Dracula

by Bram Stoker

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In a word: sinister

In a sentence: a group of wronged Englishmen (and a Dutch doctor) go monster slaying.

Synopsis: When brave, strong Jonathan is near driven to insanity by fright, and innocent young Lucy becomes afflicted with a mysterious illness sapping her strength, the people who love them most vow to act. The group uncovers the vile legend of the vampire Dracula and seek out his destruction.

Reactions: The first thing I noticed about this novel was how cinematic it was, the second how sexual. My first encounter with Dracula was in my early youth and so I remember neither of these things as being the case. I presume the former is due to the fact that, as actual cinema had yet to be invented, the world still relied heavily on literature for entertainment value. The latter I did some research on.

In 1897 when Bram Stoker wrote Dracula, homosexuality was still illegal in the UK. In fact, he was "close friends" with Oscar Wilde who was convicted for homosexuality and lived most of the remainder of his life after prison exiled to France. Although Bram Stoker was married to a woman, there are clear streaks of repressed sexuality throughout Dracula which make for a highly entertaining read to anyone with an imaginative mind's eye.

Dracula is written through the eyes of every protagonist in the form of a series of entries in all their various journals. This throws the reader into the thick of things through play-by-play updates and gives the reader a sense of the urgency of their quest. It's gory, creepy, over-the-top, and not a little sexy, none of which, even individually, could be considered mean feats for a repressed Victorian author such as our Mr. Stoker. He creates a vivid legend, and a novel that has gone down in infamy.

Read if: you wish to experience a true sample of literature from when it was the peak means of entertainment.