Vampires

Vampires, in case you haven’t noticed, have taken up residence in the American consciousness again. I must admit I too have gotten sucked into it – pun intended. My husband and I sort of stumbled into watching the True Blood TV series, based on the Sookie Stackhouse novels by author Charlaine Harris, while looking for something different to watch one night. One of my co-workers who is also my friend gave it a huge recommendation, and we quickly found out why. It’s pretty engaging, if not the usual antiseptic, mainstream fare we usually watch.

Although to be fair, True Blood has certainly become mainstream.

Currently I’m on a waiting list at the library to get the first book of the series, Dead Until Dark, otherwise I’d have something more to say about the novels.

In the meantime I have gotten my hot little fingers on a copy of Twilight, the first of that insanely popular series by Stephenie Meyer. So far I love it. I love it as much as any red-blooded American teenager who loves it. I love it so much I find myself breathlessly awaiting the release of New Moon this Friday! Stephenie Meyer portrays a slightly different vampire than what you meet in True Blood. For one thing Twilight falls under the “young adult” genre, whereas the Sookie Stackhouse novels do not. As such I’m finding Twilight isn’t as edgy as True Blood is – which really isn’t a fair comparison considering I’ve only met Sookie Stackhouse and her vampire Bill Compton on the TV series, and not the books themselves.

As such this won’t be a review so much as an analysis of the fascination with vampires in general. Since these two recent fiction works are uppermost in my mind they are going to set the stage for my analysis – for better or for worse.

Twilight and True Blood opened a door for me into the world of vampires, making me want to understand better why they make such appealing fictional characters. The main vampire characters in both series are the wounded healer-types. There is little that is more fascinating than a monster who makes a conscious effort to suppress his killing instincts for the benefit of the humans around him, or even merely in order to survive among them. This makes the vampire highly unpredictable, even in the best of circumstances. Unpredictability in the protagonist could not work for many characters other than a vampire, and there it works exceedingly well.

But that is hardly the most alluring trait these characters have; indeed, it is the way they fall in love! A vampire’s love is intense, it’s for keeps, it will definitely be beyond our capabilities as mere mortals, and the romance … heady stuff. Just how I like my romance novels to be, thank you very much. Bella and Sookie are not your average heroines, either, it must be noted. Bella and Sookie are not simply “in love”, they are bound by blood to their vampires. The emotions they feel inhabit a plane of consciousness that the rest of us simply don’t have access to. That’s why we need the talent of Stephenie Meyer and Charlaine Harris to channel their worlds to us. Whatever mild thunder we feel pulsing through our veins as we read must only be a shadow of what Bella and Sookie experience.

One detail that strikes me as very curious is the protection these vampires adorn their humans with. On the one hand, it comes off as very touching and deeply romantic. On the other hand, if a real person tried doing the same thing it could be construed as smothering at best, suffocating to the point of stalking at the worst. One scene I just recently finished reading in Twilight made the main vampire character sound so strong and safe, like there’s nothing cozier than a well-intentioned vampire to cuddle with and make the bumps in the night go away.

Perhaps one has to be a vampire in order to convey such intentions the way they are meant to be taken. As I read the scene I was just as swept away as Bella was by Edward’s words to her. However in the next moment I thought, who the hell does he think he is! and then I laughed right out loud. Point is, this stuff can be quite enjoyable … as long as you don’t take it or yourself too seriously. Coming from Edward Cullen it sounds exactly right. And if you are not Edward Cullen or Bill Compton, you can forget it.

That being said, I am thoroughly enjoying the romance in these stories. I love the difference between the way Bella falls in love with Edward and the way Sookie falls in love with Bill. Bella didn’t see it coming, whereas Sookie knew exactly what she wanted and once she made up her mind she went for it. I find both characters deeply engaging and I’m growing to love both of them dearly. Edward and Bill have exactly the effect on me that I’m sure their authors intended, too: I’m infatuated with both of them! And I love the way Bella and Sookie let me peer into what their men, er, vampires are like in love. It’s positively intoxicating.

With a vampire, it just can’t be any other way.

They are endlessly, deeply, painfully mysterious. They are the greatest paradox ever to be conceived. They’re dead! And at the same time they live forever, so long as no one drives a stake through their hearts of course. They are bewilderingly easy to fall hopelessly in love with. Yet no matter how heroic or magnanimous we wish them to be, underneath it all lies that legendary thirst that makes them perpetually dangerous to be around. The timeless stories, like the vampires themselves, all as unique and distinct as the authors who create them, win fans in droves across time and cultures. Say what you want about Edward Cullen, but he carries a torch on a long, treasured tradition that refuses to lay quietly dormant for too long. Vampires, it seems, are the metaphor to a suppressed imagination: after killing it the first time it lives forever in a renewed yet deadly form. And it will haunt you – and it will kill to survive, and it will be tormented and torn, and it will absolutely become the delight and terror of all who cross it’s path, no matter what century it is, no matter what culture … no matter what.