Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

M4dDecent t1_it9mxs9 wrote

Did anyone else honestly find the entire book to be goofy af? Like how many blood transfusions are we gonna do here before your characters learn a single thing Bram? How many pages are we going to devote to nerding out about shorthand? The accent is just part of a rich tapestry of goofiness.

34

KindlyOlPornographer OP t1_it9nnk3 wrote

And every time Van Helsing comes up with a plan to save Lucy it gets ruined by the jackasses surrounding him.

30

Pointing_Monkey t1_itbar91 wrote

I wouldn't saying goofy, the early chapters from Jonathan's diary, and The Demeter log are pretty creepy.

The one thing that works against us, is we are reading a book which we probably know far too much about already, diluting alot of the suspense. Plus medical science has moved on a lot since Bram Stoker's time. Bloodletting was still a somewhat common practice in the 1800s, though it was in decline.

I do feel like the Lucy parts did start to drag, though. I do wonder if the story wouldn't have worked better as a novella.

14

M4dDecent t1_itbv9y8 wrote

Absolutely, the early chapter are my favorite, but the rest of the book's plotting and character development etc really go off the rails. I'm not quibbling about the science, I can totally suspend my disbelief when it comes to bloodletting or, say, the coincidence of five random people having compatible blood.

4

AlienFuel5940 t1_it9sq75 wrote

It's been a while since I read it, but I thought the pacing got weird toward the end. Trying to avoid spoilers but there was too much character point of view switching, and it got a little repetitive.

5

byneothername t1_itawg9b wrote

I maintain that this is an unintentionally hilarious book. I was taught that it was an extended metaphor for corporations (undying entities), which makes the scene near the end where they stab Dracula and coins come out, all the funnier. The movie cracks me up too, although for different reasons.

5

M4dDecent t1_itbvw14 wrote

Agreed! Interesting theory about the corporate metaphor, I'll have to read it again with that in mind (I was taught that it was all about sex and how dirty and awful sexhaving was and what kinds of trouble evil lustful sexiness could get you into.)

0

byneothername t1_itdc73x wrote

It’s a funny read purely from a “is Dracula a corporation?” perspective. Dracula comes in, buys a lot of land, basically trying to do some takeover of London. They form a corporation to defeat him - Mina is their secretary! - full of people so that if one dies, they can replace them, so they’re also their own undying entity. Only way to beat ‘em. I enjoy this book and the Coppola film as very silly stories that take themselves seriously. They are incredibly cheesy.

3

Beiez t1_itbelem wrote

Those blood transfusions drove me crazy man. Like he even KNEW it was a vampire who did it with all the garlic and shit, just tell us SOMETHING Van Helsing PLEASE I‘M BEGGING YOU I JUST WANT YOU TO FINALLY SAY IT.

But no. It takes over 200 pages and about twice as many blood transfusions until he finally tells the other characters what he knew all this time

3

M4dDecent t1_itbviav wrote

YES. "Y'all could have had ONE conversation and fixed this early on, but instead you waited months to do enough librarian stuff until enough things went wrong that you had to finally stop doing librarian stuff??"

3