"More English reporting than Transylvanian action"
If you could sum up Dracula [Audible Edition] in three words, what would they be?
Menacing. Meandering. Maddening.
How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?
Shift all action onto Dracula's home turf. So much of this narrative is off-stage from the Count, in the second location of England. Characters debate how to fight the force, but from a distance. They talk and talk about Dracula, but take a long time to form a big showdown.
What about the narrators’s performance did you like?
The "all-star cast" fulfills its mission. The voice for Van Helsing is effective, and the report of the Russian sea captain and that of Mina's trance-like message both add depth and doom.
If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?
It's faster than the novel.
Any additional comments?
Revisiting this after thirty years, the layered narratives are inventive ways to tell a tall tale. But their cumulative power dissipates as the antagonist is tucked away as it were for a great part of the plot. This diminishes rather than increases his terror. Stoker's inventive staging of the novel in many reports and letters remains admirable, but the force of it all is lessened. (Audible US 12/6/16)
No comments:
Post a Comment