Opinions on Dracula by Bram Stoker?

[brendanconnell]

I didnt see any repressed sexuality or fear of immigration in Dracula. It is an excellent book. Maybe people are reading too much into it, instead of just enjoying it as a good, well-written story?

[ToALonelyPeace]

Quote Originally Posted by In A Dark Light

Incidentally, does anyone know why 'Dracula in Istanbul' appears to have been removed from Amazon UK? It was on my wish list, but now seems to have disappeared.

It's still there

Dracula in Istanbul: Schatten des Orients: Amazon.co.uk: Serdar Kilic: 9783960084730: Books

 

Dracula in Istanbul: Schatten des Orients: Amazon.co.uk: Serdar Kilic: 9783960084730: Books

[In A Dark Light]

Quote Originally Posted by ToALonelyPeace

Quote Originally Posted by In A Dark Light Incidentally, does anyone know why 'Dracula in Istanbul' appears to have been removed from Amazon UK? It was on my wish list, but now seems to have disappeared. It's still there Dracula in Istanbul: Schatten des Orients: Amazon.co.uk: Serdar Kilic: 9783960084730: Books   Dracula in Istanbul: Schatten des Orients: Amazon.co.uk: Serdar Kilic: 9783960084730: Books

I saw that edition, but it appears to be in German.

The English version, with the silhouette in front of a yellow background as the cover, seems to have disappeared.

[Druidic]

I remember Michael Shea loving J. Ramsey Campbell's The Inhabitant of the Lake and saying he refused to regard those stories as juvenile, he liked them too much. He found them delightful.

We all have guilty pleasures. Mine is The Lair of the White Worm. I've indulged that pleasure several times over a half century. It reads like an "evil fairy tale" written by a child; and, to hell with the execution, Stoker's imagination was too wonderful to quibble over the book's obvious failings. To call it the "worst horror novel ever written" as a critic once did, is a hoot. He must have mercifully missed the ton of crap released in the 70's and 80's.

The Pauline Coleman Smith (do I have her name right, she did the Tarot with Waite) illustrations in the original were utterly charming.

I like the manic Ken Russell film:

Dan Ireland on The Lair of the White Worm - YouTube

Somewhat of a minor classic for me apart from the poorly done ending, which unfortunately lets down an otherwise wonderful piece of work – provided you enjoy camp.

[Druidic]

Another Stoker classic: It gets off to a slow start but Jewel of Seven Stars is a fine novel. My favorite Mummy tale.

Stoker also wrote a couple of classic short horror stories--"The Squaw" and "The Judge's House." I've always wondered if Lovecraft was influenced by the latter when he wrote his own Witch-House.

[matt cardin]

Quote Originally Posted by brendanconnell

I didnt see any repressed sexuality or fear of immigration in Dracula. It is an excellent book. Maybe people are reading too much into it, instead of just enjoying it as a good, well-written story?

Here's a 2006 paper that comments critically on the veritable obsession with sexuality in a multitude of critical readings of Dracula:

Coitus Interruptus: Sex, Bram Stoker, and Dracula

Here's a 2014 article that talks about both the sexual and the immigration angles, by a literary curator at the British Library:

Dracula: Vampires, Perversity, and Victorian Anxieties

If you look up any bibliography of Dracula or Stoker scholarship, you'll find veritable galaxies of books, articles, essays, and papers, the majority of them focusing to some degree (and some of them almost entirely) on sex and/or fear of foreigners and immigrants.

Much of the horror of Dracula comes from the prospect of the immortal soul of the innocent being forever tainted by evil, which is a prospect many in today's world would lack either the imagination or the sensitivity to understand.

[Druidic]

Good Post, Matt, Thanks.

I gave up reading critical commentary on Stoker years ago. It's tedious and often obscene. When a writer with too much time on his hands --and an agenda as well --tries to argue that Dracula's servants, the rats, are meant to be symbolic Jews--well, I'm out of there.

So many academics come off as unbalanced when they write these depressing fantasies disguised as criticism. Stoker may even have it worse than Lovecraft.

[Karnos]

Dracula was the second book I read in my life, right after finishing Jules Verne's "Voyage to the center of the Earth". I don't hold too many impressions about it; I had just begun reading for pleasure, so my taste and judgement was infantile to what it is today. I suppose these days I would be more strict with it, I've recently even thought about re-reading it, maybe some fancy annotated edition, and in English, seeing as how my first read was a Spanish translation.

I do remember enjoying it a lot. I also remember skipping the last ten or so pages to be over with it and start a new book. I vaguely remember the ending being a big abrupt too, but then again, it's just an unreliable memory.