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  1. - Top - End - #211
    Ogre in the Playground
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    Default Re: Rater Reads Dracula

    Quote Originally Posted by Manga Shoggoth View Post
    Don't be - these things are a huge amount of effort, and we can quite understand that sometimes it just doesn't work.

    It was good while it lasted, and it was at least worth a try.
    +1 this. No worries!

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    Default Re: Rater Reads Dracula

    Quote Originally Posted by Rater202 View Post
    I'm sorry I wasted people's time.
    Don't worry about it - you started out doing this for fun and now it's no longer fun. You don't owe us anything.

  3. - Top - End - #213
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    Default Re: Rater Reads Dracula

    Too bad, but I appreciate letting us know. Most let’s reads just get quietly forgotten.
    Looking for feedback on Heart of Darkness, a character driven RPG of Gothic fantasy.

  4. - Top - End - #214
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    Default Re: Rater Reads Dracula

    I am sad but, really, a person only has so many spoons. Thank you for your effort, and I hope things go wll with you!

    Respectfully,

    Brian P.
    "Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid."

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  5. - Top - End - #215
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    Default Re: Rater Reads Dracula

    Quote Originally Posted by Rater202 View Post
    I'm sorry, but I don't think I can continue this project.

    The book, at least through the medium through which I've been accessing it, is just... Failing to keep my attention.

    I tried but, honestly, it just feels like a slog.

    Maybe I'll try again later if I get access to a different means of accessing the text, but...

    I'm sorry I wasted people's time.
    If anyone's time was wasted (and I do not think anyone's was), then that's on them. Frankly, I'm more sad that you didn't enjoy it, but I also feel that way about everyone who doesn't think Futurama is the greatest show ever made, so I manage.
    Cuthalion's art is the prettiest art of all the art. Like my avatar.

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  6. - Top - End - #216
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    Default Re: Rater Reads Dracula

    It's ot that I didn't enjoy it... It's just doing it this way felt like a chore.

    ...It's not the worst time I failed to read something. There was a book I bought and paid for for school that I just... coul not finish. I had to look up the spark notes halfway through and bull**** my way through it.

    And I learned the hard way that Shakespear is a lot harder to read when you don't have those notes in the margins.

    ...And then there was Oryx and Crake, which I read for school. I finished it but it was not a pleasant experience. I wrote a paper on how awful and, honestly, offensive I found the book to be. Got an A.
    I also answer to Bookmark and Shadow Claw.

    Read my fanfiction here. Homebrew Material Here Rater Reads the Hobbit and Dracula
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  7. - Top - End - #217
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    Default Re: Rater Reads Dracula

    Quote Originally Posted by Rater202 View Post
    And I learned the hard way that Shakespear is a lot harder to read when you don't have those notes in the margins.
    Oof, that brings back memories. And I was one of the only people in my class who actually enjoyed reading Shakespeare (Othello to be precise.) We had a version with the notes, but for the vast bulk of that particular work I feel they aren't really necessary, I recall needing the historical notes added to give context more than the ones for the vernacular.

    Some of his other works are more obtuse as I understand though, so I probably got off lucky with Othello. The Great Gatsby on the other hand....



    I half wonder if a let's read of some horror books I read during my time at school would be worth doing. Been a long time since I revisited Stephen King or James Herbert, though the work that sticks most strongly in my head, Others by Herbert, would probably not be fit for discussion on this forum, at least in parts. Hmm, perhaps The Rats? I remember rather liking that book, it's sequels less so, but the whole set is rather short as books go from what I recall.
    Last edited by Grim Portent; 2022-03-01 at 09:35 PM.
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  8. - Top - End - #218
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    Default Re: Rater Reads Dracula

    I completely understand. While I did enjoy the novel (more or less), it took me more than a year to get through it. Most of that was just that I struggled to find the motivation to actually pick it up and start reading. Once I got going, I usually enjoyed the read and was able to keep going for a while. And I wasn't trying to stop periodically and write about my reading experience, which a) can probably make it feel like homework sometimes, and b) necessitates stopping at regular intervals to write your thoughts, which means when you do really sink your teeth in it you feel like you have to stop.

    My own experience was also that the early part of the story was the slowest-moving, and the part I had the most trouble motivating myself to get through.

    There's a good reason so many Let's Read/Watch/Play projects peter out unfinished. This one did spark some good discussion at least. I hope you are able to enjoy the rest of book someday, even if it means not doing a write-up like this.
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  9. - Top - End - #219
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    Default Re: Rater Reads Dracula

    Quote Originally Posted by Rater202 View Post
    And I learned the hard way that Shakespeare is a lot harder to read when you don't have those notes in the margins.
    It's certainly no easy read. But then I'd argue Shakespeare's not meant to be read, it only comes to life when it's performed on stage in the original Klingon.

    It's a play, actors train for years to deliver lines with all the nonverbal cues that deliver as much of the performance as the words on the page. And generally it's only the above-average cut or the best actors who dare Shakespeare, because it requires a good bit of mastery to act it and not come off looking completely silly. Fortunately, these days there's enough recorded performances of the plays - either as live performances, made for TV, or outright films - that it's also easy to find a version you can (if necessary) stop, rewind, and hear a line again.

    I have a soft spot for the old 1980s BBC library of performances, which I was subjected to as a teenager while doing English Lit. They were all done by the Royal Shakespeare Company of the time, all solid stuff to teach it even if the framing is pretty stage-y. Richard Burton's performance on stage as Hamlet is acclaimed as one of the best and you can still see it on youtube. And one of the best movie "adaptations" of a Shakespeare play/s is the 1965 Falstaff (Chimes at Midnight), an adaptation of Shakespeare's "Henriad" (Henry IV Part 1, Henry IV Part 2, and Henry V) The movie features the giant (in more ways than one) figure of Orson Welles as Sir John Falstaff, one of those secondary characters who took on a life of his own and managed to throw into shadow even Henry V in his own play. (Falstaff was that popular that Shakespeare was more or less forced to write a play for him by Elizabeth I ... and Shakespeare turned in The Merry Wives of Windsor, which was to Falstaff fans what Jar Jar Binks is or was to Star Wars fans. But I digress.) Denzel Washington's in the latest iteration of Macbeth, though really when I watched one clip of it it just struck me as Denzel playing Denzel rather than any particular Scottish monarch.

    I agree Shakespeare also needs someone to introduce you to it - my interest in it still derives from the substitute teacher who first taught it to my class when I was 16. Shakespeare still speaks to audiences across the ages, he wrote for a mixed audience of peasants, merchants, and noblemen all viewing the performances at the same time, but still, Bram Stoker was writing in the 19th century with fully formed English, Shakespeare wrote a full two centuries earlier with Early Modern English, it might not be the K2 of reading or viewing experiences, but it's not a leisurely stroll in the park either.

  10. - Top - End - #220
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    Default Re: Rater Reads Dracula

    It's also worth pointing out that Shakespeare was written for a cultural context hundreds of years removed from modern audiences. Things that you could take for granted that the audience would know or understand simply arent in our cultural consciousness these days, for various reasons.
    “Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”

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    Default Re: Rater Reads Dracula

    Quote Originally Posted by Saintheart View Post
    And generally it's only the above-average cut or the best actors who dare Shakespeare, because it requires a good bit of mastery to act it and not come off looking completely silly.
    Generally, if a work requires a good bit of mastery to act it and not come off looking completely silly, I tend to think it is not a terribly good work.
    Cuthalion's art is the prettiest art of all the art. Like my avatar.

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  12. - Top - End - #222
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    Default Re: Rater Reads Dracula

    Quote Originally Posted by Peelee View Post
    Generally, if a work requires a good bit of mastery to act it and not come off looking completely silly, I tend to think it is not a terribly good work.
    You say that, but I doubt that a bunch of middle schoolers with no acting experience reading aloud the script to Jurrassic Bark is going to have the same emotional impact as the professional quality episode.
    I also answer to Bookmark and Shadow Claw.

    Read my fanfiction here. Homebrew Material Here Rater Reads the Hobbit and Dracula
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  13. - Top - End - #223
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    Default Re: Rater Reads Dracula

    Quote Originally Posted by Peelee View Post
    Generally, if a work requires a good bit of mastery to act it and not come off looking completely silly, I tend to think it is not a terribly good work.
    ITT I learned Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 is not a terribly good work.

    It's also worth pointing out that Shakespeare was written for a cultural context hundreds of years removed from modern audiences. Things that you could take for granted that the audience would know or understand simply arent in our cultural consciousness these days, for various reasons.
    And yet he's still performed, year in, year out, adapted for screens every few years or near-plagiarised for plots. Everyone from Ingmar Bergman to Baz Luhrmann has tackled him or aspires to tackle him at one time or another.

    And that, in turn, is because notwithstanding the cultural context, Shakespeare's works are timeless in the themes and observations they make about people. Shakespeare is as much a psychologist as a playwright, which is what makes him universal. And if you brave Harold Bloom's work on him, the analysis can get very deep and very thought-provoking.

  14. - Top - End - #224
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    Default Re: Rater Reads Dracula

    The novel Dracula can be tough going, yes. It's very much a product of its time--the style of telling the story through letters etc. between fictional characters was extremely popular when Stoker was writing it, and it can feel very quaint and old-fashioned nowadays. Plus, we've got more than a century of other adaptations of the character, many of which improved on the original. I think it's almost the same as cover versions of pop songs in that regard--the version that you hear first is often the definitive version to you, even if it isn't actually the original version of the song, and other versions just don't feel right.

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    Default Re: Rater Reads Dracula

    Quote Originally Posted by factotum View Post
    The novel Dracula can be tough going, yes. It's very much a product of its time--the style of telling the story through letters etc. between fictional characters was extremely popular when Stoker was writing it, and it can feel very quaint and old-fashioned nowadays. Plus, we've got more than a century of other adaptations of the character, many of which improved on the original. I think it's almost the same as cover versions of pop songs in that regard--the version that you hear first is often the definitive version to you, even if it isn't actually the original version of the song, and other versions just don't feel right.
    ...I appreciate the allusions but going by that logic my definitive Dracula is Alucard as portrayed by Curtis "Takahata101" Arnott.

    ...Wanna be a True Undead. Want my real body to be a shadowy ethereal substance with a million eyes. Why was I born a wrinkly jellyfish monster using electrical signals to control and receive feedback from a mech suit made mostly of bleeding rocks, bundled fibers, and assorted fleshy tubes, themselves composed mostly of water?
    Last edited by Rater202; 2022-03-02 at 02:39 AM.
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    Read my fanfiction here. Homebrew Material Here Rater Reads the Hobbit and Dracula
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  16. - Top - End - #226
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    Default Re: Rater Reads Dracula

    Quote Originally Posted by Rater202 View Post
    And I learned the hard way that Shakespear is a lot harder to read when you don't have those notes in the margins.
    Agree with everyone else on best understood as a performance, of course when I studied Macbeth at school the school didn't (attempt to) fid a single performance for us to go to in the whole two years - my parents found the Reduced Shakespeare Company putting it on the night before the exam so they took me and a classmate to their minimalist production.
    Quote Originally Posted by Rater202 View Post
    ...And then there was Oryx and Crake, which I read for school. I finished it but it was not a pleasant experience. I wrote a paper on how awful and, honestly, offensive I found the book to be. Got an A.
    Which shows you had honest teachers and that you were able to articulate your issues with the book in a clear and well-reasoned way - well done!

    I think the main book I started but could not finish that comes to mind for me was Frankenstein - I just could not get into it at all.

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    Default Re: Rater Reads Dracula

    Quote Originally Posted by Rater202 View Post
    I'm sorry, but I don't think I can continue this project.
    We must therefore conclude that, excentricities of his host nonwithstandind, this ended up being a normal business trip for Jonathan Harker whose main influence on his life was providing him with an interesting anecdote to tell in good company about either his job or the odd man known as Count Dracula who moved in London and, despite his best effort, couldn't help but stand out.
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    Default Re: Rater Reads Dracula

    Quote Originally Posted by Khedrac View Post
    Which shows you had honest teachers and that you were able to articulate your issues with the book in a clear and well-reasoned way - well done!
    If I remember a conversation I had with the teacher, she apparently also agreed that it wasn't a good book or rather that it wasn't a pleasant subject matter.

    A good chunk of the class seemed to be phoning it in that semester, which was weird becuase it was a more advanced English course. Granted, it was mandatory for my major but... It wasn't mandatory for everyone I don't think.

    I think she was just happy that I was engaging with the material.

    Though, if I'm being honest my biggest problem with the book isn't even the in the book itself but comes from an authorial statement: Margaritte Atwood has gone on record as saying that the ritual Crake was autistic(she specifically used Asperger's syndrome but... That's not it's own diagnosis anymore for a number of reasons.)

    But.. Reading the book... He does have a fundamental disconnect from how a typical person thinks and understands things, but he comes across as less autistic and more "a dangerous, narcissistic psychopath whose ego kept getting fed by people who honestly should have seen the signs and done something before he did the thing."
    I also answer to Bookmark and Shadow Claw.

    Read my fanfiction here. Homebrew Material Here Rater Reads the Hobbit and Dracula
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    Spoiler: Ode To Meteors, By zimmerwald
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    Meteor
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    Where my other
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  19. - Top - End - #229
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    Default Re: Rater Reads Dracula

    Quote Originally Posted by Rater202 View Post
    You say that, but I doubt that a bunch of middle schoolers with no acting experience reading aloud the script to Jurrassic Bark is going to have the same emotional impact as the professional quality episode.
    Ahh yes, the only two possible options for actors: masters and biddle schoolers.
    Cuthalion's art is the prettiest art of all the art. Like my avatar.

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    Default Re: Rater Reads Dracula

    Quote Originally Posted by Peelee View Post
    biddle schoolers
    Did you mean: Biddle scholars?

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    Default Re: Rater Reads Dracula

    Quote Originally Posted by Saintheart View Post
    It's certainly no easy read. But then I'd argue Shakespeare's not meant to be read, it only comes to life when it's performed on stage in the original Klingon.

    It's a play, actors train for years to deliver lines with all the nonverbal cues that deliver as much of the performance as the words on the page.
    I fully agree with this. I read Macbeth for school and while I kinda got the idea of it, it wasn't until I was helping out with a student production at University that I actually saw it performed and it was like a lightbulb when 'ding!' over what was going on. The non-verbal cues, heck even the verbal cues with the tone of voice used to deliver the line actually made the play far more understandable to me.

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    Default Re: Rater Reads Dracula

    Quote Originally Posted by factotum View Post
    The novel Dracula can be tough going, yes. It's very much a product of its time--the style of telling the story through letters etc. between fictional characters was extremely popular when Stoker was writing it, and it can feel very quaint and old-fashioned nowadays.
    To me this sounds like found footage, except as a book. It seems to me it's a lot like modern horror.
    Last edited by Bohandas; 2022-03-09 at 09:31 AM.
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  23. - Top - End - #233
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    Default Re: Rater Reads Dracula

    I think there's probably something to the idea that "found footage" is a cinematic evolution of the epistolary novel format. There's a difference in that found footage often (at least in my limited experience, as I'm not a huge fan of the films I've seen it in) tends to point toward the POV characters meeting a bad end of some kind, which isn't necessarily the case with a book told via letters and diary entries. But maybe that's because of how many horror films go for "twist" endings where the last survivor gets caught after all?
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