Richard's Book Club #14
-"Dracula" by Brom Stoker (November 30th thru January 6th)
http://www.amazon.com/Dracula-Signet-Classics-Bram-Stoker/dp/0451523377/sr=8-3/qid=1168081635/ref=pd_bbs_3/102-6589595-9232162?ie=UTF8&s=books
My two-and-a-half-cents:
Well... it is done. I finished the goddamn thing. I'll be honest, after a 100 pages, I was actually looking forward to ripping it here. Unfortunately, I can't. Dracula was actually a fairly decent book. Let me explain.
The first part is from this solicitor, Johnathon Harker. He goes up to Dracula's castle because he needs to finish a real estate deal with the Count. He describes in his journal (the whole book is in journal/letter/telegram/etc... format) the crazy shit that happens while he's there. There's a really cool scene where Dracula's three "slave-bitches" try to blow him. Another where the Count is climbing down walls and shit like Spider man. Really interesting, ya know. Cool shit.
Then it gets horrible for a while. Nothing really happens, with the exception of Dr. Seward's description of his patient Reinfield who eats insects and, well into the novel, gets his ass thrown around by the Count. Then Lucy, a chick who's an idiot, gets ill for no reason. She eventually becomes one of the undead, and Dr. Van Helsing and company have to go kill the bitch. Really cool stuff.
Then it gets boring as hell again. I swear, Stoker needed to get his pacing right for this one. When I read reviews online on how the story captivated them to read and read, I wonder if they read the same book as I did.
Anyways, the coolest scene in the book is near the end where, after Dracula drinks Mina's blood, makes her drink from a cut in his chest. Shit was insane. I was like damn... fellatio, killings, and rape-via-drinking-someone-else's-blood all in the same book? It was written over a hundred years ago! However, the ending drug a little and was slightly anti-climactic.
Aside from my stupid banter, the book has a lot of subversive meanings to it. There's a lot of Freudian shit involved, especially concerning psycho-sexual phases and the role of women in society. There's also the whole "Western science vs. Eastern superstitions" thing going. Sexual roles were looked at for Victorian times. And finally, "Dracula" is really nothing more than a Christian propaganda book. Sounds ridiculous for me to say that? Read it. On almost every other page there's either a biblical reference, a prayer to God, or a parallel between the Count and the Devil or Anti-christ. Of course the good (Christ) is eventually victorious over evil (Satan).
Oh yeah, and the shit's kind of hard to read. Aside from the old English and arcane words, Stoker tries to express dialects in written form of many different types of people. Needless to say it was tedious to pile through. All in All, "Dracula" was a good book that deserves its rank as a horror classic.
Killer Quote: (Doctor Seward's journal entry; after giving a blood transfusion to Lucy) "No one knows till he experiences it, what it is to feel his own life-blood drawn away into the veins of the woman he loves."
Recommended: Hell fuckin' no.
Next: "Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide" by Kay Redfield Jamison
http://www.amazon.com/Dracula-Signet-Classics-Bram-Stoker/dp/0451523377/sr=8-3/qid=1168081635/ref=pd_bbs_3/102-6589595-9232162?ie=UTF8&s=books
My two-and-a-half-cents:
Well... it is done. I finished the goddamn thing. I'll be honest, after a 100 pages, I was actually looking forward to ripping it here. Unfortunately, I can't. Dracula was actually a fairly decent book. Let me explain.
The first part is from this solicitor, Johnathon Harker. He goes up to Dracula's castle because he needs to finish a real estate deal with the Count. He describes in his journal (the whole book is in journal/letter/telegram/etc... format) the crazy shit that happens while he's there. There's a really cool scene where Dracula's three "slave-bitches" try to blow him. Another where the Count is climbing down walls and shit like Spider man. Really interesting, ya know. Cool shit.
Then it gets horrible for a while. Nothing really happens, with the exception of Dr. Seward's description of his patient Reinfield who eats insects and, well into the novel, gets his ass thrown around by the Count. Then Lucy, a chick who's an idiot, gets ill for no reason. She eventually becomes one of the undead, and Dr. Van Helsing and company have to go kill the bitch. Really cool stuff.
Then it gets boring as hell again. I swear, Stoker needed to get his pacing right for this one. When I read reviews online on how the story captivated them to read and read, I wonder if they read the same book as I did.
Anyways, the coolest scene in the book is near the end where, after Dracula drinks Mina's blood, makes her drink from a cut in his chest. Shit was insane. I was like damn... fellatio, killings, and rape-via-drinking-someone-else's-blood all in the same book? It was written over a hundred years ago! However, the ending drug a little and was slightly anti-climactic.
Aside from my stupid banter, the book has a lot of subversive meanings to it. There's a lot of Freudian shit involved, especially concerning psycho-sexual phases and the role of women in society. There's also the whole "Western science vs. Eastern superstitions" thing going. Sexual roles were looked at for Victorian times. And finally, "Dracula" is really nothing more than a Christian propaganda book. Sounds ridiculous for me to say that? Read it. On almost every other page there's either a biblical reference, a prayer to God, or a parallel between the Count and the Devil or Anti-christ. Of course the good (Christ) is eventually victorious over evil (Satan).
Oh yeah, and the shit's kind of hard to read. Aside from the old English and arcane words, Stoker tries to express dialects in written form of many different types of people. Needless to say it was tedious to pile through. All in All, "Dracula" was a good book that deserves its rank as a horror classic.
Killer Quote: (Doctor Seward's journal entry; after giving a blood transfusion to Lucy) "No one knows till he experiences it, what it is to feel his own life-blood drawn away into the veins of the woman he loves."
Recommended: Hell fuckin' no.
Next: "Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide" by Kay Redfield Jamison