Aloha Count Dracula!

As I mentioned in a previous post, I brought The Sea Wolf to read on my vacation, but finished it on the first day. The second book I brought was a 1909 edition of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain. The problem was I didn't want to ruin in by taking it to the beach, and besides, I just wasn't in the mood for it. I rooted around iBooks on my phone for something good, and downloaded Robinson Crusoe. Much to my consternation however, what I actually ended up acquiring and reading from start to finish was Bram Stoker's Dracula! Go figure right? It makes no sense to me either. Especially after feeling like A Connecticut Yankee wasn't didn't provide the right "mood" during my Hawaiian vacation. Like Dracula was better suited?
Anyway, it was a pretty good book. I must confess, having never celebrated Halloween as a kid, and not paying much attention to stories like Frankenstein or the like, that I had no idea what Dracula was about except that he was a vampire.
As it turns out it was actually pretty good I thought. The writing style is typical of the era in which it was written (and that I am so enthralled with at present), and the imagery in the text was really contrasting. Good versus evil, light versus darkness, fear versus bravery were all well illustrated and repeated over and over again. Somehow the book projected onto reality a feeling of falling into shadows and then emerging from them as I was reading. But it wasn't the sun and clouds that were alternating the light as I read it was the words and mood of the story itself. It was weird, but cool. I am still trying to figure out if it was done on purpose or if it's just my imagination.
A lot of the text is heavily laden with Victorian England's version of romance and duty, which I find nauseating, but again, it worked well in contrast to the based nature of Dracula. The women in the story Lucy, and Mina, were likened to angels, kind and sympathetic. (Well, until Lucy turned into a vampire and they chopped her head off.) The men, were brave heroes and chivalrous. While the Count (Dracula) was a demon, sly and cunning, without morals, dark, dangerous, unfair and cruel. Classic good vs. evil stuff.
And just in general it was a pretty good story. Not overtly ridiculous, or dramatic. In fact it was written from the perspective of a skeptic which I found brilliant! It was ominous and creepy and the few startling descriptions of violence were very successful in sounding horrible and gruesome. In a word it's believable. In my opinion so few modern books (especially sci-fi) can claim to be even remotely believable these days. But this is a solidly written book. I really enjoyed it.
I know when most people think of vampires they think of Halloween or dark windy nights, but every time I think of Dracula from now on it is going to remind me of palm trees and Hawaii!