Dracula

"My very feelings changed to repulsion and terror
when I saw the whole man slowly emerge from
the window and begin to crawl down the castle
wall over the dreadful abyss, face down with
his cloak spreading out around him like
great wings."
Bram Stoker, Dracula

Book Review
Dracula
By Bram Stoker
(1897)


By Gary;

This damn book has been lurking in my library for decades always tempting me to come back and read it again.

I hate to admit how long ago it was when I first read it.  But I will say it was back when I had a lot more hair and a lot fewer pounds.

As the ultimate fan of the vampire genre I figured it was time to revisit the book that started it all.

Bram Stoker created an entire genre of entertainment that has given us everything from Béla Lugosi to Tom Cruise to Buffy to Blade to the horrid chick flick vampire love films that should be burned and the ashes scattered.

As for the book itself, I had next to zero memory of the original story.  But from the moment I started I realized what a fine writer Bram Stoker was.

The book is a clever collection of diary entries, newspaper articles and letters to and from the characters. 

All our old friends are there waiting for us:  Jonathan Harker, Miss Mina, Lucy, Dr. Seward, Renfield, Van Helsing and the Count.  It is interesting to see how both the 1931 and 1992 Francis Ford Coppola Dracula films closely followed the book in their own ways.

If you are a vamp fan who has never read this book then get out now and buy it.  If you have read the book long ago it is way past time for a refresher.  Either way you will have fun going back to the original material.


Children of the night

“No man knows till he has suffered from the night how sweet and dear to his heart and eye the morning can be.”
― Bram Stoker, Dracula 

“No man knows till he experiences it, what it is like to feel his own life-blood drawn away into the woman he loves.”
― Bram Stoker, Dracula

“I sometimes think we must be all mad and that we shall wake to sanity in strait-waistcoats.”
― Bram Stoker, Dracula

“I was afraid to raise my eyelids, but looked out and saw perfectly under the lashes. The girl went on her knees, and bent over me, simply gloating. There was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive, and as she arched her neck she actually licked her lips like an animal, till I could see in the moonlight the moisture shining on the scarlet lips and on the red tongue as it lapped the white sharp teeth.
.
Lower and lower went her head as the lips went below the range of my mouth and chin and seemed to fasten on my throat. Then she paused, and I could hear the churning sound of her tongue as it licked her teeth and lips, and I could feel the hot breath on my neck. Then the skin of my throat began to tingle as one's flesh does when the hand that is to tickle it approaches nearer, nearer. I could feel the soft, shivering touch of the lips on the super sensitive skin of my throat, and the hard dents of two sharp teeth, just touching and pausing there. I closed my eyes in languorous ecstasy and waited, waited with beating heart."
Bram Stoker, Chapter 3, Dracula

"Between me and the moonlight flitted a great bat, comeing and going in great, whirling circles."
- Bram Stoker, Chapter 8, Dracula

"When the Count saw my face, his eyes blazed with a sort of demonaic fury, and he suddenly made a grab at my throat. I drew away, and his hand touched the string of beads which held the crucifix. It made an instant change in him, for the fury passed so quickly that I could hardly believe that it was ever there."
- Bram Stoker, Chapter 2, Dracula