Twilight: the new frenzy by Stephenie Meyer

It's been almost two months since the last time I wrote in this blog and now I feel once again the need to share my thoughts with you. The main incentive was actually the reading of Twilight by Stephenie Meyer, the first of the author's Twilight saga.

To be honest I enjoyed the story of the book very much and I really loved the way Meyer pictured this new type of vampires. I was afraid that the book would try too much to be close to what Anne Rice suggested that it would lose its fun. But it was nothing like that. Certainly this book is addressed to a younger group of people, mostly to adolescents or to those who still feel of that age. One more aspect that made me love it is that it was breath-taking -I've read it into 24 hours - and well-plotted. I haven't felt like that since the last time I've read Harry Potter!

So, I have finally realized what was all the fuss about. With the upcoming movie and the internet frenzy I wanted to figure out if its fans were right. And in my opinion they were, because once in a while you need this kind of literature to take you out of your miserable reality and to make you hope that somewhere else might be something different. Anyway, if you want to escape reality Twilight would be a nice and 'safe' pill. And if you are for ultimate love stories Twilight will be one of your favourite romance novels.

I can't wait watching the upcoming movie...

Reviewing Tom Holland's The Vampyre

When I first encountered this particular book on the shelves of an English bookstore I was instantly attracted by its main title and even more by the subtitle: The Secret History of Lord Byron. Of course this is a pretty well known myth which has been made famous and proliferated by Polidori's Vampyre and relates Lord Byron with vampirism. And that is because Polidori's Vampyre based on a fragment of novel that Lord Byron himself attempted to write maintains a lot of characteristics with the Byronic Hero, which is not the real Byron but the caricature that has been created after his name. So attracted by this background and a lover of Lord Byron, I bought the book without any hesitation. I wanted to see how the writer managed to blend history with fantasy and to check if such an attempt was really possible and successful.

I have to admit that while I was reading the book I had a strange feeling that I couldn't help. I was refusing to connect the fictional Byron with the real Byron which was rather difficult since the novel had him as a protagonist. I refused to make the connection because I firmly believe that Holland's fantasy had nothing to do with the poet himself. Just taking a lot of biographical elements of a person's life and blending them with reality is like abusing in a way his true life, his true memory. And this is a thing in question, at least in my point of view. Why for example didn't the author choose to write about a completely fictional vampyre and why did he choose Lord Byron as the medium of his story? Was such a choice rather pure on its intention or was it a "catchy" idea? These thoughts preoccupied all the time, from the first till the last page of reading the book.

But let's discuss the more technical details. As far as the the plot is concerned I found a lot of flaws in it. There were many elements that didn't seem to fit, many things were kept unsaid and unexplained and I was left with a rather chaotic feeling. The ending itself was rather abrupt and very superficial. Although the writer tried through the novel to justify and explain the protagonist's choices and way of life, it left me with a vague feeling in the end. Nothing made sense. There was a gothic atmosphere but it didn't manage to take me with it.

Another thing that disappointed me in this particular novel was the thing that it had nothing to offer to the gothic genre in particular. It wasn't worthy of the pre-existent gothic novels and it wasn't either worthy of the present gothic needs. What I mean is that the Vampyres of Holland had similar characteristics to the main characters of the other gothic novels like Stoker's Dracula and Anne Rice's Lestat and it didn't make any new suggestions on what a vampire is or could be. On this respect, it was a rather boring reading. I have read many gothic-vampire fiction and what I really want each time is an author who will make some interesting suggestions and he will not repeat the same old stories.

Lastly, I have to say that the only thing that made me read the book till the end was that I wanted to see how the author mixed Lord Byron's biography and work with the figments of his imagination. I wouldn't say that he was successful in this part as well. When you decide to write such a novel and to talk fictionally about personalities strong and elegant like Lord Byron's you have too be at least worthy of their powerfullness. And this is a high-fetched challenge. Either you succeed or you fail. Your work cannot be mediocre. And I think that Tom Holland failed for all the above reasons. And that is a pity because we need good contemporary gothic literature.

Yes, it is a rather interesting story for those who do not have high expectations and want to read something with a quick plot but I wouldn't suggest it to a gothic lover or scholar who expects to find something worth reading, something innovative. But this is just my own opinion for all that matters. If anyone has read the novel it would be my pleasure to hear his comments on it.

The Second Coming of Vampires in 'Salem's Lot

One of the books that I had the pleasure to read recently is 'Salem's Lot written by the master of horror Stephen King. In my opinion, it is a masterpiece of vampiric and gothic literature. King as a scholar himself and reader of this kind of literature creates his own vampiric myth. He actually transforms the old-type vampire like Count Dracula to the contemporary, cruel and beast-like 20th century vampire, a vampire that emerges from the gross vampiric movies and cheap comics editions.

His writing is alluring and enchanting, it is frightening and tense... It is a well-written novel with many literary allusions that makes it pretty interesting to the well-informed reader. Without losing its horror point the novel has parts that will make us smile and parts that will make us even laugh. But not for a moment we aren't going to believe that vampires may not be a possibility... A thrilling novel, that's what it is.

In the novel we encounter some very old and common gothic motifs, such as the function of the house, The Marsten House, as trasmitter of the bad energy in the town, the house as carrier of the cruel things that happened inside it, the house as a reference point to the madness that runs in the minds of its owners. 'Salem's Lot is a town haunted by a house and the vampires are the mere result of its malignity...

Moreover, the whole city itself is a vampire that lurks in the night, a town where everything is well kept from the light of truth; echoes lying in the air like the signals that travelling from the old telephone wires. The city knows the darkness that is hidden within and when the vampire appears everything is ready for it flourish. Most of the town people are ready to embrace the darkness, ready to manifest its existence... and this realisation creates fear and discomfort to the reader because in an instance the familiar becomes unfamiliar and his deepest fears come to the light...

Another common motif is the role of the female in the novel represented by Susan Norton. She is a girl who doesn't fear as she should the filthy "Count" and finally she is trapped by him later to be proved that she was merely an instrument to him.

I could go on for ages writing about all the motives that run through the novel since it is written on purpose to remind us of the old gothic literature. However, it succeeded in being a whole literature text on its own that respects the old texts and that tries to tell also its own story...

Finally, I found more details about the novel and I would like to share them with you:

’Salem’s Lot is a horror novel by Stephen King, written in 1975. It was King’s second published novel. The book was adapted into a 1979 TV miniseries of the same name, starring David Soul and James Mason. A sequel film, A Return to Salem’s Lot, was made in 1987. A new miniseries was made in 2004, starring Rob Lowe, Andre Braugher and James Cromwell.

The title King originally chose was Second Coming, but he later decided on Jerusalem’s Lot. The publishers, Doubleday, shortened it to the current title, thinking the author's choice sounded too religious.

In a 1999 preface to the book, King discussed the importance of Dracula and formulated a theory that The Lord of the Rings was “just a slightly sunnier version of Stoker’s Dracula, with Frodo playing Jonathan Harker, Gandalf playing Abraham Van Helsing and Sauron playing the Count himself.”

The Legacy

Salem’s Lot was the first of King’s books to have a huge cast of characters, a trait that would appear again in later books such as The Stand. The town of Jerusalem’s Lot would also serve as a prototype for later fictional towns of King’s writing, namely Castle Rock, Maine and Derry, Maine.

King revisited the character Father Callahan, the local priest whose faith falters in the dreadful presence of Barlow, in his The Dark Tower series. He appears in Wolves of the Calla, Song of Susannah, and The Dark Tower, and provides insights into his experiences after being exiled from 'Salem's Lot. In addition, the central characters of the Dark Tower books acquire an actual copy of ’Salem’s Lot at the end of Wolves of the Calla, which leads them to seek out King himself in one of the many realities featured in the series.

’Salem’s Lot was also the first novel by King in which the main character is a writer, a device he would use again in a number of novels and short stories.

Mark Petrie's chant used for repelling the vampiric Danny Glick is reused in another King novel, It.

At one point, Mears explains his experience in the Marsten house, including seeing the body of the dead previous occupant. Mears describes it as being a leftover or a remnant of what had happened there, just like the haunting of the Overlook Hotel in King's The Shining.

The exit sign for the town off Interstate 295 (now part of I-95), is noticed by characters driving past it in Pet Sematary and Dreamcatcher.

source: wikipedia

Interview with the Vampire - The Vampire Chronicles

release date: 11 November 1994
director: Neil Jordan
script: Anne Rice
cast:
Tom Cruise - Lestat
Brad Pitt - Louis
Antonio Banderas - Armand
Christian Rea - Santiago
Kirsten Dunst - Claudia
Christian Slater - Daniel

Lestat: Evil is a point of view. God kills indiscriminately and so shall we. For no creatures under God are as we are, none so like him as ourselves.

Lestat: I'm going to give you the choice I never had.

Lestat: Oh Louis, Louis. Still whining Louis. Have you heard enough? I've had to listen to that for centuries.

Daniel Molloy: So there are no vampires in Transylvania? No Count Dracula?
Louis: Fictions, my friend. The vulgar fictions of a demented Irishman.

Louis: Bear me no ill will my love we are now even.
Claudia: What do you mean?
Louis: What died in that room was not that woman. What has died is the last breath in me that was human.
Claudia: Yes, Father. At last we are even.

Louis: Forgive me if I have a lingering respect for life.

Louis: You've condemned me to Hell.
Lestat: I don't know any Hell.

Louis: The statue seemed to move, but didn't. The world had changed, yet stayed the same. I was a newborn vampire weeping at the beauty of the night.

Armand: The world changes, we do not, there lies the irony that finally kills us.

Well, if you haven't seen this vampire movie yet, you would certainly think that ok it's another vampire movie about ruthless and vindictive, evil vampires. But I reassure that this is not the case. It is not another movie about vampires killing human beings. No my darlings, it is a movie about vampires themselves. About the relationships amongst them, about their sorrow and sadness, about their love and death, about their madness. About the huge burden of being an immortal. It is the saddest movie I've ever seen. I came to love them by watching this very movie lamenting for their existence. If vampires truly exist I swear that they would be like that. I am also grateful because through this movie I had the chance to get to know Anne Rice, the creator of the Vampire Chronicles, the most seductive and interesting series of novels I've read so far. If you haven't seen the movie, I highly recommend it for all the above reasons, plus the articulate direction by Neil Jordan.