Face to face with Carmilla

Is it too early to think of Halloween and get in a spooky mood? Is it? Because if it is, I can't help it: fate makes me think of my favourite holiday. I was going to the local bookshop yesterday when I suddenly stumbled upon... Carmilla! Not the vampire, but the novel about the famous vampire. So yes, I was stopping by the bookshop,minding my own business, when I saw this. Okay, so I own already at least two versions of Carmilla, including the full anthology : In A Glass Darkly. So I behaved and did not buy this one. However tempted I was. And even though I am not so sure Le Fanu's most famous work can be classified as a "dark sapphic romance". Surely, it is first and foremost a solid, classic gothic horror story! I know it has a lesbian vampire in it, but that doesn't make it a romance. Be that as it may, I did not buy it, but what a cool cover! And suitably orange, which makes it perfect for Halloween. I almost regret not buying it. Almost.

In a Glass Darkly

For today's countdown to Halloween's reading suggestion: In A Glass Darkly by Sheridan Le Fanu. It contains a few short stories and novella, all but one are horror stories. It also has its most famous work, Carmilla. Aka that story with a lesbian vampire, which I blogged about recently. A story now in the shadow of a far more famous vampire. While I prefer Dracula as a novel and a vampire story, Le Fanu's creation stands on her own and so does his writing, which has never been surpassed or erased by Bram Stoker, who in the end was a one hit wonder. Carmilla is a deliciously creepy tale of infatuation in an exotic setting, with just enough blood and violence, but the other stories should not be neglected. Green Tea is maybe my favourite, where a clergyman is haunted by a demonic monkey, which may be an hallucination caused by an excessive drinking of green tea. I'm not making it up. It's classic Gothic horror at its best.

About Carmilla

 This is, I think, the version of Carmilla I borrowed from the local library, back in 1990. I said "I think", because the cover was completely repaired and its image covered. All I had in my hands was a red book with the title on. And it had other stories by Le Fanu: Green Tea and The Familiar, maybe more. I read Carmilla first, then Green Tea, but gave back the book before I could read the other(s). Anyway, I blogged before about my first experience of reading Carmilla, but I wanted to mention something that I have been reminiscing about recently concerning the world's second most famous vampire.The horror in it is very restrained, slow and gradual, as the antagonist is first depicted as a beautiful, sweet and pleasant woman, even an innocent one. A bit of an ingenue, in fact. This cover shows it perfectly: the title character is walking in broad daylight, in charming woodlands. Yet there is something unsettling about this image. Terror comes from a place of beauty. Anyway, tell me what you think in the comments. I should come back to the work of Sheridan Le Fanu in future posts.

When I first read Carmilla

In a recent vlog, YouTuber and vampire pasionaria Maven of the Eventide reviewed and read the first part of Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu. I quite enjoyed the video, about a vampire story I often revisit during my reading marathon leading to Halloween. The video also reminded me of the first time I discovered Carmilla and I thought I would share it today. It happened 30 years ago or so, at an age when I could pretty much read everything I wanted without my mother interfering. I had decided to discover the old horro classics, such as Dracula. It was actually shortly after I finished reading Stoker's novel (read here the account of this discovery) that I borrowed Carmilla from the local library. It was not in a translation of In a Glass Darkly, but it had other stories of Le Fanu from the same collection, namely Green Tea and The Familiar. I think I had borrowed at the same time as Dracula., so in the summer of 1990, probably in July. After reading what I still consider THE horror novel of all time, I had fairly low expectations for its predecessor. I quite enjoyed all the same, and was surprised a the amount of homoeroticism and how soft the antagonist appeared to be. The Count was an old man looking terrifying in appearance even when he was amiable, while Carmilla was young and seductive. Le Fanu's story was also more old fashioned, its atmosphere more dreamlike and romantic than Stoker's more modernist take, half of it set in then contemporary England. I had less nightmares than after reading Stoker's famous novel, but I still had a few. I think I will always prefer Dracula (being my first love and all), but Le Fanu's vampiric offspring stands on her own and I still have a few pleasant chills reading it.

Baron Vordenburg

This is today's countdown to Halloween post and I wish to give an homage to a rather unknown character of horror fiction. I hope that some among you recognize the name in the title. Anyway, let's not forget that in scary stories, as there are Forces of Darkness, there are people to fight them. Which means, in vampire stories, there are vampire hunters. Baron Vordenburg is one of them. He appears in Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu. His role in the story is small, indeed he only shows up near the end, but essential.Not to give anyone spoilers if they have not read the novella (stop reading of you haven't), but he is the one who finds out the tomb of Countess Mircalla Karnstein, aka Millarca, aka Carmilla and kills her. He is, in effect, the grandfather of all vampire hunters. Unlike many of his spiritual children and very much in the Victorian tradition he belongs to, Baron Vordenburg is more an academic than a fighter (in fact he looks very geeky). Stoker's Van Helsing owes a lot to him. And who remembers him? Almost nobody! I only rediscovered his name reading In a Glass Darkly and thus re-reading Carmilla recently. My apologies to the baron. And let this post be an homage to him.

Heroes against the Forces of Darkness

This is my countdown to Halloween post for today (or tonight really). I was thinking about it reading two old posts about Halloween, the one called The Arsenal against the Forces of Darkness and the other one about the Dracula game. Please read them for background info. Anyway, it made me think that in make belief games as well as horror stories, there are malevolent creatures, but there are also human beings pitted against them. Every monster needs a hunter to slay the beast, or at least try. In Dracula, the character who became the archetype of monsters hunters in general and vampire hunters in particular is of course Professor Abraham Van Helsing. He was himself inspired by a prototype: Dr Martin Hesselius, invented by Sheridan Le Fanu. They have things in common: both are elderly men of science, both are doctors, both are thus intellectuals in an age when reason is confronted to old superstitions, superstitions which sometimes are the signs of sinister and supernatural phenomenons. But Van Helsing is different and more completed than Hesselius: however an intellectual, he is more of a man of action, getting his hands dirty(er). I have heard somewhere that he is a Victorian superhero, and there is a lot of truth in it. He was carved in the same mold as Sherlock Holmes, in a way, albeit older, maybe wiser, certainly warmer. I see him as the cousin of Holmes, but also Gandalf and many others, in other genres. 

But Bram Stoker invented many other good guys in his famous novel, of various importance. My favourite is Jonathan Harker, the one I think the reader identifies himself (or herself) the most when reading it. In that silly gamebook that inspired me the Dracula game a long time ago and had such a lasting impression on me, Jonathan Harker is the hero played by the reader. Later, reading the actual novel and watching its many, many adaptations, I thought that, however silly and self-parodic the gamebook was, they gave some sort of justice to the character: in most adaptations, Harker's importance in the story is considerably reduced, when he is not turned into a joke. I guess Van Helsing's destiny was barely more enviable: he is often turned into a macho, ridiculously virile vampire hunter, a far cry from the elderly academic. But anyway, in Dracula's Castle, Harker was a proper vampire hunter, even though he kept the appearance of a mild mannered solicitor. That is not quite like the original character, but it showed more respect towards the man who was Dracula's guest and survived the count's castle to tell the story... And fight him back. Nowadays, and since a long time actually, the heroes of horror stories are often heroines and mainly scream queens. I do not long for a return of masculine heroes, but of more professional ones, people with nerves as much as intellectual capacities and of course education. Against exceptional foes, you need exceptional heroes.

Happy Birthday Sheridan Le Fanu

Well, a timely Google Doodle reminded me of this (not that I would have had remembered, to be honest), but today would have been the 200th birthday of Sheridan Le Fanu. He is of course the author of the vampire story Carmilla, which later, like so many vampires, lived in the shadow of the Count, Le Fanu himself living in the shadow of fellow Irish writer Bram Stoker. Carmilla, which inspired the Doodle, was also reduced to a lesbian vampire story, and its subsequent adaptations were even more massacred than the ones of Dracula, pretty much all verging on the soft and not so soft porn. I have to confess, I do not feel the love for Le Fanu's creation that I feel for Stoker's, but all the same, the novella is deliciously creepy and has genuinely frightening scenes. It lacks the raw violence of Dracula, yet we are far from the vampiric romances that get published these days. I can also say, with a certain pride, that I have actually read other stories than Carmilla. And Le Fanu could write gothic horror. So in the upcoming months and weeks before Halloween, I intend to read him again and remember that his work should not be forgotten and stands on its own merit.