Review: Dracula by Bram Stoker

Solicitor Jonathan Harker travels to Transylvania to assist Count Dracula in the purchase of a property in England; when he arrives, however, things are very different from what he expected. The locals seem fearful when he tells them where he is headed, and his journey there is strange and fraught with danger. When he arrives, he is welcomed by Count Dracula into his dilapidated castle — but Jonathan soon learns that getting out might be much harder than getting in.

Back home in England, Jonathan’s fiancé, Mina, and her friend, Lucy, are beginning to worry about his lengthening silence. When a strange ship washes up into their harbour in the middle of a bad storm, bearing an all-dead crew and a terrible cargo, the danger brings itself to their own doorstep. A small band gathers together to defeat it, but the threat is a slippery one, and survival is not guaranteed. All must fight to keep their lives and souls out of the clutches of the undead monster before he recruits more to his ranks. 

This is my second horror book and third gothic novel of the year; I didn’t plan it that way, but 2024 is turning out to be the year of dark reads for me so far.

Out of said three gothic novels, this one is my least favourite. I still had a tolerably good time reading it, as I almost always do with a classic, but there were various elements that were not to my taste.

Dracula is an epistolary novel, told through letters, journal entries and similar communications between the main characters. The writing sets the scene of the novel beautifully, with good descriptions and an atmospheric tone, infused with the emotions and natures of the characters’ voices.

It took me a while to get into the story at the start, and the novel as a whole is very slow-moving, with many parts drawn out far more than they needed to be. Some events repeat themselves, happening over and over again before the characters realise what is occurring (let alone do something about it), and long after the reader has figured out what’s going on. This continues to occur even when all the characters concerned are meant to be on high alert and are well acquainted with the (extremely clear and hard to miss) signs of the danger.

Though this was likely meant to invoke tension, it rather has the effect of frustrating and even boring the reader. It gets tiring, and there are plenty of times where the book could have moved along a lot faster without losing any quality or substance to the story.

It is also not very well described or clarified in many aspects, with many questions left unanswered. I can’t provide many examples for fear of giving spoilers, but suffice it to say that the storyline sometimes lacked justification and clarity on some points, both major and minor.

The storyline itself doesn’t have a very strong structure — it has several parts which focus on one plot-line and build it up a little, but then it just sputters out without proper resolution or explanation and they move on to the next thing. Overall, the plot isn’t very well-developed or cohesive.

The final part of the book felt especially drawn out, and the outcome anti-climatic by comparison. A final character death felt unnecessary, and as if it occurred simply to have a character die, rather than for any concrete reason or aim.

The villain also didn’t have a particularly strong motivating goal — other than moving to greener, more densely populated pastures to satisfy his appetite on new blood. This did somewhat lower the stakes and make him a less terrifying villain to me. We don’t even get to encounter him very often, which, considering the book is named after him, is kind of disappointing. I guess I just expected more vampire.

Another complaint that I had with the writing is that the author has the somewhat irritating habit of writing some characters — specifically those with an accent or foreigners — in such a way that it is difficult to determine what they are saying based on the written dialogue. I understand this was done for authenticity (though if the author wanted to achieve this, he probably should have tried for a little more accuracy), but when it clouds the readers’ understanding of the story or even obscures important plot points and conversations, it goes too far, in my opinion. I have seen instances of this done much better in other books, where the authenticity is conveyed without completely obscuring the meaning.

The book is also medically inaccurate; one character receives four blood transfusions from four different men, who, though untested, all just happen to have a compatible blood type with her. The biology major in me was justifiably irritated.

Despite this being a horror novel, I just really wasn’t scared by it at all. if anything, I was a little grossed out at some things — a man eating live birds, or somebody cutting off a corpse’s head and stuffing garlic in the mouth — but overall, I just wasn’t scared or horrified like you would expect. Then again, this is an older novel, and things were a lot more toned down back then for popular consumption.

I will say that I found the description of the count more funny than scary; with his protruding vampire fangs, red eyes, sharp nails, and pale skin, he seemed more like a cartoon or caricatured version of a vampire than the scary and sinister beast he was intended to be. This may be because Dracula himself was one of the early versions of vampires that all of today’s cartoons and caricatures are based off of. Still, I found it a little hard to take it seriously — especially when he turned himself into a big bat.

That said, there are many horror elements in the novel that would be considered disturbing, including vampires sucking blood and kidnapping and killing children, wolves eating people, blood and gore, and a mentally ill man consuming live flies, spiders and birds and drinking blood.

There are also several scenes taking place inside of a mental asylum, as one of the main characters and narrators is a doctor there. As such, there is somewhat derogatory and dehumanising commentary on mentally ill people, who are sometimes forcibly constrained, as well as called by terms that are considered offensive today.

In addition to this, lower and working class characters in the book are all portrayed as base and greedy, who will only help if given money or alcohol in return for their aids, and who are easily bought off.

Another element that I disliked was the attitude that was displayed towards women throughout the duration of the book. Women are mostly excluded from the active parts of the vampire-hunting, as they are too delicate and weak, and so must leave the physical or disturbing work to the big strong men. This is done even though the women are averse to the decision, but even they are condescending towards themselves in their dialogue, using the phrase “we poor women” when referring to themselves.

This is just an example of the continual language used in this book — men are always “strong” and “brave”  and women “poor” and “weak”, recurring adjectives that are used over and over again in reference to them.

In addition, a woman who displays strong mental faculties and intelligence is referred to as having a “man’s brain”, which, aside from being laughably unscientific, is plain insulting. The main female characters are both reduced to victims with sweet and angelic personalities, who become somewhat of a mascot for the male members of the group, who they are devoted to worshipping and protecting (though they do an absolutely terrible job of the latter). It altogether contributed to reducing my enjoyment of the plot, along with the other elements I have already mentioned.

All of this said, I don’t mean to turn this review into one long rant about the book’s flaws.

Despite all these elements, I did somewhat enjoy the book for what it is: an iconic and classic horror story, in many ways the predecessor of most of the vampire fiction that came after it. I most likely won’t ever re-read Dracula, but I don’t regret my experience of reading it the first time, and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to readers who enjoy a good old-fashioned gothic horror classic.