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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Gripping, multi-layered novel retains the power to chill, 14 May 2003
Dracula may be an iconic figure in film and television, but his appeal is not diminished in print. This truly is a wonderful, absorbing read; I enjoyed it far more than I expected to. Stoker's prose is pleasantly easy to read (although the footnotes do come in handy for some of the more obscure references to medieval eastern European history). The narrative is generally well-paced, only occasionally sagging under the weight of unnecessary scene-setting and backstory. It is told from a multitude of viewpoints with an almost postmodern attention to point-of-view distortions. This device also goes a considerable way towards breathing real life into the engaging characters. The story is a familiar one, of course, particularly to anyone who has seen the 1992 film version. With Coppola's slightly salacious additions stripped away (Lucy is a giddy charmer here rather than a perpetually-tipsy flirt, for example), this is an often stark tale, redolent with folkloric eerieness, as fin-de-siecle scientific triumphalism battles vainly against an older, altogether darker set of laws. However many versions of the story you've seen, _Dracula_ remains a surprisingly rich and unnerving read - all the richer, indeed, for the cultural resonance it has picked up since it was first published. We have seen Jonathan Harker reach his slow realisation of the true nature of the Count countless times, yet this knowing shiver only adds to the creeping unease when Harker first enters Dracula's castle. This a gem of a novel, waiting to be rediscovered.
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by Mary Shelley
by Bram Stoker
by Oscar Wilde
by Matthew Lewis
