by Bram Stoker
Blurb:
In a tale of ancient evil, Bram Stoker creates a world of lurking horrors and bizarre denizens: a demented mesmerist, hellbent on mentally crushing the girl he loves; a gigantic kite raised to rid the land of an unnatural infestation of birds, and which receives strange commands along its string; and all the while, the great white worm slithers below, seeking its next victim...
My Reaction:(First, let me state that this was another 372-Pages podcast book club selection-- a shared read with Donald.)
I read and enjoyed Dracula at some point in high school, I think. Possibly middle school. It's been so long, I can't remember exactly when, but I know I found it entertaining and a page-turner (by the period's standards). I suspect that if I read it now, I'd be nit-picking at it like I do everything else I read these days, but still-- it's considered a classic for a reason.
Keeping Dracula in mind, it's amazing to me that this horrible novel was written by the same person. Admittedly, I read the abridged version, but unless the person doing the abridging purposefully set out to make the book worse, I can't imagine that more pages would improve on what I read.
The blurb makes the book sound better (or at least more interesting) than it is, but it also contains what I'd consider to be spoilers. (Tell me you expected a gigantic kite to appear in this novel!) I briefly considered writing my own blurb, but that would require too much work. It's genuinely not worth the effort.
As is typical of books selected for the 372-Pages podcast, this is an awful book. The writing is atrocious (not merely lacking in style, but frequently self-contradictory and at times almost incomprehensible). The pacing is bizarre-- achingly slow most of the time, but occasionally cramming in major developments in a single stingy sentence. The plot is so Swiss-cheese flimsy that it's almost nonexistent-- more hole than substance. Character development is a joke. As other reviews point out, the book contains several incidents of casual racism, but honestly, even leaving those out, it's still horrible.
I can't understand how anyone actually enjoys reading this book. That's how bad it is. It is certainly no classic!
