None
3 stars
Despite the true horror being how long-winded this is, it's a pretty good story.
397 pages
English language
Published Feb. 27, 2021 by Independently Published.
Dracula Bram Stoker(Annotated Edition)
by Bram Stoker
Bram Stoker: Dracula Bram Stoker(Annotated Edition) (2021, Independently Published)
- ISBN:
- 979-8-5190-8034-7
Copied ISBN!
4 stars
(401 reviews)
It tells the story of Dracula's attempt to move from Transylvania to England so he may find new blood and spread undead curse, and the battle between Dracula and a small group of men and women led by Professor Abraham Van Helsing.
Dinto reviewed DRACULA by Bram Stoker
El tiempo lo colocó en el canon literario
5 stars
Sea cual sea la lectura (estructuralista, metaliteraria, histórica, social, psicológica, religiosa, etc), el texto da material abundante. Incluso hay fragmentos que funcionan de manera unitaria.
t o d d w a r n e r reviewed Dracula by Bram Stoker
Love. Like. WTF!
4 stars
I kind of had a love/like/WTF relationship with this book. It's so darn clever and yet ridiculous at the same time. The characters are exaggerations and silly. And the dialogue, Gah!
On top of that, the "rules" for this whole vampirism thing make no sense at all, and there are no explanations for how they figured out those rules. The good doctor just knows from some dude who told him and assumed it all to be true, no matter how far fetched.
But still, Dracula is an enjoyable romp that explores some interesting themes that I'm unsure the author knew were even there.
This Everyman Library edition (they are always the best editions) includes an introduction by Joan Acocella who concludes with "Dracula is like the work of other nineteenth-century writers. You can complain that their novels are loose, baggy monsters, that their poems are crazy and unfinished. Still, you …
I kind of had a love/like/WTF relationship with this book. It's so darn clever and yet ridiculous at the same time. The characters are exaggerations and silly. And the dialogue, Gah!
On top of that, the "rules" for this whole vampirism thing make no sense at all, and there are no explanations for how they figured out those rules. The good doctor just knows from some dude who told him and assumed it all to be true, no matter how far fetched.
But still, Dracula is an enjoyable romp that explores some interesting themes that I'm unsure the author knew were even there.
This Everyman Library edition (they are always the best editions) includes an introduction by Joan Acocella who concludes with "Dracula is like the work of other nineteenth-century writers. You can complain that their novels are loose, baggy monsters, that their poems are crazy and unfinished. Still, you gasp at what they're saying: the truth." I think I can agree with that.
xini reviewed Dracula by Bram Stoker
Review of 'Dracula' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
no era lo que me esperaba? lo he disfrutado mucho, me ha gustado mucho la historia y el cómo está contada. llevo tanto tiempo leyéndolo que lo voy a echar de menos! me ha acompañado un curso entero, como quien no quiere la cosa...
Greg reviewed Dracula by Bram Stoker
None
1 star
SNORE
BORING
I'm so pissed because I love vampires and this was one of the most boring books I've read. Not for me at ALL
Elias reviewed Dracula by Bram Stoker
I understand why people love it...
3 stars
... But it was far too dry for me. It also took me ages to read it, and I kinda glossed over the end because I wanted to be done with it. I'm going to give it another shot when Dracula Daily comes by again.
LemmiSchmoeker reviewed Dracula by Bram Stoker (DTV, 516)
Obwohl zusammengestohlen, ein makelloser Archetyp
4 stars
Kaum ein Werk der Horrorliteratur war je so einflussreich, oder eben so innovativ, wie dieses. Obwohl Stoker sich seine Themen und seine erzählerischen Ideen zusammengestohlen hat, ist es ihm beim Zusammenfügen gelungen, einen makellosen Archetyp zu entwickeln: Vom Aufbau, der von Unbeschwertheit über Sorge, Vorahnung, Furcht und schließlich Schrecken bis zum vernichtenden Ende unaufhaltsam und folgerichtig bleibt, über die Charakterisierungen (die Unschuld, die Integrität, der Wahnsinn, die Dekadenz), bis hin zu den Beschreibungen nimmt er allen zukünftigen Horrorerzählern den Wind aus den Segeln. Zudem gelingt es ihm, eine echte Bindung zu seinen Figuren herzustellen, so dass die Grausamkeiten, die ihnen zugefügt werden, dem Leser ehrlich zu schaffen machen.
Dabei hat der Roman offensichtlich viele Schwächen, und hier liegt die Chance, die so viele spätere Autoren nicht zu nutzen gewusst haben: Zum einen ist er sicherlich zu lang, zum anderen selbst für die Zeit zu süßlich und hölzern. Für einen reinen …
Kaum ein Werk der Horrorliteratur war je so einflussreich, oder eben so innovativ, wie dieses. Obwohl Stoker sich seine Themen und seine erzählerischen Ideen zusammengestohlen hat, ist es ihm beim Zusammenfügen gelungen, einen makellosen Archetyp zu entwickeln: Vom Aufbau, der von Unbeschwertheit über Sorge, Vorahnung, Furcht und schließlich Schrecken bis zum vernichtenden Ende unaufhaltsam und folgerichtig bleibt, über die Charakterisierungen (die Unschuld, die Integrität, der Wahnsinn, die Dekadenz), bis hin zu den Beschreibungen nimmt er allen zukünftigen Horrorerzählern den Wind aus den Segeln. Zudem gelingt es ihm, eine echte Bindung zu seinen Figuren herzustellen, so dass die Grausamkeiten, die ihnen zugefügt werden, dem Leser ehrlich zu schaffen machen.
Dabei hat der Roman offensichtlich viele Schwächen, und hier liegt die Chance, die so viele spätere Autoren nicht zu nutzen gewusst haben: Zum einen ist er sicherlich zu lang, zum anderen selbst für die Zeit zu süßlich und hölzern. Für einen reinen Schocker, als der er ursprünglich ja ausgelegt war, erreicht er aber sehr viel und das sehr effektiv.
Geoff reviewed Dracula by Bram Stoker
Review of 'Dracula' on 'Storygraph'
4 stars
Somehow I got this far in life without ever reading Dracula. My daughter-in-law-to-be finally convinced me to pick it up—it is one of her favorites—and I blasted through most of it on a long car drive. It is unsurprisingly great, far creepier, more graphic, and more sexual than I expected given the 19th century publication date. I was also delighted to see how many of our modern Vampire tropes—I’m an unrepentant Buffy fan—are on full display here, from garlic and crosses to the whole “you can’t enter without an invitation” thing. The Vampires even turn to dust when staked (although with an explanation that doesn’t quite work in the Buffyverse). I saw echoes in Harry Potter here too, with the whole psychic-connection subplot. All this to say Dracula is so influential we live in a world more or less shaped by it. It was fun to go to the …
Somehow I got this far in life without ever reading Dracula. My daughter-in-law-to-be finally convinced me to pick it up—it is one of her favorites—and I blasted through most of it on a long car drive. It is unsurprisingly great, far creepier, more graphic, and more sexual than I expected given the 19th century publication date. I was also delighted to see how many of our modern Vampire tropes—I’m an unrepentant Buffy fan—are on full display here, from garlic and crosses to the whole “you can’t enter without an invitation” thing. The Vampires even turn to dust when staked (although with an explanation that doesn’t quite work in the Buffyverse). I saw echoes in Harry Potter here too, with the whole psychic-connection subplot. All this to say Dracula is so influential we live in a world more or less shaped by it. It was fun to go to the source.
Ténno Seremél reviewed Дракула by Bram Stoker
Дракула классический
4 stars
На удивление, даже сейчас довольно годно. Хотя Ван Хелсинг местами явно переигрывает 😅
Самого Дракулы в сюжете, прямо скажем, довольно мало.
tfe@paperjale.eus reviewed Dracula by Bram Stoker (Collectors' Library, #15)
Oso ona
4 stars
Erderaz irakurri nuen liburu hau eta orain euskaraz. Lehen atala gustatu zait gehiago bigarrena baino. Nahaztuta nengoen hainbeste izen ezberdinekin. Agian pertsonai gehiego zegoen. Uste dut ez dela zaila B1 mailarako.
Steel Rabbit reviewed Dracula by BRAM STOKER
Review of 'Dracula' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
The gold standard of vampire and horror books. What can I say? It’s a great adventure that focuses more on the friendship of the hunters than on Dracula himself.
SpiderKitten reviewed Dracula by Bram Stoker
Review of 'Dracula' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
Urrrrrgh. I read this via Dracula Daily, which reorganised the text into daily emails of the journal entries as they occurred in real time (May to Nov), so perhaps my view of the story is coloured by that. But my gosh this was a dull read.
It did show promise at the start, and I was intrigued and somewhat excited to be finally reading one of the most famous vampire stories of note, but as time moved forward, it got less and less interesting and more and more of a chore to get through.
Dear friends, this book, this book right here, is a great example of why some people don't like reading classics. Perhaps in its day (1897) it was considered well written and fraught with terror, but reading it today in 2022, it a slog and honestly, not worth your time.
Really long journal entries (which were doubly …
Urrrrrgh. I read this via Dracula Daily, which reorganised the text into daily emails of the journal entries as they occurred in real time (May to Nov), so perhaps my view of the story is coloured by that. But my gosh this was a dull read.
It did show promise at the start, and I was intrigued and somewhat excited to be finally reading one of the most famous vampire stories of note, but as time moved forward, it got less and less interesting and more and more of a chore to get through.
Dear friends, this book, this book right here, is a great example of why some people don't like reading classics. Perhaps in its day (1897) it was considered well written and fraught with terror, but reading it today in 2022, it a slog and honestly, not worth your time.
Really long journal entries (which were doubly long in the format Dracula Daily was using) where nothing of note happened, men (of the time of course) being overbearing about their women folk, the women being the perfect example of why some men think women are emotional creatures who need to be sheltered. Dracula himself, barely makes an appearance in the entire novel. It is centred wholly around Mina and the men who apparently loved her so much that they "did dare much for her sake." Ugh.
I was very tempted to DNF this when it got mid way through the October chapters. But I persisted, even when my eyes started glazing over from boredom, because this is a beloved classic. It had to get better right? almost half a million people rated this 5 stars, so there must be something that redeems it, right? Right???
But, no. There was nothing. I'm giving it 1 star because of the all the vampire works it somehow inspired, and an additional 1 star out of 5 for the story itself because all this book did was convince me that Bram Stoker is an energy vampire because reading this book sucked the life right out me.
BDaggerhart reviewed Dracula by Bram Stoker
I heard you like vampires
4 stars
Just a list of thoughts I had as I thought them:
- Very enjoyable, fast read.
- A little bit too much of all the characters basically falling in love with each other on first meeting and becoming best friends. A lot of “oh won’t you be my best friend for life now since we’ve been through this together?”
- Characters are a little dumb in places where they really shouldn’t be. They literally just got done talking about how Dracula can turn into a bat, and then Quincy sees the bats sitting outside the windows staring at them and they don’t think anything more of it when it flies away.
- Same with how they got done talking about how Dracula can turn into a mist and a control the fog, and Mina goes up to her room and sees the fog coming at her and sees them mist in her room, and …
Just a list of thoughts I had as I thought them:
- Very enjoyable, fast read.
- A little bit too much of all the characters basically falling in love with each other on first meeting and becoming best friends. A lot of “oh won’t you be my best friend for life now since we’ve been through this together?”
- Characters are a little dumb in places where they really shouldn’t be. They literally just got done talking about how Dracula can turn into a bat, and then Quincy sees the bats sitting outside the windows staring at them and they don’t think anything more of it when it flies away.
- Same with how they got done talking about how Dracula can turn into a mist and a control the fog, and Mina goes up to her room and sees the fog coming at her and sees them mist in her room, and everybody sees her getting paler and paler, and they don’t think anything of it.
- Surprisingly scary in places, and even more surprisingly gorey. Not what I expected from a book of the time period.
- On a similar note, a lot more baby-eating and baby-murder than I was expecting.
- Re: Lucy – not everyone has the same blood type. I’m surprised this didn’t come up as a possibility to either Van Helsing or Dr. Steward when Lucy continued failing in health after all the men gave her blood.
- The ending was a let down after how good the rest of the book was. Build for 200+ pages to this epic climax, to then have it all wrapped up over the course of 2 or 3 pages.
- There is a potential Coens Brothers-esque film here in which no vampire exists. Just a nice old count who desperately wants to escape the overly supersticious and paranoid people of rural run-down Romania to move to modern, upbeat London, but is harrassed and eventually murdered by a psychotic professor and a schizophrenic realtor and their cohorts. Do it Hollywood!
Highly recommended; 4 out of 5 vampire bats for general audiences.
nytpu@bookwyrm.tilde.zone reviewed Dracula by Bram Stoker
Effective horror for the time period, well-written and interesting
4 stars
Content warning Very minor and inconsequential spoilers
Finished Dracula, my first time since reading it in like 6th grade on Project Gutenberg so I really didn't remember anything. Honestly wasn't expecting much in terms of horror and suspense by today's standards, but a few sections (the opening castle introduction, the arrival of the ghost ship in Britain) were genuinely effective horror IMO. Good consistent pacing for most of it, held my attention at least—too many older novels have long dry spells that are a struggle to get through.
There were a lot of instances where I thought Mina would be a “strong and independent woman” and take charge of the hunt or something, but it being written in 1898 I suppose that never would've happened. As it is I'm surprised that the book even portrays her the way it does.
I also found it very frustrating that they refused to leave the asylum after Dracula got invited in, if they had just gone somewhere else without random lunatics then he wouldn't be able to get in at them! Why stay there! Aaah!
Scott reviewed Dracula by Bram Stoker
Review of 'Dracula' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
Good lord! Abraham Van Helsing is a bore! If I hear anymore of his chatter of child brain vs man brain, I'm gonna invite Dracula to my house for dinner, preferably with Van Helsing as the meal.
