Dracula

[changeling67]

As per the FdA Year 2 list:

Arthur Conan-Doyle: The Lost World, The Poison World

Charles Dickens: Bleak House (on order), Hard Times, Great Expectations Little Dorrit

George Eliot: Middlemarch - To Be Ordered

H.G.Wells: The Time Machine

Evelyn Waugh: Brideshead Revisited


As per my list

Monica Ali: Brick Lane (about two thirds through)

Margaret Attwood: Alias Grace, The Handmaid's Tale

Zadie Smith: White Teeth

Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451

Bertolt Brecht: The Caucasian Chalk Circle

Jean Rhys: The Wide Sargasso Sea

John Wyndham: The Chrysalids, The Midwitch Cuckoos

Markus Zusak: The Book Thief

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Dracula is next on my reading list and even though I know the legend and seen excerpts from films over the years, this will be the first time I have undertaken reading it.  Part of me wanted to read this at length during the late autumn, on a cold and windy night, with a guttering candle and a white nightie - I don't want to saddle myself with another Dickens right now, though I can see all the Victorian comparisons coming up.

Count Dracula: (referring to the wolves) Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make...

Mwa hahaha :-E

EDIT:: I have just got Bleak House in the post.  More like Bleak Bloody Mansion - the tome is fricken' massive!! Close to 800 words.  Why doesn't Dickens believe in thin novels??

Comments

[j-flattermann.livejournal.com]

Tee hee hee, Bram Stoker's Dracula is one of those books where I easily could have given the characters a good thrashing for being so stupid. Alas, he's not the only writer I had that feeling towards the characters.

Had a weekend reading V. Woo life's Orlando. Great idea but not impressed with the execution. There was not one chapter that was dragged out with unnecessary fill-ups.
What was easy to see was how afraid she was to finish a chapter and with it finish the story.

[calico-pye.livejournal.com]

There was a discussion about the Gothic genre a couple of years ago - the central piece was always a mansion/castle/church and in some ways the persona of this structure was bigger than the main protagonist. It was also noted that the victims were young, in a nightie with a candle and with the highest pitched scream ever. Oh and as wet as December confetti.

Re VW - I have read excerpts from 'The Waves' which is a hard-going but an extraordinary book. Definitely one to read, but one that requires quite a bit of concentration. I may read 'Orlando' at some point - my book list is teetering at the moment.

My favourite book of that era is Oscar Wilde's 'The Picture of Dorian Gray.' Read it twice and would like to read it again when I get the chance :-)

[j-flattermann.livejournal.com]

Ah, Wilde! *sighs dreamily*
Definitely one of my favourite writers ever.
His Dorian Gtey is something to behold.
Talking of gothics I like Shelleys Frankenstein a lot.

[calico-pye.livejournal.com]

I have ordered Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein'- it will be interesting to compare and contrast.

[calico-pye.livejournal.com]

Yes - I have a friend who specialises in horror writing a rates Bela Lugosi very highly. I am on chapter 3 of 'Dracula' - 'Frankenstein' should turn up in the post to me any day soon.