Goodreads Ireland discussion

This is well due a reread. I haven't read it since I did a book review on it in 5th class :-) It was also the One City, One Book Choice a few years back so it's a great Irish quarterly pick

Listened to this last year on audiobook and really enjoyed it. The pure evilness of Dracula is really well portrayed

Emma, there's a free Librivox recording available, if you can stick some of the cheesy amateur narration. I listened to and enjoyed the book a few years ago, but am not sure if it's one that I'll reread myself.

I've an annotated edition with notes by Leslie Klinger (better known as a Sherlock expert) and an essay by Neil Gaiman. So i'll probably read that one to get a bit of the background. (I've also a standard edition and a popup edition )
This is definitely one of the great Irish novels so I"m looking forward to reading the discussion on it and what people think.

It was definitely innovative in both style and content, it'll be interesting to see how i respond to it as an adult :-)

Dracula always seemed to me at least partly a psychological thriller (along with Jekyll & Hyde) in the sense that Victorians were expressing a fear of the evil that lay hidden within themselves behind their own respectable façades.

Thats definitely a part of it. It certainly reflects the dark side of all the characters , not just Dracula

One of my favorite books, I read it long time ago, but it was in Portuguese. So, it will be really exciting to read it again, now on Stoker's real words. My copy is already waiting for me!

Excellent. Glad to see your enthusiastic. For me I think its one of the best Irish novels ever and will be interested to see how others enjoy it.
It will be interesting to see if you find it much different in English ☺

I'll be starting my read later on today. I'm going to read the Leslie Klinger annotated edition to see what additional things I learn . It has lovely pictures from the era of the various settings of the book as well as a lot of background . Should make the reread quite interesting

I picked up a new leatherbound edition myself from Barnes and Noble recently. The last time I read Dracula it was a library copy plus this is the sort of book I want to last and look pretty :)

I saw the Barnes and Noble leather edition, great black cover and very reasonable price.

Started in but mainly just read the intro. A reasonable background to Stokers life plus lots of interesting photos of people who have played the characters on stage and screen.

Paul, have you ever read the sequel by his great grand nephew Dacre Stoker? I really truly absolutely and definitely recommend you not reading it :)

I read the first few chapters and decided to leave it as I love the book too much to sully it with such bad writing. Dacre Stoker did not inherit writing talent.
When I finish this I'm going to try Stokers collection of short stories that Trelawn bought me for Christmas. I've read Draculas Guest but the rest will be new to me.

Based on the notes so far in my book -
Vendors in London used to sell meat for cats back in the day. Now thats the information you get an annotated copy for ☺ Also interesting to know there was a previous chapter removed so the book starts with chapter 2 and some of the locations were changed late on

It is more or less erased from my mind at this stage. It just weakly played on the erotic elements of Dracula and vampires and lacked originality. Bram Stoker probably haunts him now though so its all good

Best update on it all I've read was The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova.

I have that on my shelf by your recommendation and I'm hoping to read it soon. I've a long list of books to get through :)

I've quite the list as well. I always feel guilty picking my next book to read as there are so many waiting.

One book I recently read was Weird Vampire Tales: 30 Blood-Chilling Stories from the Weird Fiction Pulps. I thought it was interesting to see how the pulps adapted the Dracula story over the years. Usually, these stories were much more lurid than the original.

I suppose that era was all about the shock factor

Description of Dracula is quite interesting . The annotated edition points out how it differs so much from most portrayals of the character. He is described as an old man with a thick moustache and bushy eyebrows. So different from the iconic screen inages.

I have started reading it, I am on Chapter 3. It has been really interesting reading it on its original language. I am more more touched by the story as it sounds much darker and scary through Stoker's own words. I guess any translation makes you lose something inspirational, doesn't matter how good the translator is.

Also, one of my friends said that, because now I live in Ireland, I can experience the real feeling that comes with this book - actually, I was told that "I could never be really scared of a vampire while living in a such sunny place as Brazil" LOL

Anyway, I am really enjoying it, and I want to go through its pages slowly. I am reading one chapter per time and then re-reading it through an audiobook I found on YouTube (narrated by Rob Goll).

Good approach to reading it. I'm reading it quite slowly this time as well, Savouring the words.
Its quite interesting the additional detail I'm picking up on

Very interesting to read that Lucy was dumbed down from the first draft.

Really? I felt she was one of the weaker characters and it was a very "close" relationship between the two women. Almost bordering on the scandalous

She was probably dumbed down to make her appear more innocent whilst also allowing Mina's intelligence to shine more.

Stoker seems to have removed quite a few lines by her which would have made her a bit more of a personality than she is. I always found it odd that three men were fauning over what cane across as a cardboard cutout and Mina refers to her way with words a few times which contradicted the substance we are presented with.
The editing explains that then .

And I agree Emma , she certainly wasnt innocent. I always assumed she played the men off each other and knew how to get her way.

True i suppose. I like to think better of the would be heros but obviously its not the case

I know what you mean though. When the spoiler thread is open and I'm further in my reread we can discuss. I do quite like Van Helsing as a character but he is no hero.

The little old lady who puts the rosary on Harker is the standout hero of the book ☺

All the characters have flaws, have you read other works by him Paul. Do you think he designed those characters deliberately or are all his characters flawed?

I'd like to think its deliberate but he has flaws as a writer and misses some obvious mistakes .

Enjoying it so far, I had prejudged it as boring but I was surprised at how good the first four chapter were, thumbs up

I had never read Dracula, but was surprised to find it written in epistolary style. The opening reminded me of Travels Through France and Italy. Stoker took pains to balance the beauty of the countryside with just enough menace that the reader anticipates a dark destination.

Hes certainly less polished up in the early films. Nosferatu is much more monstrous looking than the image vampires took from around the 50s on.

Considering its a rip off rather than an official adaption its quite interesting its more loyal.

I think the change in Dracula's image can be attributed to Lugosi's portrayal. He had already starred in the Broadway stage version before traveling to Hollywood. Lugosi's Wikipedia bio states: "Lugosi's Dracula was unlike any previous portrayals of the role. Handsome and mysterious, Lugosi's Dracula was at once so alluring and so dreadful that audiences gasped when he first opened his mouth to speak." It's interesting in that Lugosi was himself a native of Transylvania and so could honestly claim to be something of an expert on the subject, even more so than Stoker.

I've been looking at the images of actors portraying him in my edition and I'd say you're right Bela Lugosi seems to have set the trend.

I think part of it may have been that Lugosi simply didn't want American movie goers to see his countrymen as blood crazed animals but rather as aristocratic and sophisticated and so tried to steer his characterization in that direction.

So it's always interesting to see what Goodreads recommends I read based upon my "currently reading shelf." Now that I've started Dracula, it seems to be recommending a bunch of other vampire/monster books.

Spirits of the Dead: Tales and Other Poems
Conjure Wife**
Carmilla**
The Island of Dr. Moreau**
The House on the Borderland
The Beetle
Dracula in Love
The Vampyre: A Tale** (The first vampire story in English)
Vathek
And a few other titles: (which I think are mostly ones written around the same time period as Dracula)
Alice in Wonderland
Complete Works of Oscar Wilde
A Study in Scarlet
The Old Curiosity Shop**
The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner

Thoughts? The stared titles are the ones I'm most likely to read.

I read Carmilla last year and quite enjoyed it. Its a much shorter book. Polidori's Vampyre is one I keep meaning to read. I'm going to read Stokers short stories as a continuation of the theme.

I have The Old Curiosity Shop on my TBR and am hoping to get to it this year.

Dracula is partially based on Elizabeth Bathory in addition to the Vlad the Impaler that more people are familiar with.

In my 9th grade Humanities class we had a year long series of projects where we all picked a personage from world history (I think the stipulations were that they not be American and prior to the 20th century or perhaps earlier than that). I picked Mary Queen of Scots (based upon the fact that she was beheaded). I learn a lot about the Reformation which in retrospect was interesting even if it was boring to a 14 year old. One particularly "goth" girl in my class picked Elizabeth Bathory which is how I learned about her.

Very interesting. I'll have to read more about her. ☺

Whatever about the complete works of Oscar Wilde, Sara, you really need to read The Picture of Dorian Gray!!

Everyone should read Dorian Gray. Such a shame Wilde only wrote one novel.

Ah Dorian Gray! so good.

Conjure Wife by Fritz Lieber is a great witchcraft book. I enjoyed it a lot.