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Finished Dracula and Thoughts
What a ride that was.
This is going to be less of an English major recap and more of a "dats wot I like"/"dats wot I dun like" summary. Rejoice or despair!
Maybe it had to do with the style or the multiple viewpoint characters, but I had a very hard time getting invested in the characters and story from about the mid-point on. That's not to say that it was awful or that I didn't care at all, but I think that the switching back and forth between characters was somewhat distracting and didn't feel entirely necessary.
Really, after the great scene of the men sending Lucy to her eternal rest, everything was downhill from there. Once Dracula's limits were defined and his plans starting to unravel, it felt less satisfying that they were hunting down this immortal being and ridding the world of evil. It was clear that Stoker wanted Dracula to be diminished in some way - to make him more vulnerable - and I think that the group sanctifying his resting places was excellent. Something put me off by the way Stoker kept using the words "child-brain" to describe Dracula's actions and thought processes. I get that children are selfish and evil is selfish, that children are inflexible and so is Dracula, but it just felt... odd. Like Stoker was commenting on something else that I just am not understanding.
All the scenes with Mina being the lynchpin of the group are great, following in the footsteps of Lucy before her. And it's interesting reading both the comments here and the actual text on how she straddles the division between male and female. I think in a different book, I would've been put off by her kindness and purity - a "too good for this sinful earth" type of character. I can't quite put my finger on why it works here, but it does.
As a whole, I enjoyed Dracula - more the build-up than the pay-off - and am looking forward to The Jewel of Seven Stars when I get around to it, recommended by![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
earthspirits.
Thank you for reading. I'll start Emma next and then probably take a break from all these fancy books and just curl up with The Hobbit.
This is going to be less of an English major recap and more of a "dats wot I like"/"dats wot I dun like" summary. Rejoice or despair!
Maybe it had to do with the style or the multiple viewpoint characters, but I had a very hard time getting invested in the characters and story from about the mid-point on. That's not to say that it was awful or that I didn't care at all, but I think that the switching back and forth between characters was somewhat distracting and didn't feel entirely necessary.
Really, after the great scene of the men sending Lucy to her eternal rest, everything was downhill from there. Once Dracula's limits were defined and his plans starting to unravel, it felt less satisfying that they were hunting down this immortal being and ridding the world of evil. It was clear that Stoker wanted Dracula to be diminished in some way - to make him more vulnerable - and I think that the group sanctifying his resting places was excellent. Something put me off by the way Stoker kept using the words "child-brain" to describe Dracula's actions and thought processes. I get that children are selfish and evil is selfish, that children are inflexible and so is Dracula, but it just felt... odd. Like Stoker was commenting on something else that I just am not understanding.
All the scenes with Mina being the lynchpin of the group are great, following in the footsteps of Lucy before her. And it's interesting reading both the comments here and the actual text on how she straddles the division between male and female. I think in a different book, I would've been put off by her kindness and purity - a "too good for this sinful earth" type of character. I can't quite put my finger on why it works here, but it does.
As a whole, I enjoyed Dracula - more the build-up than the pay-off - and am looking forward to The Jewel of Seven Stars when I get around to it, recommended by
earthspirits.Thank you for reading. I'll start Emma next and then probably take a break from all these fancy books and just curl up with The Hobbit.