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I saw that this book was voted as the #1 best Halloween book in a Goodreads list. So I decided to take a chance on it, even though I don’t like the only other Bradbury book I’ve ever read, Fahrenheit 451. (I never reviewed it, but my thoughts align with H.R.R. Gorman’s.)

Well, I’m happy to say The Halloween Tree is much better. It starts off with a group of costumed boys gathering to go trick-or-treating on Halloween night. But the leader of the group, a lad named Pipkin, is late. They go to find him, and discover the normally energetic and happy boy is looking unwell. Indeed, he is whisked away in the very claws of Death itself before their eyes.

But a strange figure named Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud appears from the land on which grows the titular tree, and offers the boys a chance to pursue Pipkin’s spirit, in hopes of saving him from an early demise. Mr. Moundshroud then leads them back into the darkest days of pre-history, explaining how early humans feared the death of the sun in the winter, and from there leads them on a tour of proto-Halloween rites throughout western history, from Egypt to Greece and Rome, into Europe and finally to the Americas. At each step they find, and then lose again, some manifestation of Pipkin’s spirit.

It’s a good overview of festivals of the dead throughout history, and Bradbury doesn’t shy away from the darker aspects, like sacrifices. The one thing I don’t quite understand is why he devotes a whole chapter to gargoyles and grotesques. These never struck me as particularly scary. Maybe it’s because my great aunt had a replica of one of the Notre Dame grotesques in her living room, so I always associated them with the decorative sensibilities of older ladies. But I guess it’s all part of the Halloween tradition.

The thing I liked best about the story, (well, apart from, you know, HALLOWEEN!!!) is that it teaches an important lesson about having to pay a price to get something you want. You want Pipkin back? Well, you’re going to have to give up something to get him. It’s a critical thing for kids to learn.

Now, while this may be blasphemous to many in the reading community, I don’t love Bradbury’s prose. He’s a good writer, but he seems self-indulgent, opting for elaborate, florid descriptions when something simple would serve just as well. (Maybe this also explains his love of the overly-ornamented style of architecture such as one finds in cathedrals.)

On the other hand, his character names are fantastic. Besides the aforementioned Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud and Pipkin, we’ve got Tom Skelton, who dresses as a skeleton, and another boy named Hackles Nibley. The image of a tree with jack-‘o-lanterns growing on it is also a memorable one.

Would I rate this as the #1 Halloween book? No. I’d probably give that honor to A Night in the Lonesome October. And if we include not only stories set at Halloween, but scary stories generally, the list gets longer.

But, it’s still a charming seasonal story, and as an overview of Halloween lore for children around the age of 10 or so, it’s an excellent starting point. So if you know any young people who are of an age to catch the All Hallows’ Fever, this book is just the thing for them. Whatever my issues with Bradbury, I’m happy to put them aside in recognition of his services to Halloween.

And with that, I am off to carve some pumpkins. Happy Halloween everybody!

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Occasionally, I see movies I enjoy, but don’t have enough to say about them to merit a full review. But, they still deserve to be acknowledged. What follow are my mini-reviews of four such movies. Any or all of these are good choices for the Halloween season.

Hocus Pocus (1993): Classic Halloween fun from the ‘90s. Reminds me a little of the Wishbone special of the same era, expanded into a full-length film. A great one to watch every year.

Beetlejuice (1988): Typical Tim Burton. Parts very funny, parts in questionable taste, parts just bizarre. Arguably, the titular character is the weakest part of the film. Still, it’s a reasonably enjoyable horror comedy as long as you don’t mind a few scenes that feel like a fever dream on acid.

Coraline (2009): Another one I found out about from Lydia Schoch’s list of horror movies for those who don’t like horror. It features gorgeous animation and an excellent message, as the young protagonist finds herself confronted with making a Faustian decision. It contains good lessons for adults and children alike. It’s rated PG, but I wouldn’t want anyone under 12 watching it.

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947): This is a supernatural romance rather than horror, but still has one of the best and funniest haunting scenes I’ve ever seen. Also, the atmosphere of the little seaside cottage is wonderful, and Rex Harrison was fantastic, as always.

Now, the question is, will I be able to write a proper full-length review of some scary movie in time for next week? Has the quality of scary movies deteriorated so thoroughly that there’s nothing left except disgusting slasher garbage and what MAD Magazine called “Devil flicks”? Or will I be able to find something worthwhile in time to save Halloween? Stay tuned.

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Look, I know this book is about American football, and I know most of my readers couldn’t care less about American football. But hear me out, okay? Because this post isn’t really about football. I mean, there will be references to some football-related matters, but you can skim past those if you want. No, this post is actually about something deeper, more essential… this post is about aesthetics.

What do I mean by that? Time will tell. For now, let me begin by summarizing: Paul Brown was the coach of the Cleveland Browns, who dominated the sport during the 1950s. Brown’s teams racked up records and championships during the first few decades of their existence. Until a new team owner, Art Modell, took over and fired Brown after a few bad years.

Like Coriolanus, Brown decided to raise a team of his own in the south, and take his revenge. And thus the Cincinnati Bengals were born in 1968, and instantly became a major rival of the Browns. Throughout the ’70s and ’80s, the Bengals and Browns met twice a year, usually with one team having something to play for and the other merely playing out the string on a lost season. Oddly, surprisingly often, the team with nothing to play for would win.

The ’80s were peak years for the rivalry, with both teams enjoying considerable success during the decade, although neither ever managed to win the Super Bowl. Twice, the Bengals fell short to San Francisco 49er teams coached by a former assistant coach of theirs, Bill Walsh.

And then, in 1991, Paul Brown died, and the two teams collapsed. The Bengals became a perennial joke throughout the ’90s and the Browns–well, remember that Modell fellow from before? He packed up and moved the team to Baltimore, rebranding as the Ravens. Not until 1999 would Cleveland be granted a new team, with the colors and records of the old Browns, but most certainly not the tradition of winning.

And this is Knight’s thesis: the Bengals and Browns are haunted by the man who essentially created them both. Somewhere out there in the ether, the ghost of Paul Brown hovers over them, looking down with grim disapproval at his once-proud teams. Neither can succeed until this angry spirit is appeased.

Of course, this is all a manner of speaking, in the grand tradition of sports curses. There are plenty of obvious materialistic explanations for the Bengals’ and Browns’ many failures. Although, there are some things that do strain probability…

This book was published in 2018, and since then both teams have enjoyed some success. The Browns finally broke their playoff-less streak in 2020, and the Bengals actually made it to the Super Bowl in 2021. (Losing, it must be noted, in very much the same way they did to the 49ers in 1988.) So perhaps the curse is lifting. But can it really be said to be ended until at least one of these teams holds aloft the Vince Lombardi trophy?

Knight’s prose is light and enjoyable, and he has a knack for clever phrasing and for highlighting amusing instances of ironic misfortune in the histories of both clubs, of which there are many. I’m pretty well-versed in football trivia, but I still learned a few new factoids.

All well and good, you say; but why am I dedicating one of my October blog posts, normally reserved for reviewing Halloween-related stories, to this book?

Watch this clip of the Browns/Bengals game from Halloween of last year. You don’t need to know a thing about football. All you need to know is that it’s Halloween night, and two teams whose colors are orange and brown and orange and black, are battling it out under the lights, amid a sea of roaring fans, many of whom are rigged out in costumes befitting All Hallows’ Eve.

The whole spectacle is weird and eerie, and, I’d argue, perfect for Halloween. The NFL should make it a tradition: every year, on the Thursday, Sunday, or Monday night closest to October 31st, the Bengals play the Browns. It’s really the perfect uniform combination for the occasion.

Now, it’s true that other teams, including the Broncos, Bears, and Dolphins have orange in their uniforms. (And indeed, the Bengals played a memorably weird game against the Dolphins on Halloween a decade ago.)  But only the Bengals and Browns have that added (pumpkin?) spice of being arch-rivals. The memories of past triumphs and defeats echoing in every hit; the vaguely Biblical theme of two feuding brothers, and the added passion of the costumed fans, all combine to make a potent brew for epic gridiron madness.

And, in my opinion, football is as much a part of the Halloween season as jack-o’-lanterns and candy. Granted, I live smack dab in the middle of the state where the sport was effectively invented, but it is impossible to imagine midwestern Autumn without the thwack of offensive and defensive lines smashing together, seeing replica jerseys everywhere, team banners and pennants flying amid the Halloween decorations, and hearing the Monday morning radio shows buzzing about how the season is going. There’s a reason why, when I wrote a short story as a love-letter to the Halloween season, I had to include a scene at a football game.

And, as some of you may know, I am not even primarily a fan of either of these teams. (Though I will always have some fondness for the Bengals.) My team plays further north, and is more associated with the “something of winter in their faces” that  John Facenda once spoke of, than with the warm orange-and-brown hues of Autumn. Yet, my judgment remains the same: the Bengals and Browns are the perfect Halloween teams.

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This is a parody of the Edgar Allan Poe-inspired Roger Corman/Vincent Price films. It stars Elvira as… Elvira. All right, so technically the actress is named Cassandra Peterson, but she really does have a unique persona when she dons the black wig. (If you don’t know who Elvira is, well, I think the poster pictured here gives you a pretty good idea of what she’s all about.)

Anyway, Elvira is on her way to open a revue in Paris when she and her servant Zou Zou are picked up by a coach traveling through the Carpathian Mountains. The coach’s passenger is a charming man named Dr. Bradley, who is bound for the remote Castle Hellsubus, the inhabitants of which are all suffering from mysterious neuroses brought on by the family curse.

Elvira handles the situation with her trademark campy, vampy, valley-girl cluelessness, which is amusing enough. What really makes the thing tick, however, are the supporting cast, all of whom do a great job in their roles as stock characters straight out of a Gothic melodrama. But Scott Atkinson as Dr. Bradley just about steals the show with his uncanny channeling of Vincent Price. He absolutely nails Price’s distinctive mannerisms and tone.

There are spoofs of most of the classic Poe horrors, from The Cask of Amontillado to the crumbling mansion of The Fall of the House of Usher to The Pit and the Pendulum. No points for guessing how Elvira deals with that situation.

Admittedly, your enjoyment of the film may depend to a degree on how much humor you feel can be derived from the basic premise “this woman has large breasts.” Because they, er, milk that joke for all it’s worth, and then some. But for me, the real humor is how well the film manages to mimic the atmosphere of the Poe/Corman/Price series, while also poking affectionate fun at it. There are some genuinely creepy scenes in it–at least, until Elvira’s antics turn them into music hall routines.

If you like the Corman films, as I do, you’ll probably get a kick out of this one. It’s clear that everyone involved was having fun and had great admiration for their source material, and it’s always enjoyable to share a good-natured laugh at something with someone else who appreciates it. In short, the movie is better than it really had any business being.

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Brace up, my friends! Today’s review will be a long one, because today’s book, although small in terms of length, contains vast concepts. Concepts which a mere critic probably cannot adequately address. But, I feel compelled to try anyway. Really, the best decision you could make would be to get this book now and read it before Halloween. Then, come back and read this review if you want. Or better yet, write your own! This is one of those books that I suspect will inspire strong feelings in readers. Lydia Schoch, to whom I owe thanks for bringing this book to my attention, already wrote one yesterday, and I encourage you to read it.

So, what is this book about? Well, as you likely guessed, it’s about a 25 year-old woman named Samantha, born in Ohio and now living in New York City, which she imagined would be glamorous, but is finding her life lacking in purpose and direction. She is unhappy, but she cannot pinpoint exactly why.

Among other things, this book is about millennial angst. The millennials are the generation born between approximately 1981-1996, which makes Samantha one of the last ones.

If you are a millennial, as I am, you probably know what I mean by “millennial angst.” If you’re not, you might be skeptical of this whole phenomenon. And I can’t blame you. It is possible every generation experiences these growing pains, and imagines themselves to be unique when in reality they’re just like their parents, and their grandparents, and so on. When Don McLean sang of “A generation Lost in Space / With no time left to start again,” he wasn’t singing about millennials. But he might as well have been.

So, maybe it’s unfair to call it “millennial angst.” But whatever you call it, this book captures it.

Now, possibly, you are getting nervous. You might be asking yourself, “Is this book part of that sub-genre of literary fiction known as ‘Spoiled People Who Are Unhappy In Vague and Complicated Ways?'” This is a very popular sub-genre among pretentious literary critics and scholars. I hold F. Scott Fitzgerald responsible for this, as his beautifully-written but soulless novel The Great Gatsby taught generations of writers that this is what fiction is supposed to be like.

Gatsby is about unhappy people in New York. Samantha, 25, on October 31 is also about unhappy people in New York. Gatsby is full of symbolism. Perhaps someday the literary critics will get their hands on Samantha, 25, and then they’ll say it’s full of symbolism, too. And perhaps it is, but here at Ruined Chapel we rarely employ such modes of analysis.

Anyway, let me actually answer the question: is this one of those books? No, it isn’t. You might think it is, since it shares common elements, but no. This book is something very different. It is much stranger and much more powerful than that.

Samantha dreams of rediscovering the magic of Halloweens of her childhood. Somehow it slipped away, without her even being aware of it, and now it’s gone and the world is drab and humdrum. This book, then, is not in the tradition of Gatsby, but of Something Wicked This Way Comes and even of Lovecraft’s more esoteric works. I particularly thought of the opening of his never-completed novel Azathoth:

When age fell upon the world, and wonder went out of the minds of men; when grey cities reared to smoky skies tall towers grim and ugly, in whose shadow none might dream of the sun or of Spring’s flowering meads; when learning stripped earth of her mantle of beauty, and poets sang no more save of twisted phantoms seen with bleared and inward looking eyes; when these things had come to pass, and childish hopes had gone away forever, there was a man who traveled out of life on a quest into spaces whither the world’s dreams had fled.

And here, I have written myself into a corner and given lie to my own thesis. Namely, by showing that H.P. Lovecraft, who was about as antithetical to the values of my generation as it is possible to be, nevertheless was feeling some angst of his own.

It is entirely possible that writers in every generation are like this. It may be just some weird mutation that keeps cropping up. We can’t rule out this possibility.

Why is it, do you suppose, that these mystical, irrational ideas persist? What spirit is it that moves Samantha to wish for “spooktacular Halloween adventure?” Is it just the whims of idle youth? Or is it… something else?

We’ll return to this question. But in the meantime, we’ve got to talk about Halloween itself.

What, exactly, is Halloween about? For comparison, think about what every other holiday is about. Every Western holiday I can think of can be traced to something specific, and commemorates a particular thing, whether it’s an actual event, a person, a myth, a miracle, or something of the sort.

Halloween… doesn’t. At least, nothing specific. It’s the night before the Day of the Dead, which, under various names, is the day of remembrance of departed ancestors. But even that’s not Halloween.

Halloween itself is about the mystery of what lurks in the darkness. It’s celebrated when it is because the days are getting shorter, and the sun is sinking lower, and frankly, this was just a rough time of year if you were a pagan farmer. Your thoughts probably weren’t of a cheerful sort during this time.

Of all holidays, Halloween is the most closely associated with the mysterious and the unknown. And, I would contend, it is the holiday that most closely binds us to a darker, more primitive age, when, as HPL might say, “wonder was still in the minds of men.” (And women, too. Like I said, ol’ Howard wasn’t really up to speed with our modern values.)

And now, we’re in a position to evaluate what Samantha wants, and why Halloween is the catalyst for making her want it. As Samantha says at the climax of the book:

“I spent an awful lot of the past two decades and change just kind of following the rules, keep your head down, jump through hoops, impress the teacher, check every box and go to a good school and check the boxes there and now, whoops, that’s all crap because you do that and you work an essential starvation-wage job selling five different kinds of kombucha and no one gives a shit and nothing matters and soon enough society collapses and the best that the people in charge can tell you is keep following the rules.”

I understand if you’re agnostic about the concept of millennial angst. Yet, if it exists at all, this is surely as perfect a summary of it as was ever put to the page.

And that is why Samantha finds herself standing with a bunch of witches around a fire on Halloween night. Because she is tired of following the rules and jumping through the hoops.

It’s a night when rules are broken, and the world seems a little less rote and a little more mysterious.

Friends, the world is not a spreadsheet. It can’t be neatly and efficiently organized, at least not without resorting to methods ripped from dystopian novels. There must always be a sense of indescribable magic in life, or else it’s not really life at all.

Samantha, 25, on October 31 is a great book. There’s no rubric I can use to articulate why, no arithmetic formula I can point to and say, “Ah, there! That is what makes it great!” Only it is, because it has the power to say things I always thought, but never could articulate, even to myself.

Of course, you might disagree. Maybe you’ll read it, and look at me the way I look at people who tell me Gatsby is the Great American Novel. Every book really is like the cave on Dagobah in The Empire Strikes Back: What’s in it? “Only what you take with you.”

Therefore, I advise you to bring with you the spirit of Halloween; the feeling of curiosity and wonder that all of us keep somewhere in ourselves, and let yourself get lost in the magic of this weird and wonderful holiday.

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Just when I thought I couldn’t get any more dazzled by Zachary Shatzer powers of comedic storytelling, he goes and writes a cozy zombie apocalypse story.

Shatzer’s recent book The Beach Wizard cemented his place on my Mount Rushmore of comic novelists. It’s a fantastic mixture of absurd comedy and stoic philosophy. I’ve read it twice since it debuted in August. Everyone should read it.

But, anyway; about this book. It’s the third book in Shatzer’s series of cozy mystery parodies, starring amateur sleuth Roberta Smith, her cat Mr. Bigfluff, and their idyllic (aside from the surprisingly frequent murders) town of Quaintville.

You have to read the first two books in the series to get the most out of this one, but as they’re all extremely short, this shouldn’t be a problem. You can read the whole series in about an hour.

Now, I’ll admit to the possibility that this particular brand of parody might not be for everybody. You have to be familiar with the cozy mystery genre to get why it’s funny. I suppose if you’ve never heard of cozy mysteries before, you’ll find it a bit baffling. But then again, who hasn’t heard of cozy mysteries?

Additionally, an Indie-Skeptic may argue that the books are (a) very short or (b) contain typos. I have seen these arguments made many times by readers who hesitate or outright refuse to spend money on indie books.  Sometimes at the same time, which doesn’t even make sense. It’s like the old joke about the restaurant where the food is terrible and the portions are too small.

The argument that a book is too short doesn’t hold up. You’re not paying for the words, you’re paying for the effect they produce.

As for the typos, I’ve pretty much reached a point as a reader where I hardly notice them, unless they actively impede my understanding. Yes, of course, in an ideal world, there would be no typos, and all spelling and grammar would be perfectly uniform. But we’re not in an ideal world, and this is far from the main reason why.

One of my hobbies is reading old books, especially those from my favorite historical period, the American Revolution. One thing I quickly noticed was that spelling was very much an inexact science in those days. George Washington himself struggled mightily with orthography.

The snobs of the world who sneer at typos in indie books would no doubt say, if transported back to Colonial America, “This man’s letters be full of errors most grievous against our Common Tongue. Hark ye, sirs and ladies, never could he lead a ∫ucce∫sful revolution against the Crown of England!”

Or words to that effect. But old George seemed to do all right for his country, and Zachary Shatzer has done all right for the art of writing comic fiction. Like I said at the outset, folks: Mount Rushmore.

Shatzer’s books never fail to make me laugh out loud, and this one is great for getting in the Halloween spirit. (Not that I need help with that, but…) I highly recommend it.

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This is like a Hallmark Christmas romance, but for Halloween. This, in my opinion, is exactly what the world needs. Halloween is associated with horror fiction, and rightly so, but there is no reason for it to be exclusively the holiday of horror.

There’s nothing wrong with horror. I like horror. (Slasher stories I could do without.) But a Halloween story need not be a horror story by definition. Halloween is a holiday with room for all sorts of stories.

Did you know that ghost stories used to be a Christmas tradition? It’s true, though nowadays the only surviving relic of that custom is A Christmas Carol.  And if the Victorians could tell ghost stories at Christmas, why can’t we tell romance stories at Halloween?

This story has black cats, costumes, and a classic boy-meets-girl love story. Does it reinvent the romance genre? No, but it doesn’t need to. When you read a story like this, you want the feeling of familiar coziness you get sipping warm cider on a brisk October evening, looking at the sun setting over a pumpkin patch.

Or something like that. Experienced Halloween aficionados will no doubt have their own ideal atmosphere to conjure the required mood. Something Whiskered This Way Comes is a perfect, non-scary way to get into the holiday spirit.

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Before I talk about Carmilla, I must first introduce you to its author, J. Sheridan Le Fanu. Le Fanu is not a household name today. It is my personal belief that this is to the great detriment of the world of horror fiction, and to restore the field to health, we should recognize his contribution to it. Of course, I’m biased. Le Fanu wrote the first short story that truly scared me, “Green Tea.” To this day I can’t hear the words “green tea” without thinking of it.

So allow me to quote from a theoretically neutral source, Wikipedia, describing his works:

“He specialised in tone and effect rather than “shock horror” and liked to leave important details unexplained and mysterious. He avoided overt supernatural effects: in most of his major works, the supernatural is strongly implied but a “natural” explanation is also possible.”

Ah, one of my own authorial dreams is that someday the same might be said of my works. I admire this style, and I too, in my own horror writing, tried to “leave important details unexplained and mysterious.” But of course, I was only a foolish apprentice and so the effect was to leave readers confused and disappointed. It is not a tool that just anybody can pick up and use effortlessly; but it requires the careful touch of a master. Le Fanu was such a master, and that is why his works deserve to be read.

Now, then… Carmilla.

Carmilla purports to be from the casebook of Dr. Hesselius, Le Fanu’s “occult detective.” It is told from the perspective of a teenaged girl named Laura, who lives in a castle in Styria. She’s been eagerly looking forward to a visit from a friend of her father’s, General Spielsdorf, because he has a niece her own age. But, the general’s niece falls ill and dies. In his grief, he sends Laura’s father a strange letter, cursing some nameless evil which he blames for his niece’s death.

One night, while out for a walk with her father, a carriage crashes in a river on their property. Inside is a young woman about Laura’s age. Her mother hastily explains she is on a journey of great importance, and can’t wait for her daughter, Carmilla, to recover. Laura’s father offers to let the the young woman stay at his home to recuperate.

Laura and Carmilla quickly become friends. After being cooped up alone so long, Laura is delighted to have someone to spend time with, though Carmilla is not without her eccentricities. She rises very late in the day, and is frequently referred to as “languid.”

Illustration by David Henry Friston for “Carmilla”

Meanwhile, a mysterious disease ravages the nearby village, with many townspeople dying with symptoms which include visions of evil visitors in the night. Eventually, Laura herself begins to show signs of the illness.

General Spielsdorf finally arrives for his long-delayed visit, and describes the circumstances of his beloved niece’s death. It seems a beautiful visitor, named Millarca, had come to stay in his home after he met with her mother at a social function. Soon after, strange things began to happen…

I think you can see where this is going. The general sees Carmilla, and instantly recognizes her as the monster who killed his niece. In his research, he has discovered she is the long-dead Mircalla, Countess Karnstein. With the help of a local vampire hunter, the general and Laura’s father, find the vampires grave and destroy the creature in the manner prescribed by tradition. But as the final line of the story suggests, Laura remains haunted by the memory of Carmilla for the rest of her life.

It’s a suspenseful, atmospheric and haunting story. All the tropes are there that we recognize from Dracula, but in a much more concentrated and, in my opinion, more powerful form.

You might be thinking, “Well, did Le Fanu just do a gender swap of Dracula and call it a story? Not impressed.” Yeah, see… Carmilla was written 25 years before Dracula, and it’s well-known to have influenced Stoker while he was writing the novel. I would not accuse Stoker of ‘copying’ as such, as much of the commonalities between the books are just tropes of Gothic fiction. But if anyone were to be accused of copying, it’s Bram, not Sheridan, who gets called to the principal’s office. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, though, and if Stoker wanted to write a book like Carmilla, all I can say is he had good taste.

So, then, is there any subtext to Carmilla? Any at all?

She used to place her pretty arms about my neck, draw me to her, and laying her cheek to mine, murmur with her lips near my ear, “Dearest, your little heart is wounded; think me not cruel because I obey the irresistible law of my strength and weakness; if your dear heart is wounded, my wild heart bleeds with yours. In the rapture of my enormous humiliation I live in your warm life, and you shall die—die, sweetly die—into mine. I cannot help it; as I draw near to you, you, in your turn, will draw near to others, and learn the rapture of that cruelty, which yet is love; so, for a while, seek to know no more of me and mine, but trust me with all your loving spirit.”

And when she had spoken such a rhapsody, she would press me more closely in her trembling embrace, and her lips in soft kisses gently glow upon my cheek.

This is the thing about vampire fiction. You can pretty much take anything from any aspect of vampire mythology, and append “… of course, really it’s all about sex.” and you’re well on your way to having a publishable academic treatise. My contention is that not every single thing in every vampire story needs to be about sex. Sometimes, a vampire is just a vampire. However, in Carmilla it’s significant enough that I suppose a few words are neccesary.

It’s clear that Laura and Carmilla have a certain relationship, and it’s a relationship that prudish Victorian authorities would not approve of. And, in fact, don’t approve of.

However, unlike with Dracula, I don’t think you can say that Carmilla’s vampirism is supposed to be a metaphor for some other urge. I say that because it’s, like, very obvious what these urges are. If Le Fanu felt the need to mask it with a metaphor, he wouldn’t have also made it so apparent.

My own interpretation may strike you as laughably simplistic, but I just don’t see the lesbianism as related to the vampirism. Carmilla is a lesbian who happens to be a vampire. Or maybe more accurately, a vampire who happens to be a lesbian? I dunno. Anyway, the point is, the two traits aren’t really related. At least, I don’t think Le Fanu is saying they are. If anything, it’s just a handy plot device to have them both be female, since to the Victorian mindset, having two women hanging around together would attract less suspicion.

And that’s pretty much all I have to say about that. Judging by the lists on Wikipedia, any work of fiction involving a female vampire seems to claim inheritance from Carmilla, even if it’s only of the “Vampire Sorority Babes” variety.

But there’s so much more to Carmilla than that! It’s just a good story, Freudian analysis aside. Moreover, as an antecedent to Dracula, it has put us one step closer to answering the questions raised in earlier posts: what was the first vampire story? And what was the original impetus for the vampire myth?

As far as finding the first vampire story, the trail starts to run colder before Carmilla. There’s The Vampyre, by John William Polidori, and the interminable 1840s penny dreadful Varney the Vampire, but Le Fanu’s main source seems to have been the works of an 18th century Benedictine monk named Augustin Calmet, specifically his Treatise on the Apparitions of Spirits and on Vampires or Revenants of Hungary, Moravia, et al. 

Forgive me for dwelling a little on this book when I’m supposed to be reviewing Carmilla, but it’s a fascinating work in its own right. It may sound bizarre to modern readers, but put yourself in Calmet’s shoes. Imagine you wanted to invent Snopes, except it’s the 18th century and your only authoritative reference source is the Bible. It would be tough.

Calmet reports that these “revenans are called by the name of oupires or vampires,” and that:

 “Antiquity certainly neither saw nor knew anything like it. Let us read through the histories of the Hebrews, the Egyptians, the Greeks and the Latins; nothing approaching to it will be met with.”

Calmet has a very confident, “just the facts” manner to him. Lest you think he’s just credulous simpleton, let this passage demonstrate that he is trying to write a serious work separating fact from fiction here, and has no time for nonsense:

“The imagination of those who believe that the dead chew in their graves, with a noise similar to that made by hogs when they eat, is so ridiculous that it does not deserve to be seriously refuted.”

His chapter titles are also very to-the-point, as he deals with each type of case in turn, e.g. Chapter II: “On the Revival of Persons Who Were Not Really Dead.”

Le Fanu seems to have drawn much of the inspiration for his story from this book. In particular, the method of destroying the vampire seems taken almost verbatim from Calmet’s reports.

But given that vampires don’t, you know, exist, what is the meaning of the vampire myth? Why is it so popular? There must be a reason, right?

Prepare yourselves, we are about to go deeper into philosophy than ever before on a Ruined Chapel by Moonlight. I did not know where this series would go when I first began, but I hate to disappoint my readers, and if providing a satisfactory answer to the vampire question means things have to get weird, so be it.

All human existence may be viewed as a constant struggle against death. This is less obvious to us, in our modern, comfortable lives than it would have been in say, the Victorian era or before, but death is always there. The further back you go, the more formidably its presence looms.

In some sense, therefore, every human activity is a way of coping with the inevitability of death. We do not see it as such, and in many cases, the link is not a direct one. But religion, fiction, philosophy and so on are all essentially meditations on what to do about death.

This is probably one reason that the constant emphasis on sex in vampire fiction annoys me. Yeah, there’s a sexual element; sure. But there is a way more significant element that deals with death. Modern Western attitudes about sex are very different than Victorian ones. A modern and a Victorian talking about sexual mores would scarcely even understand one another.

But death? Everyone, from Bram Stoker to me, we all have (or had, in Bram’s case) that hanging over us. Like Warren Zevon sang, “The doctor is in, and he’ll see you now / He don’t care who you are.”

Vampire stories are about death. However, vampires do not represent death. Vampires are rather those who have attempted to cheat death. In a sense, they too are victims. For example, this passage from early in Carmilla:

As we sat thus one afternoon under the trees a funeral passed us by. It was that of a pretty young girl, whom I had often seen, the daughter of one of the rangers of the forest. The poor man was walking behind the coffin of his darling; she was his only child, and he looked quite heartbroken. Peasants walking two-and-two came behind, they were singing a funeral hymn.

I rose to mark my respect as they passed, and joined in the hymn they were very sweetly singing.

My companion shook me a little roughly, and I turned surprised.

She said brusquely, “Don’t you perceive how discordant that is?”

“I think it very sweet, on the contrary,” I answered, vexed at the interruption, and very uncomfortable, lest the people who composed the little procession should observe and resent what was passing.

I resumed, therefore, instantly, and was again interrupted. “You pierce my ears,” said Carmilla, almost angrily, and stopping her ears with her tiny fingers. “Besides, how can you tell that your religion and mine are the same; your forms wound me, and I hate funerals. What a fuss! Why you must die —everyone must die; and all are happier when they do. Come home.”

“My father has gone on with the clergyman to the churchyard. I thought you knew she was to be buried to-day.”

“She? I don’t trouble my head about peasants. I don’t know who she is,” answered Carmilla, with a flash from her fine eyes.

“She is the poor girl who fancied she saw a ghost a fortnight ago, and has been dying ever since, till yesterday, when she expired.”

“Tell me nothing about ghosts. I shan’t sleep to-night, if you do.”

“I hope there is no plague or fever coming; all this looks very like it,” I continued. “The swineherd’s young wife died only a week ago, and she thought something seized her by the throat as she lay in her bed, and nearly strangled her. Papa says such horrible fancies do accompany some forms of fever. She was quite well the day before. She sank afterwards, and died before a week.”

“Well, her funeral is over, I hope, and her hymn sung; and our ears shan’t be tortured with that discord and jargon. It has made me nervous. Sit down here, beside me; sit close; hold my hand; press it hard—hard—harder.”

Of course, the main reason Carmilla is so nervous about this funeral is presumably because she knows all about the “ghost” the poor girl saw. But I think her obvious discomfort at funeral rites is more than just that. It’s also that Carmilla genuinely fears death, which is why she continues to exist as the abomination she is rather than face it.

I put it to you, then, that the real motif of these stories is the attempt to reconcile ourselves to the inevitability of death. And that’s why they resonate with us. The constant struggle against the universal law of entropy is the ultimate uniting force in storytelling. We all relate to it; we all understand it. Even the vampires understand it, for have they not sought to prolong their lives by unnatural means for fear of it?

Vampires do not represent death. They represent our fear of death. They are the seductive desire to give into our fear. To lie to ourselves, to pretend to something we are not. That’s why we all recognize the temptation. Vampire stories are ultimately about coming to terms with our own mortality.

But that, of course, is just my take. You may well see it differently. And of course, not all vampire stories are created equal. By this metric, Twilight isn’t even a vampire story at all, and not just because the blighters sparkle.

I struggle, though, to come up with a more plausible reason for why these same concepts resonate across different times and settings. The art of storytelling is in spinning a tale that speaks to people, and there’s nothing like fear of death to do that.

Of course, to bring all this back around to the very beginning, did Bram Stoker, or Sheridan Le Fanu, or anyone else for that matter, think about any of this stuff when they sat down to write? I’ll bet you they didn’t. Nobody would ever consciously set out to write a complex allegory about death. Rather, they wanted to tell a good story, and in doing so, tapped into ideas that are universal in the human experience.

[Audio version of this post available below.]