Castlevania Dungeon Forums
The Castlevania Dungeon Forums => General Castlevania Discussion => Topic started by: Ratty on May 26, 2012, 06:31:21 PM
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Just curious as to how many here have read it or want to. Can also be a general discussion thread for the novel.
Though for most of the story we get only brief glimpses of the Count, It's got some interesting comments on Dracula as a character. Notably Van Helsing's assertion that Dracula has a "child mind/brain" and that is why he hasn't simply taken over the world or even strayed far past his castle prior to the events of the novel. Might go a short ways toward explaining why it seems to take him so long to come up with new/better plans to permanently defeat the Belmonts.
"I have studied, over and over again since they came into my hands, all the papers relating to this monster, and the more I have studied, the greater seems the necessity to utterly stamp him out. All through there are signs of his advance. Not only of his power, but of his knowledge of it. As I learned from the researches of my friend Arminius of Buda-Pesth, he was in life a most wonderful man. Soldier, statesman, and alchemist--which latter was the highest development of the science knowledge of his time. He had a mighty brain, a learning beyond compare, and a heart that knew no fear and no remorse. He dared even to attend the Scholomance, and there was no branch of knowledge of his time that he did not essay.
"Well, in him the brain powers survived the physical death. Though it would seem that memory was not all complete. In some faculties of mind he has been, and is, only a child. But he is growing, and some things that were childish at the first are now of man's stature. He is experimenting, and doing it well. And if it had not been that we have crossed his path he would be yet, he may be yet if we fail, the father or furtherer of a new order of beings, whose road must lead through Death, not Life." - Professor Van Helsing, Dracula Chapter 23.
For those who would like to read the novel and have ereaders or just don't mind reading off a computer screen it is available for free at Project Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/345 (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/345) and the deleted chapter "Dracula's Guest" http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10150 (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10150)
Also freely available is this earlier vampire tale featuring a character who has, at least in name, appeared several times in the Castlevania series, Carmilla http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10007 (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10007) audio versions are available as well.
As for me Dracula is one of the few books I've read more than once, though the first time was over a decade ago now. Thinking I'll give it another go sometime soon.
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Read it, and thought it was dreadful. Stoker's other work is really so much better.
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Read it about a year ago. Thought it could have been written in a better format, but I still enjoyed it.
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I read a version some time ago, but I was pretty sure it was one of those abridged school versions. Yknow, really thin with pictures. Ive been meaning to buy Dracula for a long time. There was a neat version at a bookstore near me, but the chain shut down.
I DID once read a book called Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula, which takes place during the time in which Dracula is in London.
Now that was an awesome as hell book.
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Bram Stoker's classic novel should be required reading for Castlevania fans. Period.
Although the films take many liberties with the original story, these should be required viewing as well.
Dracula 1931 with Bela Lugosi
Horror of Dracula 1958 with Christopher Lee
Bram Stoker's Dracula 1992 with Gary Oldman
If you're really hardcore, you might even watch the silent film Nosferatu from 1922.
Here's a link to the novel to get the faithful started...
http://www.literature.org/authors/stoker-bram/dracula/ (http://www.literature.org/authors/stoker-bram/dracula/)
The !931 Bela Lugosi Film...
Dracula (1931) - Full Movie (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiKU9MXxf5w#noexternalembed)
And an audiobook of the novel... The narration is a little weird though. :-/
Dracula Audiobook Chapter 1 (Full Chapter) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e05FQvlieHQ#ws)
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There's a 1969 Christopher Lee Dracula movie by Jesus Franco too, which is pretty faithful to the book, although suffers from having I dunno... put too much effort into the beginning with Dracula and his castle and the town and shit, and once it goes back to England, the sets really fail at feeling like the 1800's. It's the really small details really... Also, the ending seems ridiculously anticlimactic for some reason. I mean, it just seems to end too abruptly with little bang.
But other than that, it's not too bad.
Bram Stoker's classic novel should be required reading for Castlevania fans. Period.
I'm sorry! I'm working on it! :<
Lemme finish Dorian Gray first.
I also need to buy the book. I am quite ashamed and somewhat surprised I still dont have it.
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I actually ending up reading this my senior year of high school. It wasn't required for the class, but we had to choose a book that also had a movie or movies based on the book. I just remember choosing the book Dracula because I wanted to finally read it, and I knew I had a million movie choices to choose from. I ended up going with the Francis Ford Coppola movie, because I had been wanting to watch it (and it was easy for me to get a hold of).
I had tons of fun reading the book and watching the movie. In some parts of Dracula it did get boring, but I overall really enjoyed the book. It was worth having to buy the book and the movie. Funny thing was, later on that year my teacher made us read Frankenstein, which I had also wanted to read. He made us read Frankenstein though, unlike my choice of reading Dracula.
One of these days I need to sit down and watch some classic Dracula movies. I wonder how many of them are on Netflix? :P
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My dyslexia wrecks havok on lots of older novels.
Other than that, I've only closely read a graphic novel based on Stoker's novel. That's about it.
Thought, it's interesting that bit regarding Van Helsing's knowledge of Dracula. In life, Dracula was an alchemist(among other things). Wonder if that was partially inspiration for Mathias Cronqvist being an alchemist? Also, Scholomance, the infamous school where the devil chooses a selected few to teach his wicked arts, made an appearance in PoR.
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I read it multiple times, as I had to study it in high school for some classes.
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Started it but haven't finished it. It was an ebook and i hate reading on my laptop. I've been meaning to buy a physical copy, and each time i forget.
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Wow so far an overwhelming majority of users have either read the book or have/had an interest in reading it. Didn't expect that, at least not so drastically.
I had tons of fun reading the book and watching the movie. In some parts of Dracula it did get boring, but I overall really enjoyed the book. It was worth having to buy the book and the movie. Funny thing was, later on that year my teacher made us read Frankenstein, which I had also wanted to read. He made us read Frankenstein though, unlike my choice of reading Dracula.
One of these days I need to sit down and watch some classic Dracula movies. I wonder how many of them are on Netflix? :P
Yeah Frankenstein is another of the few novels I've read more than once, I think it's actually better written than Dracula in a lot of ways. Except when the whole book stops dead in the middle to tell the story of the family the monster is watching, it just stops the momentum of the main story dead in it's tracks and drags on for way, way, waaaay too long.
If you're looking for classic Dracula films be warned that the 1931 Dracula is incredibly slow with not a lot happening by today's standards. Historically important as it is in cementing the image of Dracula in popular culture, even today when people imitate Dracula they're imitating Lugosi, you never even get to see fangs in the movie. I honestly think Lugosi got to be more menacing the only other time he played Dracula on film* in 1948's Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, which was a comedy.
If you still want to watch the 1939 original I recommend netflixing this version http://www.amazon.com/Dracula-Anniversary-Edition-Universal-Legacy/dp/B000GPIPSS (http://www.amazon.com/Dracula-Anniversary-Edition-Universal-Legacy/dp/B000GPIPSS) and the other discs in this set http://www.amazon.com/Dracula-Collection-Spanish-Draculas-Daughter/dp/B0001CNRLG/ref=pd_cp_mov_1 (http://www.amazon.com/Dracula-Collection-Spanish-Draculas-Daughter/dp/B0001CNRLG/ref=pd_cp_mov_1) to see most of the other classic Universal films featuring the character. Including the one with the origin of the name Alucard.
Son of Dracula Official Trailer #1 - Samuel S. Hinds Movie (1943) HD (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0rPaeTHJmY#)
In fact all of the universal classic monster "Legacy Collections" are great, featuring movies whose influence on Castlevania are obvious and enjoyable to see. The only problem with the version of the original Dracula in the Legacy Collection is that Dracula's death scream is censored from it. Though none of the other movies are censored, it was an odd omission.
I think Coppola's Dracula was more influenced by the Hammer Films 1960s and 70s remakes/re-imaginings of the Universal horror films including Dracula. But I've only seen a few of those so can't say much about it.
Odd that they went with the Marvel Comics "Tomb of Dracula" image for that audiobook reading cecil-kane.
Funny thing about that, the look of Dracula in the marvel comics was based on Jack Palance (a cowboy actor who you may remember as Curly or his brother from the "City Slickers" movies) who wound up playing Dracula in a TV movie shortly afterwards.
*He played the character on stage many times.
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I don't read often, but I read like the first two chapters several months ago. I bought a version that recreates the cover and print format of the original.
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I don't read often, but I read like the first two chapters several months ago. I bought a version that recreates the cover and print format of the original.
Dat yellow cover. Yet it works pretty well somehow. Makes the red "DRACULA" pop out.
I've got my eye on this version I can get at Barnes and Noble for like 10 bucks.
(http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/2475/102017784.jpg)
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I have read the original book at least twice; I own a copy. I also have a comic book version that compressed the whole book into four issues (nothing to do with Tomb of Dracula though it was done by Marvel). In my collection is also the Coppola film (which I didn't like either time I saw it and since it's a DVD it doesn't have the commentary or other features, annoying me greatly, but I guess that's what happens when it's only six bucks) and the Mel Brooks parody.
I also read the "official" sequel by Bram Stoker's great nephew. It was awful in every sense of the word (I had the sense to borrow it from the library). I've been trying to find the sequel by Freda Warrington, but I haven't had luck.
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I read it at least once a year...usually right after reading Jeanne Kalogridis' Trilogy, Diaries of the Family Dracul, which are a prequel to Stoker's novel. Thus, I read all 4 books in succession. It literally makes for non-stop Drac fun, and I always read these books with a CV score playing in the background :)
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the original Dracula book is mandatory here to pass highschool english class, it has to be read and an in deph essay wrote on the vampire, I also own a film reel copy of the original silent version of dracula
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I own a physical copy, though I haven't had the time to really get in depth into it yet. I plan on doing so soon though (Especially with all this awesome Castlevania news lately).
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I have the original, Dracula. the sequel Dravcula The Undead by Dache Stoker, The Journel of Vanhelsing (takes place before dracula novel and during, giving a nice backstory) a book titled "The Ultimate Dracula" written by a bunch of well known authors. on the reverse side of my Dracula novel is Frankenstien
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I have the original, Dracula. the sequel Dravcula The Undead by Dache Stoker, The Journel of Vanhelsing (takes place before dracula novel and during, giving a nice backstory) a book titled "The Ultimate Dracula" written by a bunch of well known authors. on the reverse side of my Dracula novel is Frankenstien
Might have to give the "Journal of Van Helsing" a look. Who wrote that?
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the title is "The Jornal of Professor Abraham Van Helsing" the cover art shows Vlad Tepes, bottoms reads:
Edited and with critical commentary by Professor Allen C. Kupfer
To my knowlage there is to coverarts to this, one with vlad, one with a large splatter of blood,
when I read this fic, It was so well written to me, I began to think i was literally reading a peice of history, and forgot I was reading a novel
(http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c283/omegasigma/9780765310125.jpg)
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Thanks. Now I'll have to take a peek.
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I read it at least once a year...usually right after reading Jeanne Kalogridis' Trilogy, Diaries of the Family Dracul, which are a prequel to Stoker's novel. Thus, I read all 4 books in succession. It literally makes for non-stop Drac fun, and I always read these books with a CV score playing in the background :)
That sounds pretty neat. I'll have to take a look at some of the other books mentioned in this thread.
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Ive also kept reading the Manga of Rosario Vampire, the fact that Castlevania and Dracula make cameos is enough for me :p but i also dont mind the story
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I've read the original once when I was 12, then again when I was 15. To me, the biggest disparity between the book and the film was Mina's relationship with Dracula. I love the 1994 movie, but that part shocked me since I read the book first. That and Gary Oldman looked nothing like how I pictured Dracula from my front cover:
(http://jacketupload.macmillanusa.com/jackets/high_res/jpgs/9780312863586.jpg)
I remember the book talked a lot about Dracula's limitations. Something like he couldn't cross a body of water when a tide was changing? He could appear in daylight, but his powers were weakened. He has to sleep in the soil of his homeland. These are never really addressed in CV.
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Well to be fair, CV games never really have the chance to adress them, he is usually sitting in his throne, in his castle, in Transylvania.
But considering the Novel is canon to CV, ill assume they exist.
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Well to be fair, CV games never really have the chance to adress them, he is usually sitting in his throne, in his castle, in Transylvania.
But considering the Novel is canon to CV, ill assume they exist.
That's why I'd like some survival horror elements in a new CV. For example when you have to meet Rosa in the garden. You had to talk to another character to know to meet her there. Its a point when the game stops being as linear. I guess what I'm saying is I'd like more quests that lead to information or items or optional side quests, not just "find the hidden upgrade, oh and its only hidden because the camera angles are F@#IN LOCKED".
Then they could actually utilize some more content from the novel as you strategically hunt down Dracula.
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I've read the original once when I was 12, then again when I was 15. To me, the biggest disparity between the book and the film was Mina's relationship with Dracula. I love the 1994 movie, but that part shocked me since I read the book first. That and Gary Oldman looked nothing like how I pictured Dracula from my front cover:
I remember the book talked a lot about Dracula's limitations. Something like he couldn't cross a body of water when a tide was changing? He could appear in daylight, but his powers were weakened. He has to sleep in the soil of his homeland. These are never really addressed in CV.
That is a badass cover, Boris Vallejo rocks my socks. I did some looking and turns out there's actually a version with a naked woman at his feet as well http://www.middian.net/Galerie3/Boris%20Vallejo%20-%20Dracula.jpg (http://www.middian.net/Galerie3/Boris%20Vallejo%20-%20Dracula.jpg) sadly, she shows no signs of being a barbarian.
About the Coppola movie- what I've heard is that the absurd wig they had on the older-form Dracula was an ill-advised attempt to compensate for Oldman being so much shorter than Reeves and the other actors. You can see this in the way the film is shot as well. As I recall for example in the scene where Mina drinks his blood and he turns into the bat creature he's always either standing on a bed or not in the same shot as the rest of them. I assume this is also why they gave him the almost comically long tophat in the younger-Drac scenes as well.
The "Mina really loves Dracula" thing is a remnant from the stage performances of Dracula where the character got turned into the romanticised Vampire we're all familiar with today. Of course in the original novel the aforementioned blood drinking incident is basically a rape scene and Dracula is a vile exploitative creature, not the tortured romantic anti-hero most films and other media tend to portray him as. What strikes me as funny in the Coppola movie is that they actually show him laughing about kidnapping and feeding his brides a baby yet they still play him as a romantic victim-hero.
And I agree, most CV games just never got to address Dracula as a character much, which is part of what makes these other sources so fascinating for us.
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Awesome, I never knew about the cover with the naked woman. Reminds me of Dracula 2000, when he walks in the CD store, all the girls are turned on. I remember being like, I want that power!!
I think Oldman was a decent Dracula, and that's funny that he was too short. Good point about the baby, and he also killed the ship workers and Lucy, who might have been a spoiled B!@#$ and a bit sluttish but was basically innocent. All I know is, in the end I didn't feel as bad as much as I had a "Die monster!" attitude toward him.
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The "Mina really loves Dracula" thing is a remnant from the stage performances of Dracula where the character got turned into the romanticised Vampire we're all familiar with today. Of course in the original novel the aforementioned blood drinking incident is basically a rape scene and Dracula is a vile exploitative creature, not the tortured romantic anti-hero most films and other media tend to portray him as. What strikes me as funny in the Coppola movie is that they actually show him laughing about kidnapping and feeding his brides a baby yet they still play him as a romantic victim-hero.
Actually, while Dracula's image was certainly sexualized gradually and subtly over time, the root of the romance lies in the old soap Dark Shadows, its creator Dan Curtis, and a writer you guys may be familiar with named Richard Matheson.
Dan Curtis made a TV movie adaptation of Dracula in...shot in the dark, 1973, starring Jack Palance. Richard Matheson wrote the screenplay. Now, Richard Matheson wanted to add a little depth to the Count, and Curtis, not one to care about rehashing things, basically worked in a subplot wherein Mina was actually the reincarnation of Dracula's one true love. This subplot was lifted from Dark Shadows, with Barnabas Collins instead of Dracula.
Ever since then, as others inspired by the film managed to work in that subplot into their own stories, it just stuck. To this day new interpretations of Dracula are released in which Dracula and Mina are lovers. I much prefer the Count to be more of a monstrous, pure evil sort of figure, myself. A tragic past can work sometimes, but it shouldn't be used to excuse his evil actions in the present and turn him into a big teddy bear, or worse, a fanged Fabio.
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Actually, while Dracula's image was certainly sexualized gradually and subtly over time, the root of the romance lies in the old soap Dark Shadows, its creator Dan Curtis, and a writer you guys may be familiar with named Richard Matheson.
Dan Curtis made a TV movie adaptation of Dracula in...shot in the dark, 1973, starring Jack Palance. Richard Matheson wrote the screenplay. Now, Richard Matheson wanted to add a little depth to the Count, and Curtis, not one to care about rehashing things, basically worked in a subplot wherein Mina was actually the reincarnation of Dracula's one true love. This subplot was lifted from Dark Shadows, with Barnabas Collins instead of Dracula.
Ever since then, as others inspired by the film managed to work in that subplot into their own stories, it just stuck. To this day new interpretations of Dracula are released in which Dracula and Mina are lovers. I much prefer the Count to be more of a monstrous, pure evil sort of figure, myself. A tragic past can work sometimes, but it shouldn't be used to excuse his evil actions in the present and turn him into a big teddy bear, or worse, a fanged Fabio.
Awesome, that I did not know. I had always heard this was just an extension of the stage play. And you see exactly this relationship of reeincarnation and attempted reunion/undead-ifying in Universal's "The Mummy" with Boris Karloff which coming in 1932 predates Dark Shadows by decades, with the implication that this relationship was just an element left out of the Universal version of Dracula and incorporated into the Mummy.
The Mummy - 1932 - Official Trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IzLO9AN6Hc#ws)
I believe there were films where the relationship between Drac and Mina was played as a romance or at least mutual sexual attraction before Dark Shadows though? I sadly have not seen many of the Hammer movies. In either case I really want to see that Palance film now but I don't think it's available on DVD on VHS, I need to check next time I've got some cash. This is the one yes?
Dan Curtis' Dracula(1973) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwf0pPAzWkY#)
Guess I'll finish watching House of Dark Shadows now to, got it on VHS for 99 cents last year, watched about an hour of it and was like "welp, can't take this any more" and haven't finished it. Soap opera plots don't work well condensed, assuming they work at all.
All I know is, in the end I didn't feel as bad as much as I had a "Die monster!" attitude toward him.
Same, it's like in that scene where they're talking to him as the bat-creature the exchange is something like "Van Helsing: You impaled and killed thousands of people!" "Dracula: Look what your God has done to me!" It's like, dude, I know you lost the love of your life, but I'm pretty sure at least a couple of those thousands of people you killed had loved ones to. They're pushing the "misunderstood monster" thing really hard in that movie though, like where they let Mina defend Dracula and eventually kill him. And Reeves is like "Our work is finished here, hers has just begun" and Van Helsing says "We've all become God's madmen, all of us"
Gee guys, Quincey is over there DYING for doing this "God's madmen" business of saving the world from being taken over by the spread of Dracula's undead monster disease you could at least wait until Quincey was cold before feeling sorry for Dracula.
Oh well, at least we know Quincey got to reincarnate as a possibly even more badass hero. -The Rocketeer.
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I've read the original once when I was 12, then again when I was 15.
When you were 12? That reminds me of one time I was at a major bookstore chain and I saw Dracula in the kids' section, and I was just thinking, "What?" (Because decapitation is so appropriate for a kids' book.)
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I read it for the first time in 9th grade and used to read it every Halloween. I'm now in an English PhD program, largely because of the book, and have managed to write about it in my undergraduate classes, my Master's Degree classes, and in my PhD classes. It's a deeply flawed book, but I love it dearly. It's sort of the outlier on my qualifying exam list; alongside Ulysses, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and Mrs. Dalloway it seems "under-literary," but it really captures the anxiety of modernity and the weird hybrid space of the Anglo-Irish in the late British empire.
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It's a deeply flawed book, but I love it dearly. It's sort of the outlier on my qualifying exam list; alongside Ulysses, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and Mrs. Dalloway it seems "under-literary," but it really captures the anxiety of modernity and the weird hybrid space of the Anglo-Irish in the late British empire.
Indeed, excellent way of putting it. Grats on going so far in your education for a subject you're passionate about. I like that you seem to understand that while it may be "under-literary" like so many other works the proof is in the pudding as far as it's influence/literary importance. Might I suggest the works of H.P. Lovecraft if you're not already familiar with them?* The xenophobia present in his work is something of a magnification of the prejudices the old families in New England felt at the 20th century's new wave of immigrants, and his rather small output is extremely influential in the world of horror and science fiction to this day. He was the one who really got the ball rolling on combining the two one might say, with the Cthulhu mythos he started.
*Though doubtless you've at least heard of them.
When you were 12? That reminds me of one time I was at a major bookstore chain and I saw Dracula in the kids' section, and I was just thinking, "What?" (Because decapitation is so appropriate for a kids' book.)
Actually I think that's around how old I was when I first read it.
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The Ultimate Dracula, Has several great short stories, one of the best would have to be when Beli Legosi meets Vlad Tepes Dracula, the two have an odd encounter and both learn from each other, another is Dracula 1944, set after the events of the novel, it tells that the novel was really a chronicle of Dracula's exploits, but he didnt die, he left his castle, and began travelling, long story short, he ends up in a Nazi Camp, where the story takes place.