Customer Reviews

Carmilla

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"I live in your warm life and you shall die -die, sweetly die- into mine."


Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's "Carmilla" is among the greatest and most influential horror stories ever told. It's a wonder that it hasn't received the mainstream acclaim and notoriety of Bram Stoker's masterpiece Dracula. The tale of a female vampire insinuating herself into a family's midst as a welcomed guest while preying upon their daughter is as timeless as any. I know what you're thinking: she's just a female version of Dracula, right? Well here's the thing about that: Carmilla was published in 1872 and predated her much more famous brother in undeath by a good 25 years. Stoker himself acknowledged the story as a primary influence on his work. So it is Dracula who owes his very existence to the queen vamp. And to this day, the novella remains a compelling read with it's deliberate pacing, first-person narration (also not unlike "Dracula"), and creative subtle horror.

One of my favorite aspects of vampire mythology is the predator who walks among us and feeds upon us in our sleep. Carmilla is the best example of this. The character devises a strategy which allows her to enter the homes of well-to-do families as an invited and welcomed guest due to circumstances which appear to be beyond her control. Using her wit beauty and charm, she becomes as a member of the family and is able to cover her tracks by playing the weak and helpless frightened little girl with odd habits which are easy to overlook. Then she slowly drains her victim night after night, savoring each feeding as one would a sexual affair while supplementing her appetite with the blood of village girls before resting in her grave and returning to her locked room before anyone is aware she has gone. Carmilla's apparent passion for her preferred victims is More then a little lesbian in it's insinuations. She intentionally seeks out beautiful young girls like her and throws herself into a deep and intimate friendship with an intensity that often alarms the object of her affection. While there is no blatant sexual inference made by the author, the innuendo is unmistakable. After all, these sorts of vampire stories are often meant to be somewhat sensual in nature and for their time were about as close as one could get to sexualized material. It's hard to picture somebody wrapping their mouth around your neck without feeling a little twinge of something at the thought. And with two women (or men) involved it's downright scandalous.

While female vampires are typically portrayed as oversexed and domineering, Carmilla stands out as a character whose greatest strength is as an active and vivacious conversationalist and a very girlish intelligent but creature capable of thinking on her feet and beating her prey to the punch. In one rather impressive passage Carmilla is greeted by a girl whom she visited and attempted to prey upon as a young child, she very quickly realizes the danger of recognition and turns the subject around by claiming happily that she once had a dream as a young girl where the same situation unfolded. This places the pressure on the victim, makes the predator seem as innocent as the prey, and gives a rather romantic and adventurous token of a shared dream between the girls to make it seem as though they were destined to meet. This is just brilliant writing. A vampire whose key attribute is her intelligence is a rare thing these days. And while I'm on the subject, the only thing more terrifying then being visited in the night as a child by a girl who vanished when the room was breached would be encountering that exact same girl -completely unchanged- as an adult. Creepy. Another fascinating little twist is that vampires in this story are only able to give their true name or else an anagrammatical pseudonym. Thus Carmilla is known by different names to different people, but all are derived from the same letters. Mircalla was her birth (and death) name, and Marcilla another alias. This is another aspect of the story that has influenced vampire lore to this day. You may be surprised at how many vampire names you read and hear are anagrams once you are aware of this.

To my knowledge, Le Fanu's masterpiece has yet to be fully captured in another medium, but the character has become a standard of vampire mythology regardless. My favorite of the many adaptations is Hammer Studio's The Vampire Lovers, where the story was highly sexualized and the character was transformed into a more intimidating and aggressive figure. It's a loose adaptation, but it's also the best. Two inferior sequels followed. An even looser adaption was Spanish grindhouse classic The Blood Spattered Bride which transformed the story into an exploitative battle of the sexes with mixed results. Carmilla has also been featured in comic books video games and anime, referenced on television, and has inspired unofficial literary and film sequels to her story. Not too shabby for a character only classic horror buffs recognize. But as with all great literary works, nothing ever fully captures the mood and grace of the story in it's purest form.

"Carmilla" is a rare tale of a vampire capable of making anybody love her, but a slave to her own obsessions. Such pleasure she takes from befriending her victims and becoming part of their lives
that she doesn't even seem to care that such habits repeated over multiple households in the same vicinity will inevitably lead to her demise. Perhaps she is just bored and starved for attention and human interaction. Her true motives for her unusual habits are never revealed; simply left to the reader to decide for themself. And while it may have been overshadowed by higher-profile contributions to the genre that were themselves inspired by this work, "Carmilla" stands tall as one of the giants among the many works of vampire fiction well over 130 years after it was published. It is available both as a stand-alone novella and as part of many short story collections including The Penguin Book of Vampire Stories, which no vampire fanatic can live without. However you get it, if you claim to be a follower of the undead you must possess this story.

If you're lucky enough to know nothing about this story, then don't read any descriptions about it! Instead, get your hands on a copy ASAP and read it without any foreknowledge. I knew what the story was about before reading it, and I consider that a spoiler on par with knowing Jekel is turning into Hyde before reading and discovering this in the way the author intended. The story was still very enjoyable, I think I would have enjoyed it even more had the suspense and mystery not already been spoiled for me. Reading Carmilla I can now see where another, far more famous, classic author drew inspiration. The subtly, creeping horror of this book is deliciously spooky. Highly recommended.

Even though author Joseph Sheridan Le Fenu is an esteemed Irish writer of the 19th century, I began this book with trepidation. I'm so accustomed to the dramatic, graphic, face-paced writing of the 20th century that I had my mind set against reading anything too lyrical, flowery or poetic. Certainly I expected to be entertained by any vampire tale, but never expected to be captivated...

How wrong I was! I was not only captivated, I was enchanted...as though Carmilla had placed a spell on me as she had on the main character Laura. (I shudder at the thought...)

Carmilla lures the sweet, innocent young girl with fancy speeches, kisses and loving endearments, but there are enough eerie, creepy scenes to please any lover of good horror. The interaction of Laura and the extremely sensual Carmilla is the main focus of this book, but it's left to an old family friend, General Spielsdorf, to expose Carmilla and effect a satisfactory outcome.

Le Fanu's prose is lush and haunting; subtle in places, emboldened in others. From Laura's first sight of the beautiful vampire Carmilla to her last--when she sees her true, bloodthirsty nature--I couldn't turn the pages fast enough.

It's a pity that this book never received the acclaim of Bram Stoker's "Dracula," especially since Stoker was strongly influenced by "Carmilla," writing his own vampire story twenty-five years later. But as in life, timing is everything, so therein possibly lies the answer.

At any rate, it is one of Le Fanu's best stories, a great book that should be in the library of everyone who loves horror. I truly enjoyed the short time I spent with the well-crafted Laura and Carmilla. Excellent writing...

Reviewed by Betty Dravis, July 4, 2010
Author of "Dream Reachers" (with Chase Von) and other books

The vampire has always been used to convey sexuality -- and one of the earliest ones, the title character of "Carmilla," is no exception. Years before Bram Stoker ever dreamed of Dracula. Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu wove together a luscious, haunting gothic mystery that centers around a lovely, immortal young woman with a taste for blood.

When a mysterious carriage crashes at their schloss, Laura's father offers to take care of a young lady named Carmilla, who has been stunned by the collision. Laura herself is struck by how similar the girl looks to a strange figure that visited her as a child -- and Carmilla claims that they've had some sort of mutual vision of one another.

Even more striking, Carmilla immediately becomes VERY attached to Laura ("You are mine, you shall be mine, you and I are one for ever"), and Laura is strangely entranced by Carmilla's speech.

As the days go by, Laura is increasingly bespelled by Carmilla, despite the young woman's strange behavior (and her weird resemblance to an ancient painting in the schloss, of a woman named Mircalla -- get it?), and is becoming increasingly ill and nervous. But when they visit an old friend, he reveals the shocking truth about Carmilla's true nature... and what she will do to Laura.

"Carmilla" is a true gothic novel in the best sense of the word -- a lushly-written little novella filled with ruined palaces, abandoned villages, moonlight and blood. And Le Fanu injects a not-so-subtle lesbian subtext into the story, since Carmilla seems to be as infatuated with Laura as she is hungry for her blood. Lots of kisses, adoring speeches, and Carmilla constantly creeping into Laura's bedroom.

And Le Fanu's writing is utterly exquisite. He swathes this eerie little story in a ghostly wrap of lush writing ("Over the sward and low grounds a thin film of mist was stealing like smoke, marking the distances with a transparent veil") and some deeply creepy moments, such as Laura waking to see Carmilla covered in blood.

Le Fanu also sketches out his characters quickly and effectively, despite the novella's brevity. Laura is a sweet ordinary girl who seems both weirded out and entranced by Carmilla, and Carmilla herself is a larger-than-life character -- sensual, obsessive, vibrantly erotic and extremely creepy, except when she goes off on crazy rants about how much she hates hymns and funerals.

Stoker brought the vampire into the limelight, but "Carmilla" seductively introduced the vampire's eerie allure long before that. Luscious and eerie.

Seriously, this doesn't get as much attention as it deserves. My interest was first piqued after I had finished reading Dracula and heard that Carmilla was the (female) predecessor of Dracula. Carmilla is a mysterious girl with little words to say about her background who, for a while, because of circumstance, stays with Laura's family. Turns out she's a vampire - she sleeps all day and is awake at night. She sometimes makes advances towards Laura...and Laura sometimes has nightmares of a strange creature entering her bedroom at night. There are creepy scenes in Carmilla, and plenty of suspense for the horror/gothic genre lover.

The title of this review says it all: the story is highly enjoyable, and this novel is historically significant. I recommend it.

Carmilla, told in diary format, is the story of a beautiful woman that comes to live with a family and of course there's a lot more to her than meets the eye. She gets up rather late, never eats, has strange outburst of temper, and of course strange things begin to happen. You guessed it, young women in the area are dying after short bouts of mysterious illnesses and our even intrepid narrator is plagued by strange dreams, or are they?
If this sounds a lot like Dracula, you're right, except Carmilla was written well before Dracula and Stoker credited the book as influencing his. Lucy, Mina and even VanHelsing are all previewed here, even the diary story telling style!
The best parts of the story are the recounting of the daily life with the slow revelation of the strange happenings in the area. I love the vampire living among us, and we don't realize the evil that lurks..has some applications for today, no doubt.
Overall a quick read, barely 100 pages, and very interesting. Well worth it, especially if like me you're a great fan of Stoker's Dracula.