'Dracula' by Bram Stoker

Genre: Gothic Fiction

I have read my fair share of gothic fiction over the past few years, and ‘Dracula’ by Bram Stoker has been one of my favourite ones to read so far. I believe the reason I have enjoyed it so much is because of how different it was to the tropes and conventions that we have all come to know from watching various films and TV shows based (loosely, as I have discovered) on the book.

My favourite aspect of the novel was how it was told through various author voices; I loved the letter format as it made the story seem more personal and made me feel engaged as a reader, and this is an effective technique as you get the whole story from the different viewpoint of various characters which I always appreciate in a novel as it breaks up the plot.

I thought the most prominent and interesting theme was the exploration of the sexuality of Victorian men and women, and although this subject was written in a negative sense by Stoker, I think it is still interesting to look back on this as a modern reader when you consider the time period it was written in.

Obviously as a modern reader, there are many things I can pick out that annoyed me about the portrayal of female characters and how they do not really have any part in the narrative other than to give insight as to what the men are doing to push the narrative forward. But again, this is just a matter of the novel being from a different time period and being a modern reader.

Despite this fault, overall I thoroughly enjoyed ‘Dracula’ and I would HIGHLY recommend it to any and everyone. ‘Dracula’ has always been known not just a staple of the gothic fiction genre, but also simply as a classic novel that everyone has to read; and after finding out the novel is so different and better to any of the films and shows I have seen, I would recommend it even more!

Rating: * * * * *