In this book's defense, almost no one I know has read it.
It isn't as strong as "they love, but I hate." It's "they like, but I am disappointed."
I really expected more from this book. It is a classic horror tale. It started the pop-culture obsession with vampires. (True vampires. Not Meyer's "vampires.") It's like, "Everything I know about vampires I learned from Dracula."
But as I read the book, I came to a shocking realization: I was bored.
There was no horror to this horror story. I think Bram Stoker's writing is to blame, not the plot, because Dracula had the potential to be a really good, scary read. After all, the titular vampire can do pretty much anything to make sure he gets blood.
But it wasn't scary at all. Dracula was almost never involved in the main plot, and when he was his attacks were not terrifying or disturbing in any way. I feel like the attacks were over-described, and whatever terror could have come from reading of the attacks was sucked away. No pun intended.
The problem with Stoker's writing is that he rambles way too easily and becomes too preoccupied with the unimportant details. My biggest issue by far was the flowery dialogue. It seemed that no character could talk to or about the main female character, Mina Myers, without spitting out a least half a dozen flowery descriptive adjectives about her. "Oh, it's lovely, clever, sweet, devoting, perfect little Mina. Let's say how lovely, clever, sweet, devoting, and perfect she is every time we talk about her."
Okay. So that was an exaggeration. But I do know that pretty much every man talks about how clever Mina is, and I don't know why. I feel like her little revelations were not extremely clever. I feel like anyone could have thought of what she thought of.
I do not know specifically why the people I know who like Dracula like it, but we definitely do not see eye to eye about the book. I feel like the book had potential to be a really good story, but Stoker's writing made the plot dull and uninteresting. Maybe the book's just dated. Maybe his writing style was good and appropriate for the time. Who knows?
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