Hmm…Vampires, You Say?

‘Salem’s Lot (1975) by Stephen King

The Historian (2005) by Elizabeth Kostova

Dracula the Un-dead (2009) by Dacre Stoker & Ian Holt

Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story (1995) by Christopher Moore

I am Legend (1954) by Richard Matheson

You Suck: A Love Story (2007) by Christopher Moore

Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter* (2010) by Seth Grahame-Smith

Bite Me: A Love Story* (2010) by Christopher Moore

The Radleys* (2010) by Matt Haig

*read in 2011

 

I’ve been working on a few side projects over the last few weeks. One of the projects I’ve been working on is a website that will work as a reference tool for library users. One part of the website is a readers advisory section that I hope people will use to look for new books to read. I’ve been dividing the books into genres that are popular right now and I realized that I’ve read a lot of vampire literature over the last few years.

Vampire lore has been around for several hundred years. Stories and poems about vampires or creatures with vampire like characteristics began cropping up in the early and mid eighteenth century. It was in Polidori’s The Vampyre (1819), that a story “successfully” fused “the disparate elements of vampirism into a coherent literary genre.” (I had to use this wikipedia quote because there is no way I would have said it better.) Today, Dracula (1897) is considered the first “real” novel about vampires. According to wikipedia, Dracula was the first vampire story to feature vampirism as a disease rather than something to be romanticized, like Polidori’s The Vampyre.

I like to take breaks from serious literature to read something light and apparently vampires fill that requirement. Vampires have been a popular genre for the last decade. It began as sort of a cult genre but with the Twilight series, the genre’s popularity exploded.

One of Stephen King’s greatest contributions to literature, besides The Shining (1977) and The Green Mile (1996), was ‘Salem’s Lot (1975). ‘Salem’s Lot was King’s second novel to be published and was his take on the vampire legend. It was a very good book and if you have any interest in vampire literature this is as good of a starting place as anywhere.

I have started Dracula on several different occasions but I can never get past the first half of the book. I don’t know why. The book is told through journal entries, newspaper articles, and letters, a very creative idea but the writing is so boring. I think I may try an audio version because it is a classic work and really the first real vampire novel.

I received Dracula the Un-Dead as a Christmas gift from my parents one year and I was able to read the book in one afternoon. This book is a sequel to Dracula written by Stoker’s great-great nephew. The plot was really good, the pace of the novel was just right and the story ended with an interesting twist to the classic tale (yes, I know I’ve never finished Dracula but I know the basic storyline). It definitely changed my view of the vampire genre, although I think I will continue to avoid the Twilight type books and focus on the books that have interesting plots and well-defined characters and are, you know, well written.

‘Salem’s Lot might have been the first vampire book I read, but I don’t think I ever really got excited over the vampire genre until I read Elizabeth Kostova’s excellent debut novel, The Historian. It’s long, and at times a little slow, but is well worth the time it takes to complete.

I happened to pick up I Am Legend at the library on a whim. I saw the movie with Will Smith when it was in theaters and enjoyed it very much. The story is short, some would consider it a novella (not Reba), and the volume I checked out actually had a few of Matheson’s short stories included. As a side note, I recently acquired a three-volume set of Richard Matheson’s complete short stories and I love his writing. He mainly wrote science fiction early in his career but his novel’s themes are varied. Hell House is a haunted house story, What Dreams May Come tackles the afterlife, and I am Legend is Matheson’s take on vampires. I am Legend is a scientific look at vampirism and how the world population was wiped out or converted to vampires after a pandemic. At the core, I am Legend is about survival. The story is about Robert Neville who is literally the last man on earth. Neville is fighting to stay alive and deal with being alone in the world with millions of vampires. I am Legend is really a psychological novel with an ending that just gets better every time I think about it. Either check it out at the library or buy a used copy from Amazon. The book will take about two hours to read and is absolutely worth it.

I will be completely honest and admit that I read Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter based solely on its title. I found out several things about the book after I read it. First of all, the book is from the co-writer, with Jane Austen, of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a book I have on my to read list. I also learned that Grahame-Smith did extensive research on Lincoln’s life to portray the life as accurately as possible. Of course when I say research I mean he read the Wikipedia entry on Lincoln and based his plot around the events listed in the wiki article. In fact, if you go to wikipedia and search Abraham Lincoln you can basically read the plot of this novel, you know without all the vampire stuff. Lazy, yes. Ethical, who cares. Fun, absolutely.

I like alternate history novels where the author writes as true to real life as possible. In this case, most of Lincoln’s motivation in life was to kill vampires. Some authors will take great liberties in changing history, for instance, changing the outcome of a war, a battle, or an election (just think Newt Gingrich, Harry Turtledove or Philip Roth). These are interesting takes on history but they fabricate many of the events. Grahame-Smith only fabricated a few events in Vampire Hunter; he just gave different reasons for the actions and events that really occurred in Lincoln’s life. Anyone who reads this book will learn a lot about Lincoln’s childhood; he moved around a lot, he lost his mother and a sibling at a young age, and he was forced to accept his Father’s remarriage. Readers will also learn of Lincoln’s adult life; he owned a store, ran for the statehouse, ran an unsuccessful bid for the House of Representatives, participated in a series of popular debates with Stephen Douglas, his run for the White House, and lost two of two children. The book is both entertaining and informative. A creative teacher could use this book as a tool to teach students to enjoy history. The book was not what I thought it would be but it was good and it was fun.

The Radleys are a family of vampires who abstain from drinking any blood. In Haig’s version of vampire lore, vampires can “live” without blood if they eat plenty of meat, wear sun block, and avoid direct sunlight. The Radleys live in obscurity in a small British village for over 15 years before the daughter, who recently became vegetarian and is unaware of her vampirism, kills a fellow classmate who tries to force himself on her at a high school party. The events that follow show a family of vampires trying to cope with who they really are versus who they want to be and the trouble they have reconciling those differences. Throw in Dad’s brother, who is running from the law, a dead teenager who washes up on the beach with most of his face eaten away and you’ve got yourself a page-turner. Really, I enjoyed the hell out of this book.

With Dracula the Un-Dead, Abe Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, The Radleys, and Moore’s A Love Story series, I’ve begun to read more fiction with vampires being the main characters or at least characters who are a big part of the story line. No, these works are not in the same category as William Faulkner, Mark Twain, or Ernest Hemingway but they are good in their own way. They can be fun, exciting reads and by God, every now and then it’s nice to be able to read something fun that you can forget about as soon as you close the book after reading the last page. So if you have a problem with vampire fiction, you can suck it. And yes the pun is absolutely intended. —S

These are well-known vampire works that are on my To Read list

The Vampyre (1819) by Polidori

Dracula (1897) by Bram Stoker

Dracula’s Guest (1914) by Bram Stoker – Short Story

Interview with the Vampire (1976) by Anne Rice

The Vampire Diaries: The Awakening (1991) by LJ Smith (young adult)

Cirque Du Freak by Darren Shan (young adult)

Carpe Jugulum (1998) by Terry Pratchett

Let the Right One In (2007) by John Ajvide Lindqvist