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hyperdontiia 's review for:
Dracula
by Bram Stoker
[27/166]
There is so much going on in this incredibly enthralling and messy epistolary novel-- Dracula has twice the powers he has in most media (wolf and bat motifs? Control over animals and uh, maybe the mentally ill? What's up with Renfield? He's enthralled, right?) and oh man, this story jumps all over the place in a bunch of really fun leaps. If anyone wants a really good summary, I'd direct you over to OSP's video on Dracula, which is a much better summary than I could give, and I agree that Mina Harker is so wonderfully overpowered.
The book is interestingly obsessed with gender roles despite the suprising agency of the female characters, for the time, and Mina is characterized as having a "man's brain" because they can't compliment her enough while retaining her femininity. She's "defiled" by Dracula, who drinks her blood, but then the effects of this defiling, despite her constant pangs of anxiety over her soul being desecrated, are what enables them to take down Dracula, because now she has psychic powers. Every time the men don't involve her also goes terribly for them, and she constantly underestimates herself. Girl power??? Anyways, I love Mina. Likewise, even though Lucy courts three suitors, who fight in her name after her death against Dracula, her killer, she's not an antagonistic or catty seductress, but rather just so good of heart that three men honestly want to be with her and she's on good terms with all three of them throughout this. At one point she bemoans not being able to have as many husbands as she wants.
Look. Lucy. I am 1000% on your side here.
I love both of them, and the rest of the cast is also... there... Jonathan is a sweet and devoted husband, especially as he and Lucy are the most Puritan couple in existence, and Lucy and Mina continue to have more chemistry throughout the book. Which is hilarious. Thank you. I also love Quincy "Yeehaw" Morris, Texan extraordinaire.
Did I also mention that the suspense in this book is great? It's great. Everything comes together across the first two-thirds of the book, to kind of collapse at the end (yikes, that ending... was abrupt), and it's fun to watch the myth fall into place, even though the obvious giveaways for us are not at all for the characters, so we do have to sit through a bunch of confusion the audience does not share. Luckily Van Helsing knows exactly what's going on, so he's weirdly almost an audience surrogate in that respect.
Anyways, it's aged, but still a very exciting read. Would whole-heartedly recommend.
There is so much going on in this incredibly enthralling and messy epistolary novel-- Dracula has twice the powers he has in most media (wolf and bat motifs? Control over animals and uh, maybe the mentally ill? What's up with Renfield? He's enthralled, right?) and oh man, this story jumps all over the place in a bunch of really fun leaps. If anyone wants a really good summary, I'd direct you over to OSP's video on Dracula, which is a much better summary than I could give, and I agree that Mina Harker is so wonderfully overpowered.
The book is interestingly obsessed with gender roles despite the suprising agency of the female characters, for the time, and Mina is characterized as having a "man's brain" because they can't compliment her enough while retaining her femininity. She's "defiled" by Dracula, who drinks her blood, but then the effects of this defiling, despite her constant pangs of anxiety over her soul being desecrated, are what enables them to take down Dracula, because now she has psychic powers. Every time the men don't involve her also goes terribly for them, and she constantly underestimates herself. Girl power??? Anyways, I love Mina. Likewise, even though Lucy courts three suitors, who fight in her name after her death against Dracula, her killer, she's not an antagonistic or catty seductress, but rather just so good of heart that three men honestly want to be with her and she's on good terms with all three of them throughout this. At one point she bemoans not being able to have as many husbands as she wants.
Look. Lucy. I am 1000% on your side here.
I love both of them, and the rest of the cast is also... there... Jonathan is a sweet and devoted husband, especially as he and Lucy are the most Puritan couple in existence, and Lucy and Mina continue to have more chemistry throughout the book. Which is hilarious. Thank you. I also love Quincy "Yeehaw" Morris, Texan extraordinaire.
Did I also mention that the suspense in this book is great? It's great. Everything comes together across the first two-thirds of the book, to kind of collapse at the end (yikes, that ending... was abrupt), and it's fun to watch the myth fall into place, even though the obvious giveaways for us are not at all for the characters, so we do have to sit through a bunch of confusion the audience does not share. Luckily Van Helsing knows exactly what's going on, so he's weirdly almost an audience surrogate in that respect.
Anyways, it's aged, but still a very exciting read. Would whole-heartedly recommend.