Ll était une fois, dans une région sauvage et montagneuse du centre de l'Europe appelée Transylvanie (le pays au-delà des forêts...) un noble sanguinaire, habitant un vaste château, fort désireux de se rendre en Angleterre pour y savourer son mets favori : le sang virginal de jeunes femmes ! Mais un redoutable et éminent professeur, Van Helsing, qui a découvert le terrible secret du comte Dracula, entreprend de le traquer sans répit...
Mai e dico MAI avrei potuto pensare che un romanzo epistolare come questo possa essere in grado di creare una tensione tale nel lettore tanto da spingerlo a voler correre verso il capitolo successivo per capire come la vicenda progredisce.
I personaggi sono tutti ben caratterizzati e Mina Harker merita un plauso come vero personaggio femminile con gli attributi, in contrasto a tante forzature più recenti. Mina è il vero motore della squadra improvvisata di cacciatori di vampiri, la coordinatrice, anche la mente, seconda forse solo al Prof. Van Helsing come centralità per la riuscita dell’impresa.
Bello, bellissimo. Dovrebbero leggerlo tutti.
Uno dei libri più importanti per la creazione del vampiro come lo conosciamo noi, con tutte le leggende, le credenze e i personaggi iconici ormai di dominio pubblico.
Il pregio più grande per me è la qualità della narrazione, che riesce a costruire immagini molto forti che ti si tracciano in testa mentre leggi; sono queste il lascito più prezioso che mi rimane di questo libro.
A great read, not just for codifying vampire lore, but the way it's built from letters and diaries.
5 stars
The original novel is a great read. Not just for the way it codified modern vampire lore. But for the way it's built entirely out of diary entries, letters, news fragments, telegrams and so on. For the way it shows modern science coming to grips with ancient superstition and figuring out how to deal with it. For showing an early example of a woman participating in her own rescue. And for some of the parts that didn't make it into general pop culture. (Count Dracula spends an awful lot of time in a shipping box.)
In some senses it's the written-word equivalent of the "found footage" horror genre. Except the "sources" are wildly varying. John and Mina write their journals and letters to each other in shorthand. Business letters are of course written formally. Dr. Seward keeps an audio diary on a phonograph. Van Helsing's speech is rendered with every …
The original novel is a great read. Not just for the way it codified modern vampire lore. But for the way it's built entirely out of diary entries, letters, news fragments, telegrams and so on. For the way it shows modern science coming to grips with ancient superstition and figuring out how to deal with it. For showing an early example of a woman participating in her own rescue. And for some of the parts that didn't make it into general pop culture. (Count Dracula spends an awful lot of time in a shipping box.)
In some senses it's the written-word equivalent of the "found footage" horror genre. Except the "sources" are wildly varying. John and Mina write their journals and letters to each other in shorthand. Business letters are of course written formally. Dr. Seward keeps an audio diary on a phonograph. Van Helsing's speech is rendered with every quirk of his Dutch accent and speech patterns. And then halfway through the book, when all the major characters finally come together...they collate all the documents and Mina transcribes them on a typewriter, and they pass around the first half of the book so they can all read up on what the rest of them have been doing! (Literally getting them all on the same page.)
That's not to say it's flawless. It's unclear why some victims rise again as vampires while others don't. While the science/superstition contrast works well for the most part, eastern Europeans don't exactly come off very well. Especially when they'd talk about the "gypsies" carrying Dracula around Transylvania. I mean, it could have been a lot worse, but it's still jarring.
Overall, though, it's an engaging read, whether approached as a book or, as Dracula Daily did, one day's letters at a time from May 3 through November 7.
Essendo scritto come un diario, l'ho letto seguendo le date (da inizio maggio fino a ieri) e devo dire che è stata una bella esperienza, riesci a percepire lo scorrere del tempo degli eventi narrati.
Even if you think you know Dracula, this still holds up!
4 stars
I had never given classic horror a go before, but this one was a pleasant surprise. The original Dracula story was something I thought I knew, elements like Dracula’s castle and the power possessed by that monster make an appearance here, but despite what you might expect of the original vampire, the book is still filled with great characters and moments that were truly nerve-wracking.
I couldn’t help but read faster and faster at times where the tension raised up, hoping for it to end when it was only getting worse. But its not all bad, there is always hope, and the determination of the characters to defend their loved ones and the future of humanity from the reign of the un-dead, is just great, but a few moments of old English were a little hard to read.
I listened to different audiobooks while reading, which was quite atmospheric too. …
I had never given classic horror a go before, but this one was a pleasant surprise. The original Dracula story was something I thought I knew, elements like Dracula’s castle and the power possessed by that monster make an appearance here, but despite what you might expect of the original vampire, the book is still filled with great characters and moments that were truly nerve-wracking.
I couldn’t help but read faster and faster at times where the tension raised up, hoping for it to end when it was only getting worse. But its not all bad, there is always hope, and the determination of the characters to defend their loved ones and the future of humanity from the reign of the un-dead, is just great, but a few moments of old English were a little hard to read.
I listened to different audiobooks while reading, which was quite atmospheric too.
Dracula was actually quite nice to read.
At first, the story advanced quite slowly in my opinion, but towards the middle it became faster.
Sometimes the story haunted me in the night, but fortunately this was not that bad and it never lasted long.
Dracula was actually quite nice to read. At first, the story advanced quite slowly in my opinion, but towards the middle it became faster. Sometimes the story haunted me in the night, but fortunately this was not that bad and it never lasted long.
Dracula was actually quite nice to read. At first, the story advanced quite slowly in my opinion, but towards the middle it became faster. Sometimes the story haunted me in the night, but fortunately this was not that bad and it never lasted long.
