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A review by adeleighpenguin
Dracula: Collector's Special Edition by Bram Stoker
5.0
A tried and true favorite of mine, and a really cool edition. I didn’t finish this before Halloween, but the book technically ends on November 6th! I’m right on time!
I felt bad because my husband liked it quite a bit, but I kind of hated Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula when we watched it a couple weeks ago. I’ve always loved this book, and a purely psychosexual (and I mean SEXUAL) adaptation of the story was so frustrating to me. Honestly, reading the scholarship in both the introduction and appendices to this edition cooled me down a bit (it’s generally understood that no, Mina did not in fact just desperately desire Dracula, and FFC’s adaptation is mentioned in a note as “owing more to Coppola than Stoker”). Knowing now that my reaction wasn’t atypical, I could probably appreciate the movie as a “take” on the story.
I can see how the letter/diary/article format could be tiring to some, but this prose just feels so LIVED in. All of Stoker’s characters are very silly (Quincey’s Americana attitude, Harker’s bold ignorance, even Mina’s Womanliness come to mind), but you believe that they care about each other, and best of all you believe that they’d be willing to risk their lives going to Transylvania.
I always recommend Dracula as a first “classic” when I have friends reach out. It’s engaging, at times it’s truly frightening, and I think it serves as a reminder that a novel can be fun without being 300 pages with what feels like a near 16-point typeface
Very funny to me that this one ends with a baby being named after all the characters. Even in 1897 we were still doing Albus Severus and Renesmee
I felt bad because my husband liked it quite a bit, but I kind of hated Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula when we watched it a couple weeks ago. I’ve always loved this book, and a purely psychosexual (and I mean SEXUAL) adaptation of the story was so frustrating to me. Honestly, reading the scholarship in both the introduction and appendices to this edition cooled me down a bit (it’s generally understood that no, Mina did not in fact just desperately desire Dracula, and FFC’s adaptation is mentioned in a note as “owing more to Coppola than Stoker”). Knowing now that my reaction wasn’t atypical, I could probably appreciate the movie as a “take” on the story.
I can see how the letter/diary/article format could be tiring to some, but this prose just feels so LIVED in. All of Stoker’s characters are very silly (Quincey’s Americana attitude, Harker’s bold ignorance, even Mina’s Womanliness come to mind), but you believe that they care about each other, and best of all you believe that they’d be willing to risk their lives going to Transylvania.
I always recommend Dracula as a first “classic” when I have friends reach out. It’s engaging, at times it’s truly frightening, and I think it serves as a reminder that a novel can be fun without being 300 pages with what feels like a near 16-point typeface
Very funny to me that this one ends with a baby being named after all the characters. Even in 1897 we were still doing Albus Severus and Renesmee