AP English Lit.

So I opened the book to read it one fine day when I thought I had nothing better to do, and I wondered why I had not been interested when I had gone to read it a few years ago.  Dracula is really quite an interesting book. It’s all journal entries, which reminded me disturbingly like Slaughterhouse five. I wonder if there’s a reason for that as a thematic connection like there is in Slaughterhouse five? Either way, it makes for an interesting read, especially the beginning with Jonathan Harker.  But the novel dulls a little bit after he escapes the castle…i didn’t read it for a week or two when I got past the first chapter. The novel settled down into a more thick and detailed plot, where before it had just been establishing a base for the real story.  I have not looked up anything online about this novel, so I don’t have any links for this part of the preface, but I have looked at a few movies. There are dozens of movies inspired by either the novel Dracula, or the characters themselves.   The movie Van Helsing for example, is all about the hunt for Dracula, but it uses a different story line that deviates greatly from the novel.  The movie The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen contains the character of Mina Harker, Jonathans wife, but she is a full fledged vampire, unlike the book where she never actually turns.  It seems to me that all modern movies only use bits and pieces of the actual novel as they please and ignore the rest. I think I need to see as older movie, I’m willing to bet that that would be more true to the novel and provide the point of view on interpreting the story that I’m looking for. Once I got back to reading the novel though, after a week or two of not touching it, Dracula quickly became just as interesting as it was in the beginning. It is a novel that requires some patience, some parts are very interesting, others are just dull.  Once I finished Dracula it seemed like i really need to reread it, so I went back and read over the major parts again, which helped a lot.  It’s a fairly decent book, especially one that I’m reading for school. I have decided that although looking at different movie interpertaions may provide new points of view i would find useful, I simply have put off this project too long and dont have the time to go looking at movies.  I wont bother talking about all the other work im getting from other classes…its a matter of time, always time, never enough time.  Which is odd considering I had how many months to do this project? oh well, I’m stuck with the choices I’ve made, now I must write!

This page has the following sub pages.

• Blog Preface Part III, Reaserch and Writing

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