/lit/ - Literature

>>16513233
Its underrated, and exceptionally well-written. It's culturally significant, clearly, but underappreciated perhaps even despised as a piece of literature for some reason.

>>16514771
>"exceptionally well-written"
>pace goes to shit after the first act

>>16513233
This book feels severely handicapped by its fame and the cultural osmosis of vampires. If I didn't know what one was or that Drac was one, the book would be unnerving as hell, but knowing all the tropes and beats makes it easy to get impatient. Still fantastic atmosphere and interesting prose through the different mediums of narration (lmao at that old man with his thick-ass accent).

>>16514992
This isn't the books fault. It's like thinking citizen kane is tripe because all the techniques and styles it pioneered are common as all hell these days.

Cicadas: when they cry by ryukishi07

>>16514902
Few horror novels match the first act of Dracula. That's about as good as it gets.

You know, I've never gotten around to the ... third act? The ending -- is it any good?

>>16513233
The Shunned House by HP Lovecraft.

>>16515039
It’s alright

>>16513233
Frankenstein is better

>>16513233
Story: The Willows, The Great God Pan, or The White People (can't decide)
Book: Ancient Sorceries, by Algernon Blackwood or Collected Ghost Stories, by MR James
Novel: Uzumaki (if I can count manga) or The Other

>>16515039
The ending is terribly rushed. The big dramatic climax takes place over half a page.

>>16515018
Oh yeah, Stoker's not at fault here. It's just unfortunate. I just wish I read it when I was young enough to not know absolutely everything about vampires.

>>16514992
People knew all about vampires by the time it was written. It wasn't breaking new ground in that respect. The thing that unnerved people more than anything else was the idea of a strange foreigner in their midst, upsetting all of their bizarre courting rituals and absconding with the beautiful maiden.

>>16513233
Not really into horror novels but you really can't go wrong with M. R. James. Get the Collected Stories. The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories is also quite the trove. If Victorian era vampires are your thing I'd further recommend The Rivals of Dracula, a collection of lesser known vampire stories from the 19th century.

>>16515039
It gets pretty bad towards the end, honestly. The third act is almost entirely made up by the male characters taking turns giving long sappy monologues about how honorable it is to be risking their lives to save Mina. I'm pretty sure it's supposed to satire about how feminine and over-sentimental Victorian men are, but it didn't need to be repeated over and over again for what feels like 200 pages. And then there's the ending, in which the confrontation and killing of Dracula happens in like two sentences

>>16514771
>exceptionally well written

Absolutely not, everybody is constantly going off on two page monologues, with van Helsing being the worst offender. He takes two pages to explain a simple concept to the point where you no longer understand what he is talking about, and there is no way that any of the characters actually remembered all that bollocks for their diary entries.
Stoker is a hack, there is way better 19th century horror out there.

>>16516521
I agree. His short stories and other novels are even worse than Dracula.

>>16513233
>No Shirley Jackson ITT

>>16513233
I literally went insane after reading the first four stories.

A lot of ghost stories conjure up a spooky mood, but don't really go for the jugular.

Susan Hill's The Woman in Black *does* go for the jugular.

Any other books or stories like that (other than perhaps the most obvious example, The Shining)?

By the by, I wonder if anyone on this thread has seen the somewhat famous, and reportedly very good Woman in Black stage adaptation?

>>16518230
Jackson's only good book is We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Her short stories are vague and uneventful and if I wanted that I'd just read Aickman instead.

>>16518247
>literally
is it documented?

>>16515018
citizen kane didn't pioneer anything, it was just synthesized techniques to a degree of quality that had never been seen before. the equivalent in pop music is the beatles

>>16513233
checked. Stoker's grandchild has written a sequel btw.

>>16518343
I have, it was excellent

>>16519948
And it's a terrible cashgrab

>>16513233
The Incredible Shrinking Man by Richard Matheson.

Very vivid, quite scary.

>>16519948
Holy Shit, it's real and I already hate it...

>>16514771
Joyce hated him so I dont fw.

>>16513233
A few of my top, as its too big of a genre to choose just one
The Great God Pan blew me away, its definitely up there.
King excels at short stories and that's where his best lies, Strawberry Spring is a must-read, one of the best short-horror stories ever written
The King in Yellow stores were fantastic and its a top book for me
My first read through of The Haunting of Hill House I thought it was meh, second read-through I really got into the story and thought it pretty great
Young Goodman Brown stuck with me, but I love that sort of secret-cult shit
NOS4A2 had a great atmosphere/lore to it, but it didn't feel like that much of a horror novel to me
PenPal is somewhere between shitty nosleep stories and a real novel, but it was good enough modern-horror to stick with me a bit

>>16519907
imagine being this much of a chad

>>16522339
>The Haunting of Hill House
Did you watch the Netflix adaptation? I hated it at first but now I think it's fantastic.

>>16514771
>Its underrated, and exceptionally well-written. It's culturally significant, clearly, but underappreciated perhaps even despised as a piece of literature for some reason.
Most people have likely just seen movies based on the book, and not actually read the original book.
If you compare ‘Dracula’ to other horror novels like ‘Frankenstein...’ or ‘ The Phantom of the Opera’, ‘Dracula’ is the far better written book.
Also, if you read other Bram Stoker works, including his short stories, he didn’t always write in the same style, even when writing horror stories.
‘ The Dualitists, Or, The Death Doom Of The Double Born’

>>16523674
Haha Frankenstein is much better than Dracula. I just prefer Dracula because I prefer Vampires.
I think a lot of Stoker’s contemporaries wrote much better characters than he did.

>>16523688
>Haha Frankenstein is much better than Dracula. I just prefer Dracula because I prefer Vampires.
>I think a lot of Stoker’s contemporaries wrote much better characters than he did.
I only liked the first section of ‘Frankenstein...’ the rest just seemed to be poorly written and I found it boring.

Emperor’s Old Bones by Gemma Files. Really unsettling in kind of a Ligotti way.

>>16523674
The Phantom of the Opera is indeed quite terrible. I do prefer Frankenstein to Dracula, though. With exception to the parts written by Percy Bysshe Shelley. They're all a little too florid for me.

>>16523990
>The Phantom of the Opera is indeed quite terrible. I do prefer Frankenstein to Dracula, though. With exception to the parts written by Percy Bysshe Shelley. They're all a little too florid for me.
I though the first 2/3s or do of ‘Phantom..’ Was fine, it’s when it gets toward the conclusion that it reads like the author just rushed as quickly as possible to finish it, maybe in a day or two, and then didn’t bother to rewrite it better.

>>16524280
I'd agree with that appraisal. It has its moments (particularly with how vengeful the titular character is) but there were so many little things that could have been handled better. I was especially disappointed with how under utilized the secret government agents and the glowing guy were.