Book review: Dracula
I read Dracula because I really liked Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot. Most of the reviews on Amazon.com seemed to be positive, so I went ahead and ordered a copy from PaperbackSwap.com (which is an awesome site).
To start: I enjoyed it. That said, it was not one of the best books I've ever read. My real complaint with the story was it's pace. This might be partly due to it's age; it was written around the turn of the century, and as such, the language is a little old, and it sometimes delves into incredible detail for scene descriptions and the like. It was not at all difficult to understand, it was just slow.
It was definitely worth reading to find out where all of the vampire and dracula lore comes from. Changing form into a bat, sleeping in a dark space during the day, controlling animals, etc. It's all there. The most exciting part of the book is the beginning, which is unfortunate. This portion of the tale describes Jonathan Harker's stay at Castle Dracula in Transylvania and his subsequent escape. The rest of the novel is about the Count's journey to London.
One thing of note is that because of the age of the book, all the women are treated as fragile, pure, youthful, sheltered, and vulnerable. Most of the dialogue surrounding Mina Harker (one of the main characters) is all about her beauty and how they must protect her womanhood from the evils of the world. They talk about her as if she's a child that cannot be brought into the real world. I got a little tired of it, but I suppose that's to be expected from an author from the 1890s.
Overall, I'd recommend it, if you can get through it. It's extremely slow at times, but it definitely has a creepy, old-style horror feel to it. This is where the legend began.
