Bram Stoker's Dracula

[Draegan]

Reading Schild's froth on IRC THEN reading this thread was awesome.

And I loved Waiting for Godot in Highschool.  -Random thought.

[stray]

My favorite book was and still is the Count of Monte Cristo.

But then, that actually sold well, and was considered somewhat of a lowbrow piece of shit in it's time.

[Broughden]

Edit: Actually, I'll bite, what classics do you enjoy?

In alphabetical order...things I have read and liked
The Arabian Nights
Beowulf
Call of the Wild
A Christmas Carol
The Complete Sherlock Holmes
A Connecticut Yankee in King Author's Court
Count of Monte Cristo
The Deerslayer
Don Quixote
Dracula
Fairy Tales (Hans Christen Anderson)
The Four Feathers (great book and one of Heath's best movies)
Frankenstein
Grimm's Fairy Tales
Gulliver's Travels
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
The Iliad
The Inferno
Ivanhoe
The Last of the Mohicans
Man in the Iron Mask
The Odyssey
Peter Pan
The Phantom of the Opera
The Prince
Purgatorio
Republic
Robinson Crusoe
Three Musketeers
Time Machine
Treasure Island
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Walden
War of the Worlds



And nearly anything by Walt Whitman, Joseph Conrad or George Orwell....I really love his essay "The Elephant".
I have all these books and more on my library shelves.

Things you might notice missing: Moby Dick, anything Russian, anything by Jane Austen, a lot of Charles Dickens, and all of Shakespeare (great plays but hate trying to read it).

[stray]

"anything Russian"


Notes From Underground, yo


Basically the original Taxi Driver story (the inspiration for it anyways).

Also, Nabokov. Don't be lame.

[schild]

He read and liked The Prince and Republic. Does not like "Anything Russian" or Moby Dick.

Right. I should've known better than to come back in this thread.

[Riggswolfe]

Things you might notice missing: Moby Dick, anything Russian, anything by Jane Austen, a lot of Charles Dickens, and all of Shakespeare (great plays but hate trying to read it).

I think I've mentioned this before but that Danny Devito movie (Renaissance Man?) where he is teaching the army morons to read Shakespeare changed that for me. I used to find it hard to read as well but once I got the "rhythm" it flowed so much better.

[NowhereMan]

Literature courses, unless they're specialised, should fucking include a bunch of books most people in the class will not hugely enjoy. Very few people enjoy reading any type of literature straight off the bat, the point of entering into that sort of education is to learn to appreciate not only the evolution of literary works and conventions but also what makes very different sorts of books worthy of being 'classics'. Otherwise the whole thing is an excuse to spend time reading things you enjoy and probably saying why you like them rather than delving much deeper than that. I'm sorry you were aurally abused by you music teacher but literature courses should not allow students to only read books that they enjoy, certainly not beyond the age of 15. By that point you should have learned to read and so be able to tell whether you enjoy a book or not.

[lamaros]

Hehe, this thread went into a funny place.

I dunno why people are talking about literature courses, they really have very little to do with "I like reading this" and a whole lot more to do with education.

Also, Robinson Crusoe? Hello? How do you get a pass on calling Moby Dick boring when you read Defoe's blathering?

How did you manage the Inferno btw? If Shakespeare is hard how did you manage with Italian? In verse no less!

[IainC]

I dunno why people are talking about literature courses, they really have very little to do with "I like reading this" and a whole lot more to do with education.

It's the same mentality as the people who bitch about having to learn pointless stuff - "Why do I need to learn about weather patterns in Brazil? I'm never going to go near Brazil" because they don't understand what they are actually being taught to do.

[lamaros]

A minor nitpick, but:

Very few people enjoy reading any type of literature straight off the bat, the point of entering into that sort of education is to learn to appreciate not only the evolution of literary works and conventions but also what makes very different sorts of books worthy of being 'classics'.

Not really. That's kind of insulting to literature. It's like saying the point of studying philosophy is so you can understand why The Republic (on Broughden's list, har!) and Meditations are classics, or politics so you can say why The Prince (doube har!) is a classic, or History and Herotodus...

Most humanities, when the study is useful, cover much of the same general ground, and are not that insular.

[NowhereMan]

Yeah I know, literature provides a window into the human soul and also the ways in which we understand the world. I was trying to provide the basic reason why you don't just read books you enjoy though as well as that element of education that is specific to literature.

Hell a big part of an undergraduate philosophy course does involve teaching students why the Republic and Meditations are classics and not just dull ramblings that get covered in all the necessary detail by a few 1 hour lectures. Hell I got to spend several lectures in my second year revisiting Meditations because the lecturer wanted to stress precisely that, that it wasn't a simple stepping stone in the historircal development of philosophy that we've superceded.

Since it's strayed massively off topic I feel I should add that I didn enjoy this, it's campy and certainly got a lot of over the top in it but provided you're not looking for a slick or gritty depiction of Dracula I think it's great. I also really enjoyed Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, I'd say if you enjoyed Dracula and haven't seen it you should probably rent it or something.

[Sjofn]

My esteemed opinion:

Liked the soundtrack, and Gary Oldman was weirdly hot once he got youngified.

Also, is it wrong I find Broughden's "I'm totally bad ass because I don't let THE MAN tell me what's classic!" posturing totally hilarious?

[Yegolev]

I am curious if B keeps that alphabetized list in his wallet.  I could not produce a list of classics that I read and liked of that size without undue effort.

Anyway, the point isn't whether I liked Heart of Darkness, but rather to educate myself so I can say to Conrad: "I see what you did there."

[Broughden]

I am curious if B keeps that alphabetized list in his wallet.  I could not produce a list of classics that I read and liked of that size without undue effort.

I have built in book cases surrounding my fireplace in the living room. I keep fiction, novels, ect there. I keep professional writings in the home office.
I have a collection of "classics" in really nice hardbound editions that Im always adding to...they are already alphabetized. So all I had to do is walk into the living room to see what was there.

[Yegolev]

OK, I get that.  My wife has a library.  I don't go in there.

[DraconianOne]

 Dickens is very long-winded, but was appreciated due to the artistry inherent in creating descriptive images using only words and imagination.

Dickens was very long-winded because he was paid by installment and only released a chapter a month.  Just like we have filler episodes in TV serial drama, so he had a lot of filler material in his stories because of the way that he worked.  It has little to do with the artistry inherent in the writing and more with the "keep the audience hooked so that they read the next episode and I get paid".

[stray]

We really don't need to argue the merits of Dickens, Melville, Dracula, or FUCKING SHAKESPEARE. This is retarded.

[apocrypha]

Dragging this thread kicking& screaming back to the film in question, bought this on bluray after reading this thread (well, the early part of it anyway, the descent the thread experienced played no part in my decision to purchase said film). Awesome. Really really enjoyed it. Gary Oldman is indeed superb as Dracula.

[WayAbvPar]

We really don't need to argue the merits of Dickens, Melville, Dracula, or FUCKING SHAKESPEARE. This is retarded.

Agreed (twice in one thread!).

[stray]

Heh, well thanks man. Happens to the best of them. 

[DraconianOne]

I picked this up on DVD for a few quid so you'd better be right about this.

[WayAbvPar]

It is worth it for the Monica Bellucci nudity alone.

[Yegolev]

And then you can watch Dracula: Dead and Loving It with renewed appreciation.  Also classic cinema.

[stray]

For real, it's hilarious. Underrated Brooks film. Best part of both movies is probably when they kill Lucy.

[DraconianOne]

It is worth it for the Monica Bellucci nudity alone.

Hey - I've got Brotherhood of the Wolf, Shoot 'em up and I'm more than willing to watch Irreversible again if I want to see La Bellucci nekkid. I don't need to watch this for that fix.