seasonal reading: Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

source: gift

Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

For a hundred and forty years Carmilla has given readers' bodies and souls a shake, because the vampire is beautiful, but repulsive, to be resisted at all costs, because the narrative alternates so imaginatively between twittering girlies and an urgent need to reach for sharpened wooden stakes. (Richler, xxxi)

One of my late-arriving birthday presents was a copy of the Pomegranate Vintage Vampire edition of Carmilla, a vampire story first published in 1872. I decided to read it right away because it seemed like an appropriate selection for the Halloween season.

This particular edition of Carmilla includes illustrations by Taeden Hall¹ (though the cover was illustrated by Gillian Holmes) and a preface by Daniel Richler. Richler's 23-page introduction to the story managed to be both academic and chatty. It places Carmilla in context (of its time, in the development of vampire literature, etc.) and discusses how Carmilla has been interpreted and adapted over time.

Hall's illustrations are sweet and very much in keeping with the novella's "twittering girlies" (above) and "girl school lesbianism" (publisher) while still being atmospheric. Plate 5, inspired by the line "The limbs were perfectly flexible, the flesh elastic; and the leaden coffin floated with blood, in which to a depth of seven inches, the body lay immersed" (117), packs a punch,² while the others are more subtle by degrees. I do wish though that the publisher had used a different process to print the plates. The dots created by pixelation bring to mind comics, (over)emphasizing the cartoony quality of the illustrations.

As to the story itself I have to admit that I did not find it to be nearly as creepy as I'd hoped I would.³ That's not a problem with the story per se, but rather with the fact that many modern readers (including myself) came of age reading authors like Stephen King and Anne Rice. It seems like that inoculation has made us immune to the true spookiness of gothic and proto-horror stories.

At 124 pages, however, the novella seems decidedly short.  The narrative includes so much build up before the realization that the vampire-character is a vampire that the vanquishment and conclusion felt rushed.  On a more positive note, Le Fanu's prose is very easy to read with little in the way of antiquated language to irritate (some) modern readers.  Additionally, his interpretation of the whys and wherefores of vampirism are surprisingly uncomplicated.

1. Hall's alternative clothing line, Gloomth, has a 3-piece collection inspired by the novella.
2. How could it not?
3. I have the same problem with Lovecraft, much to my chagrin. 

a few multiple POV novels

Or, short reviews of books read during June 2013, part 1

The Blood of the Lamb by Sam Cabot (source: Netgalley)
forthcoming: August 6, 2013

Catholic Church conspiracy thriller with vampires.
The novel is well-written, but its subject matter is divisive. Obviously if you dislike and/or are offended by books of this type, you should give The Blood of the Lamb a miss. Its multiple point-of-view narrative may also turn off some readers (for what it's worth, there's nothing especially problematic about how Cabot handles the various characters and their points of view). Otherwise, I think this cerebral thriller is definitely worth a read. It's written by two people¹ who clearly know how to write and, in the context of the novel, the paranormal elements don't seem unrealistic. I particularly recommend The Blood of the Lamb to fans of vampire novels, as I think they'd appreciate Cabot's take on them.

The Death of Bees by Lisa O'Donnell (source: public library)

Debut novel by award-winning screenwriter.
I discovered The Death of Bees while browsing the new arrivals section of my local public library. I was intrigued by the book-flap text, but unsure as to whether I'd like the novel or not. The Death of Bees is dark and gritty (set in a Glasgow housing estate²), but compelling.
I, for one, like multiple POV narratives and I really appreciated how O'Donnell created such distinct voices for her three point-of-view characters: a fifteen-year-old breadwinner, whose straight-A average belies her rough-and-tumble make-it-work attitude about life; her gifted, but maladjusted twelve-year-old sister; and their doddering, Scarlet-Lettered neighbor.

Scarlet by Marissa Meyer (source: public library)
series: Lunar Chronicles (2)

Little Red Riding Hood set in a dystopian future.
The sequel to Cinder (see post), Scarlet introduces the eponymous character (and her Wolf) in addition to continuing the overarching story begun in Cinder.
After reading Scarlet, I'm even more keen on this series (the Lunar Chronicles) and recommend it to both adults and young adults who like science fiction, paranormal fiction (romance or not), retellings of fairy tales, dystopian fiction, or any of the above. Cinder is the book that I gave my dad for Father's Day this year and I may try to lure my reluctant-reader-due-to-dyslexia sister with the audiobook.

footnotes:

1. Sam Cabot is a pseudonym for the writing team of Carlos Dews and S.J. Rozan.
2. Housing project.  When I read "housing estate" in a British-authored book, my first instinct is not to think of the projects.  "Estate" sounds so much nicer, but I'm sure that's because I don't have the relevant cultural baggage.

More Disclosure: I received a review copy of The Blood of the Lamb from Blue Rider Press (Penguin) via NetGalley.

Deborah Harkness' All Souls Trilogy

The All Souls Trilogy follows the story of Diana Bishop, a historian and reluctant witch, as she solves the mystery of Ashmole 782,¹ falls in love with a mysterious vampire named Matthew Clairmont, and learns how powerful it can be to accept who you are. - author website

Shortly after reading A Discovery of Witches, the first book in Deborah Harkness' All Souls Trilogy, I read this post on the Perfume Posse blog. The post mentioned scenting the series' main characters as part of the promotion of Shadow of the Night, the trilogy's second title, which will be released on July 10. I'm not familiar with either of the perfumes selected,² but I love the fact that the author and publisher were on board with the character-scenting project. Harkness is very detailed about how things and people smell/taste throughout A Discovery of Witches between the vampires and their heightened senses and the female protagonist learning about wine tasting so this character-scenting is an ideal fit for the series.

I have to admit that I was sure that I was done with the All Souls Trilogy after I finished A Discovery of Witches.³ I liked the premise of the novel⁴ and the world Harkness imagined, but was underwhelmed by the execution. I found A Discovery of Witches overlong at nearly 600 pages (it's not a standalone title after all). The narrative was often bogged down by too much detail: detail about insignificant things, which would have been less irritating if important aspects of the story like the mechanics of the supernatural elements were not left unclear or completely muddled. I wished Harkness had worked with a more ruthless editor.

I am happy that I decided to read Shadow of the Night after all because Shadow of the Night is a much better book than A Discovery of Witches. There's a time-travel element that makes Shadow of the Night feel a bit Outlander-ish. The way magic works and the relationships between the various metahuman⁵ groups become more clear. The novel does not stand alone because readers really do need quite a bit background information to understand it, but Shadow of the Night's plot is a nice novel-sized package. It is blessedly more focused and the occasional narrative jump to secondary characters not involved with the action of Shadow of the Night is surprisingly well done and adds to the story arch rather than distracting from it.

My biggest complaint about Shadow of the Night is that I would have preferred less in the way of important-historical-personages-as-significant-secondary-characters. A Discovery of Witches suffered from an excess of name-dropping,⁶ but Shadow of the Night takes it to a whole other level.

In short, I enjoyed Shadow of the Night, but I don't want to recommend it wholeheartedly since reading A Discovery of Witches is a prerequisite for understanding Shadow of the Night.

1. A alchemical manuscript referred to by its catalog number.
2. Etro Messe de Minuit for Matthew and Ginestet Botrytis for Diana.
3. As much as I like to claim otherwise, I'm still not all that good at giving up on books that I'm not enjoying.
4. Not the romance, mind you. I'm not terribly keen on the otherwise-perfectly-capable heroine falling for/needing to rely upon the overprotective-to-the-point-of-violence hero. I would have giving put up with the romance for the overarching storyline.
5. I'm not sure metahuman is the right word, but it's the one I'm going with right now. The groups I'm referring to are witches, vampires, and daemons.
6. Of course our 1500-year-old vampire had met practically every famous figure in recorded history.

disclosure: I received a review copy of Shadow of the Night from Penguin via NetGalley. I got A Discovery of Witches from the library.

Lord of the Vampires by Gena Showalter

Lord of the Vampires by Gena Showalter

Lord of the Vampires is the first book in Harlequin's Royal House of Shadows series, a set of four paranormal romances, each based based on a fairy tale. Lord of the Vampires is inspired by Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Jill Monroe’s Lord of Rage by "Goldilocks and the Three Bears," while Lord of the Wolfyn by Jessica Andersen is based on "Little Red Riding Hood" and Nalini Singh's Lord of the Abyss on "Beauty and the Beast."

I haven't read any of the other books in the Royal House of Shadows series and based on my experience with Lord of the Vampires, I'm not sure that I'd want to. I like the premise of the series, which is why I requested a review copy of the first installment, but I'm baffled by the execution. I really did not enjoy Lord of the Vampires at all. The only reason that I didn't give up on the novel entirely is that I'd been promised a retelling of a fairytale (at the time that I was reading the novel I didn't know which tale Showalter had taken as her inspiration) and I was determined to find that story. I didn't, though. Alice in Wonderland didn't cross my mind as a possible inspiration because it is not a fairy tale. And while looking back now I can see how Showalter used Alice in Wonderland as a jumping-off point, I'm not sure that I'd have seen Alice in Wonderland in Lord of the Vampires without having been told to.

While the lack of an obvious fairy tale inspiration was a disappointment to me, it was by no means the only one. I couldn't connect to either the hero or the heroine and, more important given the fact that Lord of the Vampires is a romance novel, their relationship lacked any semblance of romance. Yes, there was sexual chemistry, but lust and ownership completely overwhelmed any bit of connection I saw between the two. Jane was not a sympathetic character and her willingness to go along with Nicolai made little sense in the face of his treatment of her. The only thing Nicolai had going for him was magnetic sexuality. He was domineering and manipulative and he lacked much in the way of redeeming characteristics.

The story was over complex difficult to follow with its multiple flashbacks and magic-induced memory loss (maybe this confusion is an intentional nod to Alice in Wonderland) and it succeeds in feeling both slowly paced and rushed. Suffice it to say that I couldn't wait for this one to end. I haven't read much of Showalter's work (just one of her young adult novels), but I suspect that Lord of the Vampires not typical given how strong her following is.

disclosure: I received a review copy of Lord of the Vampires from Harlequin Nocturne via NetGalley.

vampire books galore

I think that I've been reading a bit too much paranormal YA fiction. As much as I love my Nook, I blame it (and the ease of getting such books as e-checkouts from the library) for my increased jadedness with the genre. I gave up on Fallen by Lauren Kate halfway through. I also wasn't impressed by Evernight by Claudia Gray (the first in a series; the protagonist was born of two vampire parents and is attending a school for young-looking vampires trying to keep up with the changing times, which has just admitted humans for the first time ever; it wasn't bad, but I have no desire to read the other books in the series). I was, however, impressed with a book my friend Nancy recommended to me.

Sweetblood by Pete Hautman

Sweetblood is a refreshingly different vampire novel. Teenage Lucy Szabo is causing her parents grief. She's failing a couple classes, dressing like a goth, and frequenting vampire forums online.

Having been diagnosed with Type-1 diabetes at age six, Lucy has had a lot of time to think about her condition. She has a theory... about vampires. The vampires of the middle ages were people with untreated diabetes. After all, "madness, ravenous hunger, extreme sensitivity to sunlight and sound, bleeding receding gums (that make her teeth look longer), cold, clammy skin, and deathlike coma" (32) are all symptoms of untreated diabetes. And, well we all know how people like to embellish stories...

I really like Lucy. She's very much a typical teenager. She's angsty without being too angsty. She's also very cheeky. Here's one of my favorite passages from the novel:

"Hello?"
I recognize Guy's voice right away.
"Where were you?" I say.
"Who is this?"
"This is the grounded vampire."
"Lucy?"
"Where were you? I went to the Bean, but you weren't there/"
"I thought you were grounded"
"So?" I'm not going to make this easy for him. If he really likes me, he'll have to learn to deal.
"Sorry--I didn't think you'd be there."
"Well, I was."
"Oh."
"You know what I'm doing right now?"
"Talking on the phone?"
"I'm looking at that bug you gave me."
"Yeah? Is it doing anything?"
"It's just sort of having out. Where'd you get it?"
"I have my sources. Hey, you want to go over to the Bean? They're open till two. They have live music at night."
"Can't," I say. "I'm grounded."
Guy doesn't say anything for a couple of seconds, then, in a tentative voice, he asks, "Does that mean that I should to to the Bean anyway, just in case you decide to go--even though you can't go because you're grounded? Or do you mean you really can't go? Which is it?" (75)

I also appreciated the fact that though Sweetblood is a self-confessed vampire novel, it doesn't feel the need to rely on the paranormal.