Dracula by Bram Stoker

Whatever I was expecting this wasn't it! I have never seen a Dracula movie from start to finish, maybe caught some bits while it was played on TV the million times. I wasn't in awe of the Dracula, or even afraid of him. I had no feeling for him until I read the book.

It is so atmospheric. I couldn't help seeing the Dracula Castle in Transylvania, Romania, couldn't help seeing him climb away from a window.

"What I saw was the Count's head coming out from the window. ...
But my very feelings changed to repulsion and terror when I saw the whole man slowly emerge from the window and begin to crawl down the castle wall over the dreadful abyss, face down with his cloak spreading out around him like great wings. At first I could not believe my eyes. "

I couldn't help having nightmares.

"How blessed are some people, whose lives have no fears, no dreads, to whom sleep is a blessing that comes nightly, and brings nothing but sweet dreams."

I am just happy that I didn't dream where I could see with my eyes closed and found those two women.

"I was afraid to raise my eyelids, but looked out and saw perfectly under the lashes. "

"I lay still and endured, that was all. I closed my eyes, but could still see through my eyelids. (It is wonderful what tricks our dreams play us, and how conveniently we can imagine.) "

"I must be careful of such dreams, for they would unseat one's reason if there were too much of them. "

"Doors, doors, doors everywhere, and all locked and bolted"

I couldn't help seeing myself in a hallway with lots of closed doors. Okay that is my house.

Jonathan Harker's story totally gripped me. I suppose I should have expected many things that happened. But I couldn't guess. Everything was a surprise to me from what finally happened to Lucy and use of garlic and stake. I really thought garlic, stake and Undead are something from the spoofs.

"There are mysteries which men can only guess at, which age by age they may solve only in part. "

What is about garlic putting off the Undead? What is this Undead?

"Ah, it is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all, and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to explain. "


I visited the Tynemouth ruins in 2007 and this was the place I was seeing all the things happening.

"Right over the town is the ruin of Whitby Abbey, which was sacked by the Danes, and which is the scene of part of "Marmion," where the girl was built up in the wall. It is a most noble ruin, of immense size, and full of beautiful and romantic bits. There is a legend that a white lady is seen in one of the windows."

Night time is a wrong time to read these books.

"All men are mad in some way or the other, and inasmuch as you deal discreetly with your madmen, so deal with God's madmen too, the rest of the world. "

"I sometimes think we must be all mad and that we shall wake to sanity in strait waistcoats."

I do think that the story is a bit long and almost rushed through the final pages and reread the last few pages again later. Now I understand why Dracula published in 1897 is a Classic. I read an ebook downloaded from Gutenberg.

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