Meta-Vampire

I've been reading a lot of vampire books lately as part of my research for these writings. (and, now I want a Kindle with all it's neat little features like bookmarking and notetaking. But I diverge....) It's hard to know whether these books are going to be to my liking or not before diving in. I'm intruigued with our fascnination for these characters, but that doesn't mean I'm going to like a story simply because it has a vampire in it. In fact, it may be that the majority of the books are simpy boring to me.

What has happened, though, in reading so many of the books and thinking about why I like some and why I don't like others is that I've realized there are genres of vampire stories. Not to be confused with the realization that there  now seem to be vampire stories in almost every genre of book. That is, we now have the detective novel with vampire, the romance novel with vampires, and, of course, the erotica vampires, the action drama with vampires, etc. (I'm sure there will be a self-help book out featuring vampires any time now!)

Beyond these genres of literature, there is the meta-genres of vampire tales. Have you noticed? In "They Thirst" we have the vampire horror story where all vampires are pure evil and they exist for no other reason but to prey on humans. In fact, in this one, the vampires have finally gotten their act together and are on the verge of ridding the planet of the human race. But of course, those plucky humans with all their ingenuity and spirit, no matter how close to the apocalypse they come, muster the resources to triumph. In these stories, there is a lot of action - usually full of gratuitous blood and gore - and one or more magnificent heroes to lead us to the promised land.

Call me erudite, but "yawn." So predictable. So simplistic. These are the books that put me to sleep within paragraphs. I've never been the "rah, rah, kill the enemy" type and these vampires aren't going to turn me.

There's a genre where humans are a negligible part of the story. All vampire stories are fantasy, but these tend to be ultra-fantasy where humans either don't exist at all or they're minor props because, well, vampires do have to eat. The "Underworld" films are like this. A universe of lychens (werewolves) versus vampires. I think we see some humans as victims in the first film, and maybe as props in some scenes in the second film, but by the third it seemed they just couldn't see the point of bothering with a human presence.

Whether I find these stories interesting or not depends on what genre of fantasy film they are. If it's just the action, well then, we're back to the former comments. If they're more of an archetypal allegory, it depends on how well it's done. Because once we remove the humans from the story, it's actually just another human story. That is, the fact that all the characters are fantastic neutralizes the symbolism of their fantasma and puts all the characters on the same level, so it might as well just be a story about humans.

Next we have one I find intriquing, though necessarily of higher quality. These are the stories where all the humans are so bad, that the vampire characters are actually the admirable, desirable people. I recently finished "Hotel Transylvania", the first book in the Saint-Germain series. In it, the female protagonist is a young woman visiting her aunt in 1740s Paris. Her aunt has been tasked with keeping her away from the unsavory enemy of the girl's father. Which she does. However, it turns out that none of the humans in all of the society around the aunt are savory. They're all satanic sadists. So, of course, the safest, purest of heart, and most valiant man of all happens to be a vampire. I think the author needs to broaden her social experience and find some nice people. We're not all evil. So, I found this little hard to swallow. My willing suspension of disbelief lost it's will and came crashing down looking for a warm smile to bask in.

So, which stories *do* I like? It probably won't surprise you to learn that I prefer the genre where the simplistic lines of good vs. evil are rubbed over with a smudge stick. I mean, where's the fresh insigh to be gained from "humans good, vampires bad." How are we supposed to consider grappling with our dark side if we're told all humans are evil, so give it up and hope you can become something else. No, I prefer the more complex construct where you have to be willing to dig beyond the veneer to see the subtle to high-contrast shadings of dark and light in each character. I guess you call it the "don't judge a book by its cover" genre. Though, it's more than that which I seek. I seek stories of seeking. These are the stories that are mining for diamonds of truth with a magnifiying glass, recognizing all the while that I might see one facet of the diamond with my magnifier while you're seeing another with yours. In these stories, the vampire is a facet of the human truth. Not some separate evil enemy.

This is what make True Blood so compelling. Those vampires aren't all the same. With the advent of synthetic blood, those with better natures can actually redeem themselves and let those natures shine. Meanwhile, there are humans that are despicable. Some committing acts more heinous and with less morality than any of the vampires. Now, that's life or larger than life. Here, the story is using the vampire as a symbol or something more complex than evil - the vampire is our passion. Passion ranging from unbridled to fully bit-trained.

In that genre, there is an entry that I am currently enthralled by. The series is called "The Maker's Song". The first book is "A Rush of Wings." I won't give a lot away, because you really should read them, but the author added layers to the metaphor here by introducing angels. Like any good entry in this genre, its not clear who's good and who's bad. You have to be ready for the journey of getting to know the characters and seeing what unfolds. I've found it a very satisfying journey, thus far. (I've just completed the second book.)

So, most of the novels with vampires seem to fall in these four genres. I wish someone would label them as such so that I don't waste my time with ones that are all blood and gore, or the ones where humans are irredeemable. Alas, I'll just have to wend my own way through that.

Of course, these labels wouldn't have helped in filtering Twilight. It seems to be in a genre all its own. Twilight's a Romance series. It doesn't paint all humans as bad or good. Nor does it paint all vampires with one stroke. Though, it does paint the vast majority of vampires with one stroke and it makes it seem pretty challenging to be a "good" vampire. Still, the female protagonist, who is surrounded by plenty of good humans only wants to become a vampire. There's not really any explanation for why being human isn't acceptable. She simply doesn't want to deal with the emotional pain she carries from her family background.

When we read these books we have to realize that the construct of the story tells us something about the author. Or something about the author might explain the construct of the story. In the case of Twilight, the author is Mormon. If you substitue Mormon for human and The Rest of Society for vampire, you get a sense that the author might be miserable in her Mormon environs but thinks The Rest of Society is full of frightening, exotic predators. Yet, she dreams of having the chance to meet that one exotic outside who will offer her shelter and eventually turn her. It's the only thing I can imagine that gives the Twilight construct any useful meaning. And may be why I found the first book infuriating. It was the opposite of what I love, which is the willingness to dig into the muck of the human experience and come to terms with our complex natures and continue reaching for our higher selves no matter how far to the dark side we've gone.

Bram Stoker writes the template for this when he has Lucy plead to her fianceé and the rest of the posse to destroy Dracula out of compassion, remembering that they are not kiiling an evil being, but rather releasing a good soul from an evil shell. As the godfather of the the vampire myth in modern Angle-Saxon culture, Stoker's Dracula is like a gospel. All these attempts to use the vampire as some caricaturish icon of immutable evil (or to portray the humans as that) seems blasphemy to me. Boredom is blasphemy, after all, isn't it?