Dracula

I have to admit I the idea of vampires ridicules. 

There are darknesses in life and there are lights, and you are one of the lights, the light of all lights.”
― Bram Stoker, Dracula

My fiance had already read the book and was singing it’s praises, which didn’t insight much hope as he reads things like Stephen King.

Oh, the terrible struggle that I have had against sleep so often of late; the pain of the sleeplessness, or the pain of the fear of sleep, and with such unknown horror as it has for me! How blessed are some people, whose lives have no fears, no dreads; to whom sleep is a blessing that comes nightly, and brings nothing but sweet dreams.”
― Bram Stoker, Dracula

A couple of years ago we went to Whitby on holiday with the fiances parents and brother. Whitby is where, in the book, Dracula lands in England.

I am all in a sea of wonders. I doubt; I fear; I think strange things, which I dare not confess to my own soul. God keep me, if only for the sake of those dear to me!”
― Bram Stoker, Dracula

The book was quite literally everywhere. We visited the Abbey, it was there, in pretty much every shop, tourist attraction, you name it, it was there! We even went on a Dracula ghost walk (the fiance’s insistence).

Oh, my dear, if you only knew how strange is the matter regarding which I am here, it is you who would laugh. I have learned not to think little of any one’s belief, no matter how strange it may be. I have tried to keep an open mind, and it is not the ordinary things of life that could close it, but the strange things, the extraordinary things, the things that make one doubt if they be mad or sane.”
― Bram Stoker, Dracula

It was the ghost walk that actually changed my mind. The story teller told us that the idea was based on a real person, Vlad the impailer,  so I thought oohh this may not be as ridicules as I thought.

Doctor, you don’t know what it is to doubt everything, even yourself. No, you don’t; you couldn’t with eyebrows like yours.”
― Bram Stoker, Dracula

I finally brought my copy from a shop in Whitby. It hardly took long to read the whole book is pretty small and it is not difficult to read. But that is coming from me who reads a lot of books, especially classics.

Do you not think that there are things which you cannot understand, and yet which are; that some people see things that others cannot? But there are things old and new which must not be contemplate by men´s eyes, because they know -or think they know- some things which other men have told them. Ah, it is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all; and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to explain.”
― Bram Stoker, Dracula

It is not one of my favorites but I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. There was quite a bit of mystery and you found you were  rooting for the characters to beat Dracula. There wasn’t really any sympathy provoked towards Dracula,and it wasn’t too gross! 

The last I saw of Count Dracula was his kissing his hand to me, with a red light of triumph in his eyes, and with a smile that Judas in hell might be proud of.”
― Bram Stoker, Dracula

I can see why people really love this book  and I am glad I read it but it wasn’t really for me.

May 25, 2013. Tags: Book, Bram Stoker, bram stoker dracula, Dracula, Writing. Books. 1 comment.