Dracula is an 1897 Gothic horror novel by Irish author Bram Stoker. Famous for introducing the character of the vampire Count Dracula, the novel tells the story of Dracula's attempt to move from Transylvania to England so he may find new blood and spread undead curse, and the battle between Dracula and a small group of men and women led by Professor Abraham Van Helsing.
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The classic in Japanese
I'm sure everyone's familiar with Dracula, at least to a degree: ancient Transylvanian vampire goes to London and is opposed by our heroes. That's what you'll be getting here. I won't talk much about the story, given how well-known it already is.
I will talk a bit about the translation, however. I read this in conjunction with the original English Dracula, and was able to take a few notes as I did so.
Most character accents were dropped in this translation, notably Dr. Van Helsing and various random English characters who had extremely thick ones.
Given the lack of accents and period writing, this is an easier read than the English original, given that you know English and Japanese equally well. Granted, that's not much help if you're a native English speaker and a Japanese learner, but just thought I'd note it.
This is an epistolary novel, and there were a handful of typo'd dates. Especially noticeable if you're trying to follow along with Dracula Daily, as I was.
This was present in the English, but especially notable in the Japanese given the enormous page count: the translator stayed faithful to the English line breaks, meaning that you will quite often have pages and pages of solid blocks of text until the next paragraph. It's not the end of the world, but can be tiring for learners trying to read a single entry.
Overall, I definitely enjoyed reading this; Dracula is already a good book, and you get some nice learning in with this translation: plenty of pages to reinforce skills you already know, plus a pretty wide range of vocabulary, going from religious to terms for period technology to geography and medical. Recommended for confident learners who are at least intermediate level and want to sink into a long book.