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Bram Stoker: Dracula

For an extra treat in readng DRACULA try the annotated edition ... some startling and interesting insights

btw ... the original movie is a gass ... especially to us who are so used to today's film craft
 
Comeflyaway said:
It would never have occurred to me to read this book, but reading these reviews have convinced me that it needs to be on my TBR list! Great job, guys.
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I agree! This is now officially on my October / Halloween-ie TBR list.

The month of October we binge on spooky movies and books at our house. I think we enjoy October even more then December and Christmas.

Oops, no reason to have the Dracula sequel unless we have the original, I guess I'll have to go shopping.:flowers:
 
NoelK
LOL LOL LOL
no the old movie is not silent
perhaps there was one made but that's not the one I'm thinking of

I may be remembering wrong but I think Bella Lugosi was Dracula

GOODLUCK and ENJOY
 
Actually <horror movie buff hat> there is a silent film too, but it's not the one Gerbam is thinking of. The major movies based on the novel itself:
  • Nosferatu (FW Murnau, 1922). Silent, B/W. Max Schreck as Dracula (renamed Count Orlok for contractual reasons, but it's the same story). Rather excellent if you consider the circumstances it was made under.
  • Dracula (Tod Browning, 1931). B/W. Bela Lugosi as Dracula. This is the classic one, that pretty much defined what Dracula looks and sounds like.
  • Drácula (George Melford, 1931). B/W. Carlos Villarías as Dracula. Basically the same film as Browning's except with other actors and in Spanish.
  • Dracula (Terence Fisher, 1958). Color, as are the rest. Christopher Lee as Dracula.
  • Dracula (Dan Curtis, 1973). Made for TV. Jack Palance as Dracula.
  • Dracula (John Badham, 1979). Frank Langella as Dracula.
  • Nosferatu (Werner Herzog, 1979). Klaus Kinski as Dracula/Count Orlok. Technically a remake of the Murnau film.
  • Bram Stoker's Dracula (Francis Ford Coppola, 1992). Gary Oldman as Dracula. Despite the title, it doesn't really stick a whole lot closer to the novel than most of the others.
...plus literally hundreds of movies that just take the character of Dracula (often based more on Browning's version than Stoker's) and put him in a new story, ranging from more serious attempts to titles like Billy The Kid vs Dracula.

</horror movie buff hat>
 
Dracula, dracula, dracula

beer good said:
Actually <horror movie buff hat> there is a silent film too, but it's not the one Gerbam is thinking of. The major movies based on the novel itself:
  • Nosferatu (FW Murnau, 1922). Silent, B/W. Max Schreck as Dracula (renamed Count Orlok for contractual reasons, but it's the same story). Rather excellent if you consider the circumstances it was made under.
  • Dracula (Tod Browning, 1931). B/W. Bela Lugosi as Dracula. This is the classic one, that pretty much defined what Dracula looks and sounds like.
  • Drácula (George Melford, 1931). B/W. Carlos Villarías as Dracula. Basically the same film as Browning's except with other actors and in Spanish.
  • Dracula (Terence Fisher, 1958). Color, as are the rest. Christopher Lee as Dracula.
  • Dracula (Dan Curtis, 1973). Made for TV. Jack Palance as Dracula.
  • Dracula (John Badham, 1979). Frank Langella as Dracula.
  • Nosferatu (Werner Herzog, 1979). Klaus Kinski as Dracula/Count Orlok. Technically a remake of the Murnau film.
  • Bram Stoker's Dracula (Francis Ford Coppola, 1992). Gary Oldman as Dracula. Despite the title, it doesn't really stick a whole lot closer to the novel than most of the others.
...plus literally hundreds of movies that just take the character of Dracula (often based more on Browning's version than Stoker's) and put him in a new story, ranging from more serious attempts to titles like Billy The Kid vs Dracula.

</horror movie buff hat>
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WOW! beer good what a great summary of DRACULA films thank you for the history it's very interesting
:)
 
Dracula

Who has read it and what did you like?

I like the way Stoker structured it using a whole range of things - diary entries, letters, newspaper articles, etc. You get the story from a whole range of different perspectives, it's great for building the mystery and suspense!
 
I completely and utterly fell in love with Van Helsing while reading that book. Dracula isn't my favorite book by Stoker, but it's pretty good.
 
I love everything about this book. I love its intricacies and quirks, its soap-opera moments, its horror and genuinely freaky goings on, its passion (real and literary). I definitely agree with Aderyn in that its epistolary format makes it much more compelling.

I wrote a review of it here.
 
Will said:
I love everything about this book. I love its intricacies and quirks, its soap-opera moments, its horror and genuinely freaky goings on, its passion (real and literary). I definitely agree with Aderyn in that its epistolary format makes it much more compelling.

I wrote a review of it here.
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I read your review, I completely agree! And I have to say I think I enjoyed reading your review as much as the book :D I like your observations.
 
Thanks Aderyn. It is a great book though, isn't it? So I think it inspires the praise it receives from many quarters. Something I fail to touch on, which I wish I had done, is how the book was published toward the end of the Victorian era also. In this way it represents the best of those repressions and representations of that great period, and of the steady decline of the British Empire likewise. And then you think about the talk of great and collapsed Empires in the books also, of 'alien' invaders in the Count, and such. Thematically, this book has it all for those wanting to 'probe' a little more deeply.

Funnily enough, another book published by Kim Newman back in 1992, and republished this year via Titan is Anno Dracula. That book takes a look at how England would have turned out had Dracula not been thwarted by the group of friends. It's a strong book also, for completely different reasons to the original, but it's definitely worth taking a look at as it's equally rich and enjoyable. Newman is steeped in the genre, and is of the school of awesome story-telling (and writing) ability, so I definitely recommend checking that one out too.
 
Will said:
Funnily enough, another book published by Kim Newman back in 1992, and republished this year via Titan is Anno Dracula. That book takes a look at how England would have turned out had Dracula not been thwarted by the group of friends. It's a strong book also, for completely different reasons to the original, but it's definitely worth taking a look at as it's equally rich and enjoyable. Newman is steeped in the genre, and is of the school of awesome story-telling (and writing) ability, so I definitely recommend checking that one out too.
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This sounds very interesting. Thanks Will, I'm going to check it out :)
 
lol yeah I liked that. It could've been written by any number of journalists/writers/bloggers about new vampire or werewolf fiction nowadays. Quite a chuckle from that one.
 
I've just re-read the novel, and I've got two questions.

1. What's with the Dutch connection? Three of the eight main characters are Dutch, or at least have Dutch names. Why did Stoker give the heroine the name Mina, which is short for "Wilhelmina", the feminine form of "Wilhelm" (as per the Dutch queen during WWII), and why did he make Lucy's ancestry in the Dutch province of Friesland (i.e. Frisia), which is the origin of her surname Westenra? And, of course, why does Abraham van Helsing have to be a Dutch professor from Amsterdam, as opposed to an English one from Oxford or Cambridge? Weren't English universities good enough for the Anglo-Irish Stoker?

2. How does Dracula influence individuals in England before he even departs from Russia in the Demeter on July 6th, never mind before he arrives at Whitby in the storm exactly one month later? Lucy starts with her old sleepwalking problems and has an "odd concentration" about her even in her sleep, all before the latter date. I can just imagine that Jonathan would somehow have let the name of his fiancee's friend Lucy slip to Dracula at the castle, although I can find no warrant in the text for this. I can't imagine how he would even know of Renfield's existence, let alone start to influence him to catch flies, graduating to spiders before he leaves Russia and to cats before he arrives at Whitby. (I'm assuming, as I think is perfectly natural, that all of these problems experienced by the two characters Lucy and Renfield are caused by Dracula.)
 
Interestingly, the residents of Transylvania have never heard of Dracula until western tourists began arriving after the fall of Communism. The westerners came to town to find Dracula's castle. But the town dwellers were confused as there isnt a Dracula's castle there at all.

There was a prince Vlad Tepes who impaled people. However, in time, there suddenly appeared a "Dracula's castle" to satisfy the tourists' curiousity, and to bring in money. That doesnt mean the touristy castle is indeed Dracula's castle.
 
I really liked Dracula. The series of letters and interspersed news stories was a way of helping suspend disbelief and make the story more credible for readers in Stoker’s day. Instead of just one narrator who might be unreliable, there are multiple viewpoints that tell the story.

I was also surprised by the not-so-hidden erotic elements such as Jonathan’s seduction by the female vampires and of Mina’s attack.
 
Dracula is a great book.

The introduction to the copy that I have goes on about Freudian perspectives and, technically speaking, how poor Stoker's writing actually is.

Perhaps there is merit in a Freudian approach to reading the book. And perhaps Stoker's writing is 'quaint'. But ye gads, the pacing of the story and its distancing from the Dracula character is superb. Modern storytellers would do well to understand that by giving just a little bit, one can end up giving up a whole lot.

I'll never forget Dracula's death scene. Absolutely superb.
 
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