What's the last horror Gothic book you read?

[readertim]

What's the last horror Gothic book you read? How did you like it? Would you recommend it?

[Desdemona]

The last horror Gothic I've read is Dracula. I saw the movies before reading the book, and the book was a surprise. As I've noted in some other thread, the first half is great. It drags for a bit and then picks up for a good ending.

I guess it's not a horror gothic romance, but there are the sexual undercurrents in the stalking of two young women and the love story between Mina and Jonathan Harker. I guess I'm not as hung up on the classification. There are disturbing sections and characters in the book and any Gothic connoisseur should read it simply for the atmosphere and the worldwide vampire phenomenon it spawned. Who isn't freaked out by Renfield and the deserted ship that sails into England? It's a classic.

This weekend I watched the 1922 film Nosferatu and the first episode of the new CBS show Moonlight. Nosferatu has an ugly skeletal ghoulish vampire that will make any woman run screaming. Yuck! But this is really what Bram Stoker's vampire was and that was surprising to me. He was a creature of the dead and looked like it. Then Bela Lugosi came along and turned the character into a suave charmer. Gary Oldman's portrayal veered back and forth while Gerard Butler's Dracula 2000 was one sexy man. And, Moonlight has the vampire as a heartbreaking hero who only wants to do good.

What do you all think about these bloodsuckers? Do their stories belong under Horror or can they fall under Horror Gothic?

[romanticdress]

The last horror Gothic I've read is Dracula. I saw the movies before reading the book, and the book was a surprise. As I've noted in some other thread, the first half is great. It drags for a bit and then picks up for a good ending.
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Good vampire story is definitely Gothic!

[simpleviolet]

The Southern Vampire Mysteries are by Charlaine Harris. They're ... ok. Personally, I found it hard to get into them, but there are a couple that are rather entertaining.

Anne Radcliffe is a staple for Gothic Lit. Sheridan LeFanu is also wonderful, although one of my favorite gothic novels is Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg.

[coramunroe]

You know, after 'reading' (listened to it on audio in my car) Dracula, I find this obsession with a vampire being one sexy dude hard to take. The physical description of this guy was creepy and I can't imagine anyone even remotely thinking he was sexy, even after his younger transformation.

Then you've got shows like Moonlight and Blood Ties and a movie like Dracula 2000 and they are sexy as anything.

I guess ultimately it the biting that counts. And to me, that is still gross! Imagine dropping everything when a vampire calls? Not unless he was helping with the household chores

[Rapuncel]

the Vatek by Beckford. In the beginning of this week I read "Who hunt in the night" and "Traveling with the dead". by B. Hambley

[Bellatrix Lestrange]

You know, after 'reading' (listened to it on audio in my car) Dracula, I find this obsession with a vampire being one sexy dude hard to take. The physical description of this guy was creepy and I can't imagine anyone even remotely thinking he was sexy, even after his younger transformation.

Then you've got shows like Moonlight and Blood Ties and a movie like Dracula 2000 and they are sexy as anything.

I guess ultimately it the biting that counts. And to me, that is still gross! Imagine dropping everything when a vampire calls? Not unless he was helping with the household chores

Coramunroe -

I read the book after seeing the movie as well, and it was very interesting to compare the two. Even though Stoker describes him as a really disgusting, creepy guy (i agree with you, its very difficult to be attracted to the Dracula in the book), he was aslo described as a gentleman with a suave manner, and seemed to be a magnet for women.

I think the obsession with modern vampires is largely due to the Hollywood romananticization of Bela Lugosi. (i don't know if you saw the 1939 version, or later one) There is no doubt that the film used Lugosi's charm to bring the sexual subtext of the book (of which there is plenty!) to the foreground.
In fact i think a lot of classic monsters (the phantom of the opera, Dracula, even Captain Hook to some degree) have been romanisized by the film industry in a way that the original authers probably didn't intend. Since we as readers are so attracted to the darker side of literatur (why else do we have theses forums?), we tend to attribute villains and monsers with traits that they weren't necessarily "born" with. The books may have alreay been written, but the characters will continue to evolve until society gets bored with them. It's a way of keeping an old story fresh.