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North Yorkshire - Dracula by Bram Stoker


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NORTH YORKSHIRE

 

Dracula by Bram Stoker

 

Synopsis:

When Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania to help Count Dracula purchase a London house, he makes horrifying discoveries in his client's castle. Soon afterwards, disturbing incidents unfold in England: a ship runs aground on the shores of Whitby, its crew vanished; beautiful Lucy Westenra slowly succumbs to a mysterious, wasting illness, her blood drained away; and the lunatic Renfield raves about the imminent arrival of his 'master'. In the ensuing battle of wills between the sinister Count and a determined group of adversaries - led by the intrepid vampire hunter Abraham van Helsing - Bram Stoker created a masterpiece of the horror genre, probing into questions of identity, sanity and the dark corners of Victorian sexuality and desire.

 

Alternative:

All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot (link to book discussion thread)

 

Other North Yorkshire books:

 

A Month in the Country by J. L. Carr

Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson

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  • 1 month later...

I read this in 2012 and loved it, one of the best classics I've read and a surprising favourite as I didn't think it would be for me at all :) 

Review: Why didn't you tell me about this book before? Why did I wait so long to read it?.. and why didn't I read it before I compiled my bestest books list? .. it definitely deserves to be on it.

As usual with books I love I'm probably going to ramble on for ages so the short bit is here .. It's fantastic .. I would lick it copiously if it wasn't for the fear that licking Dracula might be bad for me Apologies in advance for all the spoilers which make for a rather jumpy review but when I love a book it all just comes blabbing out. It's one of the drawbacks of loving a book, if it was Madame Bovary I could just say 'meh' and have done :blush2:

I don't know what I was expecting, something a bit hammy I think. I've never really seen the films, I don't watch or read horror although I do like vintage horror films because nine times out of ten they're really quite unintentionally funny .. The Fly for instance .. that cracks me up. But I think Dracula passed me by ... I have half remembered images of Christopher Lee thrashing about with Peter Cushing .. but it's all quite vague. Somehow it made me feel that the book wouldn't be worth reading .. or wouldn't be my cup of tea. But the title always appears on all the best lists and has a fearsome reputation so it's obvious that if you want to have at least a stab ( :giggle:) at reading the cream of literature then this book is a must.

What struck me first was the beauty of the writing .. gorgeous atmospheric stuff, very gothic as you would expect but nicely balanced especially early on with the more everyday gossipy correspondence between Lucy and Mina. From the start I was terrified. Jonathan's journey to the castle along the Borgo Pass with all the villagers crossing themselves and flinging crucifixes about and then that image of the count exiting from a window and crawling down the building like a reptile just made my hair stand on end. I liked the way that the story was written from several viewpoints .. the narrative taken mostly from the journals and letters of those involved .. it gives a real insight into their individual characters. I also loved how the reader was one step ahead, at least for a time (a very unusual position for me to be in I can tell you.) It made me agitated but in a good way, in a 'look it's behind you' type way .. I wanted to rap loudly on their heads to make them see what was (literally) outside their own window. I mean puncture marks in the neck! ... and a big bat outside every time they looked! ... even I would have been hot footing it to the supermarket for garlic.

Now the other thing I liked about it is that Stoker doesn't pull any punches with his villain. Not for him this wishy washy notion of vampires/werewolves that can temper their urges because they're in love .. Dracula doesn't have a social conscience. He would just as likely bite his own mother and nowhere is this better illustrated than with the sad decline of ... 

Lucy Westenra .. a girl who, when we're introduced, is gaily writing about her beloved Arthur .. until that is her tendency to sleepwalk leads her to go visiting churchyards in the dead of night. At the end of her life she appears eager to bite her beloved, though still human enough to be tortured by it also. As the undead though she shows no such scruples ... roaming around Hampstead Heath snacking on children.

It's a quite terrifying image.

As soon as the name Van Helsing was mentioned I knew he was the hero of the piece because even my dim brain had heard of him. He seemed a bit like Poirot, in that he had that same cool, calm and calculating way about him and spoke in a similarly broken English. I learnt very early on to trust him although I did occasionally have doubts ..

those blood transfusions which were so necessary for Lucy? .. with blood taken from four different men??

.. I could see problems there. But then medical matters in fiction are always a minefield.. I've learnt to accept most things after seeing Daphne in Neighbours give birth without taking her tights off. Van Helsing was pretty Sherlockian in his deductions which is interesting because Stoker was good friends with Conan Doyle. He was a bit more collaborative though in his quest ... collecting around him a band of heroes (and heroines) all devoted to the cause and all equally determined to seek out and vanquish the demon Count.

The one thing I swore I wouldn't do was read this at night .. but the story was just too gripping I had to read on. It gave me the chills like no other book but then as I said I rarely, if ever, read horror. When I read what had to be done to poor ... 

Lucy to release her soul I got the shudders. However, the thought of the alternative was far worse. It's better to be safe than sorry and I explained to Alan about the stake through the heart and the decapitated head with a mouth stuffed full of garlic flowers

.. but all he could say was that he didn't know if the Co-op Funeralcare offered that service, perhaps a really potent vindaloo last supper might suffice :blush2:

 I only have one slight criticism and that was that the ending didn't quite live up to my expectations after the build up. I expected there to be a bigger struggle, not from the Count necessarily but from .. 

Mina .. it was as if she had a bit of a fever or something and an aspirin or two saw her right. I was delighted for her sake that this was the case but would've liked to see a bit more of an inner struggle from her .. perhaps it couldn't be because, had she gone one step further, she might not have feasibly been brought back.

It didn't make me think less of the book though, I think I was expecting too much or had let my ridiculous imagination run riot in a territory it never usually wanders in.

I've made a lot of feeble jokes which is always a sign that the book I'm reviewing freaked me out somewhat. I have to make light of horror or I'm done for ... but really this was just a gloriously rich and spine chilling piece of literature. The language used in particular .. all the different dialects and styles .. was just fantastic. I'm enjoying the books I'm reading now but to be truthful they are paling in comparison somewhat. It turns out Bram Stoker is a hard act to follow.

I must just say a word about this particular gorgeous edition .. the Penguin Classic Deluxe no less. It was such a pleasure to read from. Not only are the front and back covers beautifully illustrated in gorgeous colours but the pages are all uncut which makes it very tactile. 10/10

 

dracula2.jpg

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Wow, that's one long and detailed review :)! It's on my TBR, I've been wanting to read it ever since I was little, hopefully I'll get around to it some day (the last few experiences I had with classics weren't so great though so..).

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  • 1 month later...

*takes cover* 

 

Review copied from my book log: I found this really, really difficult to review, so apologies if I ramble or my thoughts don't make much sense. 

 

​I have had Dracula on my TBR for several years now - ever since I got first got a kindle app! I've always been a bit hesitant to read it - in case it didn't live up to its fearsome reputation, but I bit the bullet in 2014 as it was nominated for North Yorkshire in the English Counties Challenge. 

 

First of all, for the challenge: Although it is only set comparatively briefly in Whitby, with large parts in Transylvania and London, it gave a real sense of the place so I am left unsure as to whether it was the right choice! 

 

As for the rest, I did feel a bit let down. This took me a full 14 days to read, which is a very long time for me. I found the book very slow to get going and I didn't feel a sense of developing tension particularly. I thought the pacing was off - after being very slow to get going a lot of action took place in the last six pages and it seemed to end very abruptly! 

 

First of all we find ourselves following the fortunes of Jonathan, trapped in Castle Dracula. Then we abruptly switch to his fiancee Mina in Whitby, with no knowledge of how Jonathan is faring elsewhere. This was the part of the book I enjoyed the most, with everyone in the dark as to what exactly is happening to Lucy, who is wasting away. 

 

Some of the tension was bound to be lost as the tale of Dracula is so familiar, even to me who has never read the book or watched a film about it. I imagine it was quite creepy when first published! I did though find it very frustrating that when I knew what was going on (through the books hints and my own knowledge) it wad then explained to three or four people over and over again!! 

 

​I enjoyed the chase across Europe, but as I mentioned with the pacing not enough time was given over to this IMO whereas too much was given over to the initial recording of diary entries etc while in London. 

 

​The character of Mina was refreshing and excellent. For a woman in the 18th century she was confident, and always involved rather than being pushed back. Although the men all tried to protect her, she was at the forefront of the action throughout and I thought probably quite ahead of her time really. She might have given 18th century men a shock!

 

​In the end, I am glad I read it but I'm afraid it dragged for me and was certainly not a favourite. 

 

2.5/5

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I've read that book a couple of years ago, just because it was a gift, and it was very boring.

Funniest thing was the English of van Halen. A vocabulary that large would do an Englishman good, but he couldn't get the simplest sentence right.

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  • 2 years later...

Although I'd already read the other book for North Yorkshire, I decided I'd read Dracula as well, because it's one of those books I've always thought I should read. I thought it might be a bit dry and wordy, but actually, I found it quite an easy flowing book and a rather compelling story.

 

I loved the style in the epistolary format, with the excerpts from all the characters diaries and letters, and I also loved that it was from so many different characters points of view. The opening sets up the whole story brilliantly, with Jonathan's first encounter with the count described so atmospherically, and builds to a crescendo, just as you then go on to Lucy's story. In fact, I was actually surprised by how much of the book was told from the female perspective - I don't know what I'd been expecting, to be honest, but I don't think the first person narratives and the influence of the two main female characters were what I'd anticipated.

 

After the discussion we'd had about including the book, I was pleased that there was a decent chunk of the action set in Whitby and it does play an important part too (much more than the county link in Nicholas Nickleby!) although not as much as the alternative we chose, All Creatures Great and Small, but this is probably a more famous book worldwide and that warrants its inclusion for me.

 

I've read quite a few modern vampire stories, so it only seemed right to go back and read the original classic, and I was not disappointed. Dracula is a necessary monster and it was genuinely chilling to read how he was able to get to Lucy and Mina while they were sleeping, and all the tropes that have become part of the folklore of vampires today were there.

 

If I have any criticisms, it's that the last couple of chapters dragged on a bit for me but then the final ending was rather sudden and abrupt. Really though, that's a minor thing for such a fantastic story. I'm glad I read it!

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  • 4 weeks later...

After the discussion we'd had about including the book, I was pleased that there was a decent chunk of the action set in Whitby and it does play an important part too (much more than the county link in Nicholas Nickleby!) although not as much as the alternative we chose, All Creatures Great and Small, but this is probably a more famous book worldwide and that warrants its inclusion for me.

 

 

And the amount of Nicholas Nickleby set in County Durham is far more than the amount of the Isle of Wight in The Day of the Triffids  ;) !  Having said that, for me the county link in NN isn't just the amount of the book set in the county, but the fact that the main reason Dickens wrote the book was to attack the horrors of the northern boarding schools, so the link is for me much stronger than might first appear.  (I was very grateful though for Triffids being on the list for the Isle of Wight, as I loved the book).

 

Ironically, given my contributions to the North Yorkshire discussion, I've just started reading Dracula as my book for the county (also as the next book for my book group).

Edited by willoyd
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