Review of: Bram Stoker's Dracula

Vampires have been such a huge deal lately with all the movies, books, and tv series' being made about them. You have your Twilight, your Vampire Diaries, your True Blood and all that, but what brought them your way? Who inspired the interest and shaped our modern day vampire dreamboats? I'll tell you right now. Dracula - Bram Stoker's Dracula, that's who, that's what. Somewhere along the line, I'll tell you how too.

Dracula is an old book, published in 1897, so like most of the oldies I've read it's got a lot of words. Most of the novel is written in journal entries by the characters, and other times letters or notes. While this makes for interesting story-telling, sometime during the middle the details get to be a bit too much for someone interested in the key points of the plot.  I felt I would enjoy it better if there was less rambling in between the good stuff. 

Some transitions in between character journals got on my nerves as well. It'd switch from suspense to romance to friendship to horror all without comfortable transitions. I get that characters were experiencing different things at each point in the story, but the abrupt change in tone disappointed me when things were getting exciting, and those were treasured times for how slow the in-universe journalists chose to tell it.  I know that I can't recommend reading Dracula to anyone who likes fast action and events.
The pacing reminds me very much of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, another famous monster novel that I enjoyed thoroughly.

The most memorable part for me would be Jonathan Harker's stay at Castle Dracula (which to my great surprise wasn't the entire book). It was suspenseful, eerie, and at the same time kind of comfy. I can't put my finger on if it was because I liked the setup or what.

What interested me most from my time spent on the book was realizing the symbolism and metaphors hidden within the text. Entire essays have been written about Dracula's many themes and probable influences for them. To keep it PG, I won't go into too much detail.  Most of these themes have to do with sexuality, a couple homosexuality, and others to do with women's role in Victorian society. Even the Count himself was a metaphor.

Stoker's novel was the first piece of literature to present vampires as alluring. However Dracula is no Edward Cullen, believe you me. No, not even close!  In fact, he's not even Hollywood's vision of Dracula. Stoker wrote him as an old man, bald with a white mustache. Still, characters were drawn to him like he was the handsomest guy around.  Who'd have thought?

So I've said my piece. I suppose it's time to end it here. Did I like the book? 
Yes. 
It was fun to delve into the origins of vampires and where all this stuff came from.  Plus, by doing so I understood a few references in a recent animated film... bonus points for josie