Book Review
Title: A History of the Vampire in Popular Culture: Love at First Bite by Violet Fenn
Genre: Non-Fiction, Popular Culture, Analysis
Rating: 5 Stars
I initially requested this from NetGalley or Edelweiss, possibly both, because as I reader all my life I have quite frequently succumbed to the allure of vampires in literature, in their varying forms. Thinking on this, knowing that vampires at their core are monsters who feed off others, I wondered why we are draw to creatures like vampires and werewolves and not others. What is unique about these creatures that we have developed and further a fascination with them that began centuries ago and these are just some of the questions that Violet Fenn sets out to answer within the book. However, Fenn makes it clear that this isn’t an encyclopaedia but an in-depth analysis on a fascination that has lasted centuries and seen a resurgence in the last 200 or so years.
The opening chapters looks at the historical fascination with vampires and what people believed to have been a vampire before the era of technology and medical advancements that we have now. Obviously, we know that historically things people didn’t understand because of a lack of knowledge or education were treated as demonic or something similar because during these time religious was the ruling force that people lived by. Fenn shows example of the vampire in fiction but differing in looks and personality starting with Byron, how they inspire Mary Shelley and right up to Bram Stoker’s Dracula. A lot of the works she references will be know to a semi well-read reader but the significance behind them might not be and this was intriguing but I can’t wait to get to more recent trends like Twilight and see what Fenn makes of those.
Fenn then takes a left turn from literature to look at vampires wards throughout time, starting with garlic. Now, I didn’t know this is a fairly modern warn against vampires because as we understood more about the human body we connected the fact that certain things that were said to deter vampires like sulphur are found in high concentration in foods like garlic and could therefore ward off a vampiric prescence. However, things like holy water and the sign of the cross are seen to affect vampires because when vampires came to public knowledge people were widely ruled by the church. This gave rise to the idea that since vampires go against God, signs of God and faith would deter the vampire although in modern interpretation of Dracula it is widely assumed that vampires take on the fears of those they consume so those that were religious if a vampire fed from them then they would fear those symbols. In modern takes on vampires these have all but been written out because religion no longer plays a huge role in our lives as it did in the past. Fenn also looks at sunlight and actually speculates that vampires develop an actual medical condition which causes their skin to blister and burn in the sunlight which is why the come out at night but she hasn’t looked at the coffin myth, transformations or other things like that yet.
Fenn then takes another left turn delving into the psychology of the vampire with a focus on sexuality and loneliness as well as the battle for power. We can see that after those early years, vampire became highly sexualised with the rise of Dracula and she even reference both Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey here (that’s Twilight fanfiction if you didn’t know). She talks how sex, fear and power are so intertwined in some aspects that they being to overlap and entwine making it impossible to separate them from the source. However, one aspect of this that I found interesting was her discussion of the loneliness of Dracula, in most versions of the tale, the Count is seeking a companion, the version I know is Mina. He seeks to reclaim his lost love and give her eternity but in the end he can’t bring himself to do that to the woman he loves, thus giving her the power to truly kill him. In the 2020 adaptation, it goes one step further as certain characters are seen to be almost reincarnations of others or that the echoes of their other lives is in their blood and as the current body weakens and dies those older selves come to the surface. In both version, Dracula isn’t alone at the end which was the one thing he has been seeking for the entirety of the story, companionship.
The following segments on vampire morality were ones that I really enjoyed since Fenn references several different pop culture vampires. Obviously, she looks at Dracula himself whose actions are out of loneliness but she goes one step further looking at Lestat from the Vampire Chronicles who is more brutal and finds a sense of freedom in being a vampire having broken out of the mortal chains. The vampires were spend the most time with though during this section are the Cullens from Twilight. While they are vampires, they are still bound to mortal morality leading them to adopt a completely different lifestyle to other vampires and are often looked down upon for this very reason. However, they don’t see themselves are superior since they don’t try and convert others to their lifestyle or force it upon them as we can see in Breaking Dawn when many of their allies are human drinkers and are allowed to continue with this lifestyle with some obvious restrictions for hunting locations. The look at morality was interesting for me since vampires are often portrayed as being less than human aka monsters or they seem to see themselves as above humans aka Gods when neither are the case.
I really liked how Fenn looked at vampires through several different lens and through different mediums as well. She first looks at how vampires can be portrayed as monsters like in Let The Right One In but to the characters involved they aren’t monsters but saviours and that was really interesting. Fenn also looks at how vampires are portrayed in different genres from comedy with the Addams Family to children’s in Sesame Street to more fantasy and romantic in Sookie Stackhouse and Discworld. It is clear that vampires have been portrayed in different ways in different mediums based on the idea of what a vampire is from the people creating the thirst vampires. Fenn also makes sure that we understand that all of these are vampires but not in the traditional sense but it makes you question what does and doesn’t make a vampire especially when in some series like Discworld the vampire don’t even drink blood.
Fenn then dives even deeper into vampire lore as she looks at both the seduction nature and the reality of being immortal. From the view point of a mortal the prospect of immortality is alluring and seductive in some many levels and yet the reality we witness in media like Dracula, Being Human and Twilight shows us it is anything but that and yet we are still drawn to it without knowing why. From the perspective of an immortal, it does grant them certain perks like being able to acquire vast amounts of wealth and learn many skills but become tedious over time and installs a sense of fear in them. This fear of death is present in mortals too but to a lesser degree since we are aware of our mortality and the dichotomy was interesting to see.
Coming to the end of the book, Fenn takes us outside the realm of the vampire to look at goth culture and how that was influenced by the vampire myth and how that culture influenced vampires right back. The ending of speaking to different people about the culture and subcultures involving vampires was really interesting and added a hard human element to the book especially with Stoker’s relatives. Overall, I found A History of the Vampire in Pop Culture to be a great book packed with interesting information pulled from various media and sources. If you ever went through a vampire phase, are still in your vampire phase or just enjoy vampires then definitely check this book out.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
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