# Any Bram Stoker Fans?



## vtmoore5 (Dec 29, 2010)

I have always wanted to read the classic novel, Dracula, by Bram Stoker.  For Xmas, I received a Kindle and downloaded the free version of this classic.  It really fills in all the little holes from the upteen movies.

Anyone else reading Dracula?

Lori


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## LauraB (Nov 23, 2008)

I read it, and liked it. It is much different than the movie but is good.


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## Daphne (May 27, 2010)

It's on my Kindle too, but I haven't got round to reading it yet. Let me know if you enjoy it, that may give me the impetus I need to put it to the top of my reading list.


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## John Hamilton (May 6, 2010)

I first read Dracula in junior high and loved it.  The diary format opened my mind to what could be accomplished with literature.  When I first got my Kindle last year, one of the first downloads I made was a public domain copy of the book.  It was like re-visiting an old friend.


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## R. M. Reed (Nov 11, 2009)

I re-read Dracula a couple of years ago, and got more out of it than I did when I was younger. Mina Harker is a more interesting character than usually shown in the movies. The "I have crossed oceans of time" romance aspect from the Coppola movie is absent, so don't expect it. I also read his shorter piece Dracula's Guest some years ago. I really should look up his other books.


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## Strapped-4-Cache (Dec 1, 2010)

I’ll echo John Hamilton’s comment above about the diary format.

I was used to reading the standard first- or third-person narrative type novels until I had read “Dracula” in junior high.  It was a completely different experience being able to see the same story from multiple perspectives.  I’m not a writer, but *am* a voracious reader and enjoyed the different approach to communicating the story.

As noted in vtmoore5’s original post, the book provides lots of information that the movies, both old and recent, neglect to include.

To some the text may seem dated and not as “gripping” as a more current novel might be.  I disagree.  There’s a lot of nuance included that allows the reader to fill in the gaps instead of spoon-feeding the reader with all of the details.  My imagination can take things to a much more intense level than can be described on a page.  That’s probably why I enjoy writers like King and Koontz.  They allow their readers to use their imaginations to create things even creepier than what they’ve been reading.

  - Mark (S-4-C)


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## John Hamilton (May 6, 2010)

Strapped-4-Cache said:


> I'll echo John Hamilton's comment above about the diary format.
> 
> I was used to reading the standard first- or third-person narrative type novels until I had read "Dracula" in junior high. It was a completely different experience being able to see the same story from multiple perspectives. I'm not a writer, but *am* a voracious reader and enjoyed the different approach to communicating the story.


Interestingly, I didn't use any of that diary type of narrative in my own vampire tale, _Night Touch_, but in my historical thriller, _Isle Royale_, I told the story of the villain's experience in the trenches of WWI through letters he sends home to his former lover, the wife of the lighthouse keeper. I thought about _Dracula_ as I wrote it, and was happy to give a little nod to Stoker.


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## SidneyW (Aug 6, 2010)

I read it years ago. Great novel. Would be an excellent cornerstone to a Kindle library especially since it's free.


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## purplepen79 (May 6, 2010)

Stephen King wrote a wonderful essay about _Dracula_ in his non-fiction book _Danse Macabre_. He identifies Stoker's classic as one of the tales of the terror Tarot--others include _Frankenstein_ and _Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_. King touches on some of the rich subtexts and psychological archetypes that lurk under the surface of classic horror stories--it's a shame more modern critics don't appreciate/analyze horror the same way they appreciate/analyze so-called literary fiction.


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## Cliff Ball (Apr 10, 2010)

_Dracula_ is one of the very few Victorian Period novels I like.


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## G. Henkel (Jan 12, 2010)

I love Stoker's writing. "Dracula" made a tremendous impact on me when I read it as a teenager. The narrative, the concept, the characters, the style, it all still captivates me to this day. It is for that reason also that I gave Bram Stoker a small cameo in my book "The Blood Witch."


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## KatieKlein (Dec 19, 2010)

I read it in grad school and loved it. It was for a heresy, magic, and myth literature course. Best. Class. Ever. 

Nerd Alert: my final paper was on the vampire in folklore vs the Stoker portrayal vs the movie portrayals. 

Of course, this was just before vampires went all "sparkly" on us.


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## taufour (Dec 14, 2010)

I think it's great that you are reading this book -- the story is elegant, enormously influential (see what has come out of it) and  if you want to learn how to write or include an epistolary style into your own writing (using letters to move action and characters, like Jane Austen did frequently) you can't do better. Stoker made his mark -- he never visited any of the locations and did all his research using clippings and such to make the locations memorable, but they are so accurate you can actually travel much the same route that the characters do in Romania. Have a good time -- its a great ride and one of my personal [email protected]
VJ WAKS


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## R. Doug (Aug 14, 2010)

Dracula remains one of my favorite novels. If you really enjoy it and the literary device of using diaries to tell the story, I would highly recommend _The Historian_ by Elizabeth Kostova. Weak ending, but the ride along the way was well worth the price of admission.


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## Daniel W. Koch (Aug 14, 2010)

Dracula is one of my favorite books, ever! And the inspiration for my own writing.
I have it in hard cover, and will buy it for my new Kindle so I can always have it with me!


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## James Everington (Dec 25, 2010)

Dracula is great, and I agree with Purplepen's post above that the discussion of it in Dance Macabre is really illuminating. (That book had such a big impact on me as a teen when I was started to get into writing.)

I've not read any of Stoker's other stuff though; I notice some of it is available for free on Kindle. Anyone know if anything aside from Dracula is any good?

J


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## Indy (Jun 7, 2010)

I loved Dracula, and also read the ... I may be getting the title wrong, The White Worm?  And The Jewel of the Seven Stars, and the short stories.  He does seem to have two kinds of women: pure, christian models of all that is womanhood, and the devilish whore.  That's part of being a victorian novel I guess...

I did love the originality and the descriptions.  I was very drawn into the stories, and they were not something I could put down until I finished.  Even if I have never thought a giant prehistoric snake could um, do the things that one did.


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## G. Henkel (Jan 12, 2010)

You're thinking of "Lair of the White Worm."


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## musclehead (Dec 29, 2010)

I've read Dracula. Just read it a few years ago when everybody started going all ga-ga over vampires. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

My reaction was "um, do these people know vampires are BAD?" They're evil, demonic, death-loving, lords of the night, bent on the destruction of humanity one person at a time. But modern vampires are all moody, brooding, _attractive_ teenagers.

The last thing you would _ever_ want is any kind of contact with a vampire.


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## R. Doug (Aug 14, 2010)

musclehead said:


> I've read Dracula. Just read it a few years ago when everybody started going all ga-ga over vampires. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.
> 
> My reaction was "um, do these people know vampires are BAD?" They're evil, demonic, death-loving, lords of the night, bent on the destruction of humanity one person at a time. But modern vampires are all moody, brooding, _attractive_ teenagers.
> 
> The last thing you would _ever_ want is any kind of contact with a vampire.


_Precisely_. I just do not get the concept of taking something inherently evil and making it somehow an object of desire or something deserving of love and affection. Even _Dark Shadows_ didn't attempt to do that-sympathetic, perhaps, but not a love interest.


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## G. Henkel (Jan 12, 2010)

That is not entirely true. Vampirism has always been associated with eroticism. The act of sucking blood alone has often been linked to sexual intercourse and there certainly is some validity to the comparison as it is an exchange of bodily fluids. Christopher Lee's Hammer Dracula was very a sensual characters and women just swooned and gave themselves very willingly to him, while writhing orgasmically when he drank their blood. In addition the spreading of vampirism through the vampire bite has also often been seen as an analogy to venereal diseases. So, the connection of vampires being objects of love interest is not new.

However, that didn't make them any less evil. In fact, the exploitation of that quality made them even more evil.

The new breed of vampires on the other hand consists of weak teenies who are as unambitious and shallow as the generation they have been written for. As you say, the underlying evilness of the creature has been lost altogether to make room for a supposedly-sexy, soap-opera-style weakling.


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## Joel Arnold (May 3, 2010)

I've read Dracula twice, the second time about 15 years after the first, and I liked it a lot better the second time around. I thought he used the epistolary (I think that's the right word!) form very well to tell the story.


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## Guest (Jan 3, 2011)

Love it!  My top ten!


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## purplepen79 (May 6, 2010)

Guido Henkel said:


> That is not entirely true. Vampirism has always been associated with eroticism. The act of sucking blood alone has often been linked to sexual intercourse and there certainly is some validity to the comparison as it is an exchange of bodily fluids. Christopher Lee's Hammer Dracula was very a sensual characters and women just swooned and gave themselves very willingly to him, while writhing orgasmically when he drank their blood. In addition the spreading of vampirism through the vampire bite has also often been seen as an analogy to venereal diseases. So, the connection of vampires being objects of love interest is not new.


Couldn't agree more. The King essay I mentioned in my initial post delves into the eroticism underlying the vampire myth in Stoker's novel. Stoker's writing, although perhaps tame by our standards, is rather sensual and probably skirted the borders of what would have been considered acceptable for Victorian readers (particularly the scene where the Weird Sisters have a go at Jonathan Harker). The pairing of unbridled eroticism and evil in Stoker's writing would have dovetailed neatly with the Victorian era's repression of sexuality. Perhaps the current "de-fanging" of the vampire in certain books is a subconscious attempt to reverse the symbolism. Honestly, I don't mind evil eroticism, as long as it's clear that's what it is. What I do mind is a portrayal of vampiric seduction disguised as candy-floss, cutesy-poo, *sparkly* romance. How are young people supposed to figure out what's healthy and what's not in a relationship when the media message is so confusing?


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## Cuechick (Oct 28, 2008)

R. Doug said:


> Dracula remains one of my favorite novels. If you really enjoy it and the literary device of using diaries to tell the story, I would highly recommend _The Historian_ by Elizabeth Kostova. Weak ending, but the ride along the way was well worth the price of admission.


I just started Dracula and was inspired to give it a go by The Historian, even though I could not finish that book. I may go back to it but I just found it extremely tedious. I have heard it picks up but I was half way through and just not liking it at all.

On another note, I always post what I am reading on my blog with an image, and I am very picky about the jacket cover I choose. I will sometimes choose a foreign cover over the american. Dracula has over 600 covers entered in Goodreads data base and I went through pages and pages till I found this one:









There are quite a few interesting covers below are two other favorites a folk art version and a 1950's pulp version...


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## Cindy416 (May 2, 2009)

R. Doug said:


> Dracula remains one of my favorite novels. If you really enjoy it and the literary device of using diaries to tell the story, I would highly recommend _The Historian_ by Elizabeth Kostova. Weak ending, but the ride along the way was well worth the price of admission.


I agree with you about _Dracula,_ but I didn't think the ending of _The Historian_ was particularly weak.


Spoiler



(Maybe I was just glad to find that there was finally a bit more vampire action.)


 I loved the diary format of both novels, and also loved how Stoker could send chills my spine without actually having to be extremely graphic in his descriptions of events.


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## R. Doug (Aug 14, 2010)

Cindy416 said:


> I agree with you about _Dracula,_ but I didn't think the ending of _The Historian_ was particularly weak.


My biggest problems with the ending were:


Spoiler



1) The method to kill Vlad was a silver bullet; that's just plain wrong as silver bullets apply to werewolves. 2) The whole idea that after 500 years of outsmarting those who would destroy him, Vlad allows himself to be placed into a confined space, with no escape, with someone using a gun loaded with the aforementioned silver bullets.



It was as if Elizabeth Kostova got tired of the project toward the very end and just through an ending together at the last minute.

Just my view. Obviously you liked the ending better. Great book otherwise. Incredible writing throughout.


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## Cindy416 (May 2, 2009)

R. Doug said:


> My biggest problems with the ending were:
> 
> 
> Spoiler
> ...


I thought about the first point that you raised when I read the book. After doing some Googling and Swagbucking, I found that those items could, indeed, kill vampires under certain circumstances. As for the second point, that occurred to me as well. By that point, I was getting a bit tired of the story, so maybe both Vlad and Elizabethe Kostova were, too.  That said, it was a very good book.


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## mayfire (Nov 11, 2010)

I loved teaching it to an eleventh grade Honors English class a few years ago, pre-_Twillight _ craze. I was amazed at how many of my students had no familiarity at all with Dracula or vampire legend. The novel is an excellent reflection of the attitudes of its time (religion, science, gender issues, ethics, cultural prejudice, medicine, mental illness among others) and we were able to work in depth with many themes. We did seminar-style oral presentations followed by final papers, and we had great fun. I remember being so impressed when I read it the first time years ago. My only previous experience with the topic had been old, cheesy movies.


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## Batgirl (Sep 22, 2009)

I read Dracula for the first time this past October, after having been a vampire fan for years and years.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I loved the style and the creepy atmosphere that Stoker was able to create.


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## G. Henkel (Jan 12, 2010)

Absolutely. I mean, there is a really good reason why it has become such a classic and beloved book that has completely revolutionized the horror genre.


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## Alain Gomez (Nov 12, 2010)

vtmoore5 said:


> I have always wanted to read the classic novel, Dracula, by Bram Stoker. For Xmas, I received a Kindle and downloaded the free version of this classic. It really fills in all the little holes from the upteen movies.
> 
> Anyone else reading Dracula?
> 
> Lori


I love Dracula. It's one of my all time favorite books. For years I put off reading it because I thought it would be dry like Frankenstein not to mention longer. I finally broke down and bought a copy when I was visiting England. Oh my goodness, totally creeped myself out


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## Cindy416 (May 2, 2009)

Bleekness said:


> I've read Dracula when I was 13 or 14, and thought it to be great--in that spooky on edge kinda way that you get when you watch a scary movie.
> 
> But my fondest memory is a quote from an old English prof of mine, who was moving into a new house in a secluded town, somewhere in North Virginia. He went on to say that the house he bought was on a hill overlooking the town, and he decided to spend the first night there and just read, despite the fact that he had no furniture (just a sleeping bag).
> The book, of course, was Bram Stoker's _Dracula_.
> ...


Under those circumstances, I would say the prof. was right.


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