Finally finished Dracula!!!

Okay, well I think I did quite well reading Dracual in three days. When I first picked up the book I originally thought it wasn't that long, but i soon discovered that the pages are tres thin and the print ist sehr klein. I didn't seem to be getting anywhere on Friday with it, so i spent 9 solid hours sat at my dining room table today until i finished. And despite minor neck ache, it really was worth reading.

I mean, normally I would never have read Dracula because I was convinced that I knew the story, though looking back I was realy really wrong. For a start, despite having seen the film in lesson not long ago, I was confused about many of the characters and their roles. For example I thought that the man at the start of the film who goes to Transylvania (who I now know to be Jonathan Harker) was Renfield- and that Renfield was a survivor of the ship wrecked ship. Also I am not sure if it was the film that made it seem this way, but I was sure that Lucy died fairly quickly and that her death and life was never fully explored, however near half of the book talks of her downfall and then death. I was actually really rather suprised when she died because i thought she was the character that survived (I now know this to be Mina).

Although these things have been cleared up for me, I'm still confused about the overall locatio of the book. I'm sure I was jsut not paying full attention, but I got the impression that part of the story was set in Whitby- where the two girls (Lucy and Mina) were staying, I also understand that this is where the ship was washed up. But then didn't both girls leave Whitby? The rest of the book centres around the sanitorium, and Dracula's house, I'm sure I'm jsut being dense now, but was this in Whitby still?

Oh well, geography aside, I did enjoy this novel. I really found the characters fascinating. As I have previously said, I am not a fan of first person accounts as you are never sure what has really occured, or what the character perceives to have happened. Anyway, i thought this style really worked for the book, you are able to see how the characters are feeling at different events and so no matter what is occuring you have a really good insight. I'm trying to decide on my favourite character currently, but I can't because as soon as I think of a reason, i straight away think of an equally good point about a different character. A example is I think maybe I like Van Helsing because he speaks so wisely, fairly and quite matter-of-factly to everyone, but then I think, Seward is my favourite because he shows so much compassion for all of the other characters, he does his best to help people he has no obligation to help and is loyal all the way through the book. On another point, the appearance of Dracula himself, suprised me. He is described at the start of the book as having, "a long white moustache," from all the interpretations of Dracula that I have ever seen, he is always completely dark, clothes and hair.

Erm..... i think that's all I have to say, so i think I would give this book 8.1/10. It got such a good mark because despite how long it took me to read it, I was never bored, there is always something happening, no long boring passages of meaningless description or dialogue. However, it lost some of its marks because I really didn't think of it as a horror book. Sure it has some very dark themes, I mean a lot of people die, but it lacked any scaryness pour moi. I jsut looked up horror genre on wikipedia and it says this- "Horror fiction is a genre of fiction in any medium intended to scare, unsettle, or horrify the audience." I feel this book really failed on this front and I'm not sure why, maybe I am jsut being picky and maybe vampires have really been over done, I no longer find the idea in fiction scary. Oh well, I'm waffling so will finish mon post.