’t really know exactly why. It just wasn’t my cup of tea. I never got really "into" it or addicted. I never had the urge to keep reading once I put it down. And when I finally finished it, I felt like a chore I’d been obligated to do for a long time was finally ov ...more

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Dec 04, 2023 Sorento62 rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics-western-fiction-1700-1900, 1001-books-listopia-top-300, chronological-readings, friend-recommended

I listened to a performance style Audible audiobook of this novel, with Alan Cumming, Tim Curry, and others. The audiobook was very well done. However, the length and content of the book seem to have contributed to a huge slowdown in my quantity of reading between late 2019 and mid 2023, during which time I had paused my listening to Dracula and read other things in limited volume. In retrospect it could have been that I felt stuck on Dracula, and it was hard to fully resume my voracious reading I listened to a performance style Audible audiobook of this novel, with Alan Cumming, Tim Curry, and others. The audiobook was very well done. However, the length and content of the book seem to have contributed to a huge slowdown in my quantity of reading between late 2019 and mid 2023, during which time I had paused my listening to Dracula and read other things in limited volume. In retrospect it could have been that I felt stuck on Dracula, and it was hard to fully resume my voracious reading career until I conquered Dracula. I speculate that Mina’s frustration, early in the book, at not being allowed to help (because the men wanted to protect her) could have been part of my difficulty. I identified with Mina, and her frustration may have struck a chord of disempowerment in me. It was a sort of readers block, and I really don’t know the reason. I am only guessing.

Not long after I returned to Dracula and finished it, I had the opportunity to see Coppola’s movie “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” in a theater. Having just completed the book made the movie thoroughly enjoyable for me. The story elements from the book are recognizable but changed in many ways, in the service of accentuating the drama.

Incidentally the book Dracula has lots of content relative to class and gender in Victorian England. I noted with interest that one of the Goodreads book descriptions says Stoker’s mother was a feminist. Yet Brad, in his review, came away believing Stoker was a sexist pig. What do I think? I think Stoker drew Mina as a complete character, a capable woman — yet he was steeped in his Victorian times, so her life is of those times. And the way other women are victimized, etc. is also indicative of the culture. I cut authors a lot of slack based on the time period they lived in. I did get disgusted though with the author of Forrest Gump (quite different from the movie, by the way), who was writing in the 1980s — by that time there was ample opportunity for evolution in attitudes due to the women’s lib movement.

So the book Dracula was significant to me. Do I recommend it? Well, it is long, slow, and plodding. But if you have interest in more background on a progenitor of the modern craze for vampires, etc. then yes.

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