Ms. Hen reviews Dracula

Ms. Hen prepares for Halloween

Dracula

Bram Stoker

Archibald Constable and Company

1898

Ms. Hen has read DRACULA before, but she has not yet reviewed it on her blog. You may know if you are a regular reader that she loves Halloween and reading spooky books during this time of year, so it might not be a surprise that she loves DRACULA. Ms. Hen is running out of Halloween books to read, however; the list of scary books she has read is getting larger, but she likes to reread her favorites sometimes, such as the classics.

DRACULA is the story of Jonathan Harker, Mina Harker, Professor Van Helsing, and a group of others who hunt down Count Dracula after their friend Lucy dies by his hand. The Count pops up in this novel unexpectedly; he is a frightful character. DRACULA begins with Jonathan Harker’s journal while he is staying in Dracula’s castle. He writes that he is terrified and he does not know what is happening. This experience scars him, and he develops an illness over it. He travels back to England with Mina, who joins him while he is in the hospital, and they find a team to deal with the vampire. This book is scary, and when Ms. Hen read it this time, she did not remember what happened at the end, and she was grateful for that.

The first time Ms. Hen read DRACULA, she was jarred by the structure of the novel. It is told in journals and letters and some telegrams from different characters’ points of view in the story. When she read this before, it was hard to follow who was narrating, but this time when she read it, this aspect didn’t bother her as much. She found that it didn’t matter if she knew who was talking, it only mattered that she knew what was going on. She found the novel very long this time. She didn’t remember it being so long before. Not that it was boring, but she found that she wasn’t doing much else other than reading it, working, eating, and going about the things she has to do as a hen in the world.

One aspect that Ms. Hen admired about the writing of DRACULA is the element of suspense. Mr. Stoker has an innate sense of timing, and he injects exciting parts into the storyline right when the reader needs them. Most of the novel is quiet, and there is a lot of hunting for the count, but the places where the count appears and when blood and death rear their heads are well written and perfectly spaced out. Ms. Hen applauds an author who knows the right moment to frighten the audience.

Ms. Hen loves DRACULA. She does not dream of being a vampire anymore; those days are done for her. She likes the daylight and does not like the sight of blood. But she knows that they are out there, lurking in the dark, under the moon during the Halloween season.

The Stinking Rose, San Francisco. Dracula would hate this place