Nina Auerbach (1943–2017)

I can’t write this review without mentioning how strange it is to read Dracula in 2021. We have so much foreknowledge of it simply through cultural osmosis that we come to the table so far ahead of the clueless characters. It can be frustrating but mostly I just found it comical—every time a character utters the name “Dracula” it’s like you can hear the ominous minor chord on an organ being struck, and when in the beginning Jonathan Harker says stuff like, “Why, this Country show more Dracula is a rather polite fellow, despite his little oddities!” it almost registers as parody.

As to the book itself, looking at it as much as I can separate it from the spectre it has cast onto pop culture, it’s really rather underwhelming. I suppose that’s inevitable with a book like this, but I feel like even if I knew nothing about vampires or Dracula before reading this, I’d still be disappointed—the book is 10% doing stuff and 90% talking about doing stuff. Most of what happens is painstaking preparation for encounters that last less than a page. Characters have to share information, have discussions on how to proceed, gather supplies, type up their notebooks for ease of reading, find the best geographical route to their destination—all things that are usually omitted in books and movies, and for good reason: they’re very tedious and boring.

We are also told how terrible Count Dracula is much more often than we are shown it; he gets very little airtime for a book that bears his name. The characters’ favourite pastime, apart from warning each other of his craven cruelty, seems to be complimenting each other—everyone in this book with the exception of the villain is so bloody good, so courageous, kind, noble, generous, blah blah blah you get it they’re all perfect. Which makes them very uninteresting. And you can only read so much of them all patting each other on the back before you start rooting for Dracula to swoop in and make Swiss cheese of somebody’s neck, just to shake things up a bit!

Speaking of, it’s a shame how often Stoker pulls back from describing the macabre and grotesque, because he’s really good at it. Lucy’s “true death” scene stands out as a memorable moment, as does the description of the Count’s stormy entrance into England—both are dark, richly detailed passages which evoke the oppressive unease of gothic horror as well as the straightforward frights of modern horror. I think they’re also a big reason I disliked the book overall, as they serve as this grating reminder that Stoker is capable of greatness, he just often chooses to skirt around it.

Read Carmilla instead. show less

Are you interested in vampires, but not allowed to read Twilight yet?

Try this classic on for size. It's the tale of the vampire who made vampires famous, the original Undead bloodsucker: Count Dracula.

The story is told through the letters and diary entries of a small group of people who encounter Dracula and find themselves shrouded in mysterious circumstances. They are drawn together by their suspicions and must work as a team, led by clue-tracking Dr. Van Helsing, to hunt down Dracula. show more Time is ticking - if the gutsy band of vampire seekers doesn't find Dracula soon, one of them may join him by transforming into an Undead herself, not to mention the whole world will be in danger. But the Count has wolves, weather, and other wild forces at his command. Will Van Helsing and his crew catch Dracula at his game before it's too late?

Grown-up portion of review:

I read this as a concession to a friend who insisted that any librarian worth her salt would not let the vampire-lit phase pass without actually reading some vampire-lit. "Fine," I said in my best nonchalantly superior tone, "I'll read Dracula."

Since the review was for our library's kids, I didn't explain why I only gave the book 3 stars; but now I will. The good characters are so relentlessly good and the evil character is so abominably evil that the book feels a bit heavy-handed at times. I became weary of the Good Guys' apologies, earnest and well-kept promises, endless self-sacrifice, and dogged explaining to one another of their intentions so there would be no shadow of misunderstanding. And Count Dracula is so bad, all the time. At the very end, there is about a paragraph when Stoker invokes, like, a nanosecond's worth of sympathy for Dracula; but it truly is a microscopic inclusion (so, if you're not reading the book with a microscope, you'll probably miss it).

But. If sparkling in the sun and choosing pseudo-vegetarianism are traits a little further along the Vampiric Evolutionary Chain (I swear that's a thing), this book is worth reading to meet the father of bloodsucking badasses. show less

Edit: I just read this for the second time, and it was even better than I’d remembered! This book has such a sense of fun!

I liked this book very much. In terms of its impact as a horror novel, it does not disappoint. The villain Dracula is as creepy as I'd hoped he'd be, and the initial chapters, which take the form of Jonathan Harker's journal as Dracula holds him captive, offer a gripping and highly suspenseful opening to the story. In terms of its impact as a late-Victorian text, it show more was certainly a fascinating read, for lack of a better word. I could never quite make up my mind what Stoker was trying to do, exactly. He portrayed sexist characters, but not without a certain degree of amusement, and I was never sure whether he was supporting it or subverting it. He portrayed -- or even almost parodied -- romance, suitors, British pride, and fear of the foreign. The main protagonists consist of a very competent, logical, hard-working woman (whom the male characters all seem to revere, not only for her wonderful womanliness, but also for her ability to prove herself equal to the men), and a whole team of men, whose camaraderie, compliments, and affirmations of friendship hover somewhere between campy and absurd. A lot of books could be described as campy, but what's singular about Dracula is that it's meant to be. It was a delight to read, and it lives completely up to the hype. show less

Dracula is one of the foundations of modern horror. It is creepy, gothic, terrifying in dimensions sexual, psychological, and geographical. It is also a lumpy epistolary, and continually brought down by its characters.

You know the basic plot. Lawyer goes to darkest Transylvania, where he helps the mysterious Count Dracula move himself to London. Young ladies start weirdly dying with neck bites, and it's up to Professor Van Helsing and a crack team of vampire hunters to defeat this ancient show more undead and save the day.

The problem is that I couldn't stand many of the characters. Of the ladies, Mina is okay, but her friend Lucy is a gormless sack of Victorian mush. Dr. Seward is utter waste of page count, accurate describing without a perspective of his own. And Van Helsing is said to be a genius, but comes across more as a doddering pedant. Dracula and his brides are riveting when they appear, which is sadly infrequently. The book is about two acts too long, and the more familiar Balderston/Universal 1931 adaptation compresses characters and cuts long sections to good effect.

One thing that I did actually enjoy was Dracula as a contemporary thriller, with the protagonists using late Victorian technology like telegraphs, steam launches, and Winchester rifles to get an advantage over Count Dracula (who is, by the way, killed with a Bowie knife and kukri). One theme which the book presented, but didn't seem to know what to do with, was science vs. horror. Both Van Helsing and Seward are medical men, rational observers. Yet them seem to have little to say on ancient folklore about garlic repelling vampires being accurate, or about Christian items like the cross and host being capable of halting vampires. I don't know what the default 1897 worldview was, but I'd reconsider my atheism if God could shoot invisible lasers that made monsters die. Stoker invokes these kinds of absolute notions of good and evil reflexively, but perhaps us modern decadents need a little more help in explaining why "good" symbols defeat the "evil" of vampires. show less