Topic: Super Waffle's book chat / Gundam discussion

[Super Waffle]

Original thread title: "I started reading Dracula"


I'm about 20 pages into it.

When is this Keanu Reeves dork going to stop talking about food?  I was under the impression this book had a lot of death and corrupt bitches in it.

[Mooning Freddy]

I don't think the succubus award is enough for you, SW. You seriously need a gigantic man-eating phallus award or something.   

Dracula's corrupt bitches appear by the end of Jonathan Harker's Journal, the first part of the book, around page 40-50. Oh, and if you want to skip the Mina-Lucy pointless girly talk and putzi-mutzi romance you should skip the Mina journal and start reading around page 150.

[Super Waffle]

Is the girly talk portion any worse than "This Carpathian food tastes good (mem.: Get recipe for Mina).  This book is nightmarishly boring (mem.: Don't read it again after you finish it once)"? 

I'm not sure I like how you're telling me I can basically skip the first third of the story and I won't be lost at all when things start actually happening.  Good God it sounds like someone wrote a 19th century version of the Muv-Luv trilogy.

[Mooning Freddy]

You must keep in mind while reading it that it's a thriller / adventure NOVEL written in the 19th century. The nightmarishly long character development was required in the book to build suspense.
I must say I actually liked the first part of the book, i.e. Jonathan's stay in Dracula's castle. It's long and quite annoying, but it creates an atmosphere of despair as

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Jonathan understands that he's a prisoner in the castle, that Dracula is a nosferatu, and searches ways to escape.

Now the second part of the book, this is where the real nightmare starts. You want me to summarize what they're about to save you a tiresome read?

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20-30 pages of Mina and Lucy blabbering about how much they enjoy themselves on their vacation, about how much Mina loves Jonathan, and about Lucy being such a beautiful girl that three men asked her to marry them on the same day: Dr. Seward, Quincey Morris, and Arthur Holmwood. She chooses Hollywood and Seward is heartbroken.
BLAH BLAH BLAH Sea resort BLAH BLAH so much fun BLAH Lucy is sleepwalking BLAH Dracula finally arrives in England and bites her while she's sleepwalking.

From that point the story gets a little bit more interesting but not a lot. What bothers me most is the way all the characters are like "OMG Nosferatu OMG so horrible we must now work together for the good of mankind and love each other even though we don't even know each other and were just fighting over the same girl a moment ago." The exaggerated British chivalry is what annoys me in the story. The good / evil dichotomy is so intense. Dracula is the ultimate evil while the rest are the perfect knights and maidens. That part is what bores me.

[Ratty]

The part of Mina's journal does drag on yeah, it's been years since I've read it but iirc there's a part with an old sailor that's omitted from probably every adaptation for a reason, because it's really boring even when it's supposed to be spooooky. I generally dislike first person novels and even though I've read it multiple times I think Dracula is pretty weak overall.

Frankenstein (otherwise easily a superior book) is even worse when it drags though. There's a part in the middle that goes on and on with a mind-numbing melodrama about the family the monster observes to learn to read/speak. It stops the story dead in its tracks until you forget what you're reading and why.

I've not read it but maybe you'd more enjoy Bram Stoker's hilariously Freudian "Lair of the White Worm" about an evil snake woman? Or at least the film adaptation
The Lair of The White Worm - Trailer
Bet that's one movie Hugh Grant leaves off his resume.

PS- Don't bother reading Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, it's written as a mystery. SPOILERS! Jekyll and Hyde are the same person.

[chainsawmidget]

While we are on the subject of classic monster literature, I highly recommend The Invisible man.  It's much shorter and the Invisible man is written as a straight up insane evil bastard. 

[Super Waffle]

Is this going to end like the Frank Langella version where he totally NTRs the fiancee at the end?

I generally dislike first person novels

oh.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7181826/2/Refrain
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7845896/1/Bad-Touching-the-Brain-Meats-Epilogue
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8314408/2/A-Cadet-s-Account
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7233854/1/Ramblings-of-an-Evil-Scientist
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7233854/2/Ramblings-of-an-Evil-Scientist

Tell me how you feel about this.

PS- Don't bother reading Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, it's written as a mystery. SPOILERS! Jekyll and Hyde are the same person.

Hey, how did you know I was reading the version that crams Frankenstein, Dracula, and Dr. Jekyll in a single book?

[Belmontoya]

I liked the book, though it does drag at times. I actually like the changes made to the story in coppolas film. He made some of the protagonists less perfect and more realistic.

[Lelygax]

@Montoya: I've noticed it only now, this Nosferatu on your avatar was doing a pose like in this famous old portrait. (sorry, I dont remember the name, but its one of these that they show in museum and teach in school.)

@Ratty: Wow, so this book is totally thorn apart nowadays, since everyone knows that they are the same person and it kills the mystery.

[Mooning Freddy]

I liked Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  It's really not the plot twist that is important. It's like saying that knowing Dracula is a vampire is ruining the book for you because only in the middle of the book Van Helsing realizes he is one.

There are many ways to interpret Stevenson's novella. Rather than a battle of good and evil in the human soul, I actually think Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde can be seen as an allegory to drug abuse and addiction. It is quite clear that Jekyll transforms into Hyde by taking a drug, usually pictured by drinking, but I remember a Russian film in which he was injecting it. The drug makes him feel all-powerful and free of moral restrains but he eventually becomes addicted to it, becoming a monster just like drug addicts.
Makes sense too, since morphine, heroin and opium were very popular in Victorian England in the time of the story.

http://www.bloodsprayer.com/dr-jekyll-and-mr-hyde-a-portrait-of-drug-addiction/

[Ratty]

Super Waffle - I'm not familiar with any of those franchises so I don't think I could give work based on them a fair shake. I just generally don't like first person stories because I find they hinder my suspension of disbelief. It's one thing to have an event matter-of-factly stated, it's another to have someone claim they did/saw something, at least for me. There's also the issue of knowing the narrator will survive, unless it turns out they're dead in the end which always feels like such a huge, cheap cop-out.

Jeffrey Montoya - I've tried to read that a couple times but both times found out about halfway through I was reading an abridged version and angrily stopped. Not tried it since I was a kid though, probably pick it back up at some point. I quite liked "The Island of Doctor Moreau" by the same author.

Lelygax - Yeah, exactly.

Freddy - If you say so. Of course the use of Werewolfism as an allegory for drug abuse or other negative addictions holds true for the story, but I found it rather dull.

I should finish reading the penny dreadful "Wagner the Wehr-Wolf" at some point, it was pretty enjoyable for absurd Victorian melodrama, not sure why I stopped.

[Super Waffle]

hey

What if I read Carmilla?

[Ratty]

hey

What if I read Carmilla?

That's on my to-read list. Along with most of the other stories in this collection. http://www.amazon.com/The-Vampire-Archives-Complete-Published/dp/0307473899

[TheouAegis]

I actually liked the scene when Frankenstein's creature mooches off the family. I never once while reading the novel felt the book was actually about a horrible undead monster, but always about the horrible monster that was Victor himself. Victor was just plain a horrible, awful person. He was the true villain and monster. The creature learns how to communicate by living in the family's shed and conversing with the grandfather, and through that learning he is able to express himself intelligibly, offering strong arguments against Victor as to why it's okay for him (the Creature) to murder those around Victor.  Yes, he's killing innocent people, but just as Victor viewed the creature as a tool and a means to an end, so too does the Creature view those around Victor as tools and means to an end. He makes valid justifications for his actions and yet in the end Victor still maintains that he is in the right and that the creature must be destroyed; and yet the ship's captain leaves the creature well enough alone, not wanting any part of Victor's self-wrought Hell.

[Ratty]

Oh I agree that the book is more complex than just the monster being bad, and the argument that Victor is the real monster isn't a hard one to make. But I felt it got so wrapped up in telling the story of the family the monster is watching that the book loses sight of both of its main characters for a while, though the section is ostensibly about the creature learning to talk and interact with humans. Haven't read it since High School but that's the distinct impression of that section which I remember.