A Pleasantly Enthralled Review of "Carmilla"
A beautifully written book full of gay intrigue, vampiric lore and gothic overtones
4.5 stars - gothic and sexy and undeniably inviting!
** This review contains spoilers**
Book: Carmilla by Sheridan le Fanu, 1872.
Described as a sapphic vampire novel, Carmilla is one of the earliest known literary works of vampire fiction. Predating Bram Stoker’s Dracula by 15 years, Carmilla tells the tale of a lonely young woman, Laura, and her unexpected but hauntingly beautiful, decidedly mysterious and delightfully charming visitor, Carmilla.
I wasn’t sure what to expect going into this book, especially due to its age - I tend to tire of oldy-worldy writing quite quickly - but I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this read! The book was short and didn’t drag on, which stopped me from getting bored with the language, and the story itself was a surprisingly refreshing take on vampirism considering this was one of the first stories of its kind. The writing, dialogue and descriptions were beautiful - and goddamn does Le Fanu love a comma! I thought I was a fiend for punctuation but I may have met my match with this man.
There was a lot of vampiric lore which I had never encountered before, and the chemistry between the characters was palpable and terribly attractive. As a bisexual with the opposite of trust issues I am ashamed to say I would definitely have fallen for Carmilla’s charms were I subject to them - the bloodsucking doesn’t seem so bad coming from a beautiful woman declaring her undying love for you in the moonlight!
For all of Carmilla’s proclamations of eternal love and devotion, Laura was for the most part more repulsed and weirded out than enthralled and seduced by these speeches. Could this be simple sexual repression and denial of a deeper attraction which would have been disdained and discouraged at the time, or was Laura sensing some of Carmilla’s inherent evil, inadvertently feeling out the hidden dark forces at play? Either could be true, but the way Laura felt grossly uncomfortable, frightened and even repelled by these love-filled, adoring speeches suggests that even sugar-sweet words could not disguise Carmilla’s true nature as an undead creature of evil from Laura’s subconscious.
Carmilla’s moments of weakness and faintness, as warned of by her (apparent) mother, tend to take place when Laura and Carmilla are alone, having an intimate moment, usually in the moonlight. While the weakness is easily attributable to her nature as a vampire and her need to feed, it is also plausible that the moonlight plays a role in the onset of her hunger. A large variety of mythological creatures and legends rely heavily on the night, the moonlight and the lunar cycles as physical triggers and symbols for the forces that govern them. Here, Le Fanu’s lore invokes the moon as being a catalyst for the hunger that possesses vampires, pushing them into a state of weakness and frailty which would likely persist and aggravate should the vampire not be feeding regularly. While we know that Carmilla was getting more than enough blood - as evidenced by the multiple victims in the surrounding villages falling deathly ill, and by Laura’s own accounts of illness and nighttime scares - it would be interesting to gain more insight on how Le Fanu’s vampires would fare when deprived of regular blood intake for an extended period of time, and whether the moon would take on a role similar to that with werewolves. Would a starving vampire bathed in moonlight become an unstoppable fiend for blood, similar to a werewolf’s transformation during the full moon, or would it become so weakened and frail that it would struggle to vanquish its prey and secure its nourishment? It is also possible that the onset of weakness while exposed to moonlight may act as a predatory tactic, causing alarm in the people around the vampire and hence inducing them to get close to the predator in order to help them. This would provide a glorious opportunity for the vampire to strike at the right moment, appearing weak only to pounce and capture their prey when they come into close proximity. These hypotheses are of course speculation, but the manner in which Le Fanu described the moonlit events and sudden attacks of frailty suggest there may be more lore at play than was described in the text.
Another bit of peculiar vampiric lore that I had not encountered previously was the mention that vampires can become enamored with a specific person, leading the vampire to develop a sort of obsession. The vampire will try to court their victim to make them fall in love and reciprocate their adoration and passion, allowing the vampire to grow close to their victim and feed off of them slowly so as to keep their twisted idea of a lover alive. This is what Carmilla intended to happen with Laura: Carmilla became obsessed with Laura and would proclaim endless declarations of adoration and promises of eternal love, which made Laura feel embarrassed and uncomfortable. With other persons however, vampires can just feed off them indifferently, killing them in a few days as Carmilla did with the various villagers falling sick and dying in the surrounding towns.
This characteristic of Le Fanu’s vampires is reminiscent of the “vampires have to be welcomed into your home to enter” piece of lore: it almost seemed like Carmilla wanted to get Laura to fall in love with her in order for her to consent to Carmilla feeding off her. Carmilla craved Laura’s love and consent, desperate to be accepted and loved for what she is, although her attempts failed in the end. It is fascinating to gain little bits and pieces of Le Fanu’s idea of vampires throughout this book, which inspired an entire genre and had such a large impact on supernatural and horror content as a whole.
Overall a very gay and sexy and spooky book, with beautiful writing and truly gripping intrigue. A must-read for any vampire fans (I promise this is better than Twilight)!