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Reading the Vampire Slayer: The Unofficial Critical Companion to Buffy and Angel (Tauris Parke Paperbacks)

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"Reading the Vampire Slayer" is a critical appreciation of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" from those living in their proverbial ivory towers but glued to their tube for "BtVS." This collection of 10 essays focuses on seasons 1-5 of Buffy, 1-2 of Angel, and as the spelling of some of the words in some of these titles will tell you, a lot of these authors are British:

1. Roz Kaveney, "She Saved the World. A Lot: An Introduction to the themes and structure of 'Buffy' and 'Angel'" is the first and most fan friendly essay in this collection. Looking at character clusters and season structures, Kaveney does a nice job of articulating what most fans of "BtVS" have intuited regarding why the show works and works so well. The key section of the essay books at each season of "BtVS" in turn from the perspective of Big Bads and Emotional Traumas. This is the perfect introductory essay for this collection because it makes a clear case for how patterns and meaning become significant in this series. The only problem is that as the most comprehensive look at "BtVS" in this collection, readers (whether academicians or fans) will find all the rest of these efforts pale in comparison.

2. Boyd Tonkin, "Entropy as Demon: Buffy in Southern California," might have the most erroneous title of the bunch because the article focuses much more on So Cal than notions of entropy. Whereas "Angel" deals more explicitly with the cultural mythology of Los Angeles, "BtVS" creates a fictional local with Sunnydale that Tonkin argues "gives a fresh, and quite distinctive, twist to a strain of Southern Californian suburban noir that has flourished at least since the 1930s." However, the best parts of this essay look at the way "BtVS" confronts genre cliches and typologies.

3. Brian Wall and Michael Zryd, "Vampire Dialectics: Knowledge, Institutions and Labour" looks at the battles of Buffy and Angel with supernatural creatures as allegorical battles with the very logic or modernity. Writing in the tradition of Walter Benjamin and Fredric Jameson, this essay might be a struggle for many readers, but there are a couple of very interesting sections in which they look at the death of Joyce as the first "real" death in the series (all others being essentially "symbolic") and look at the evolution of Giles's character.

4. Steve Wilson, "Laugh, Spawn of Hell, Laugh," focuses on the jokes in Buffy and not just Xander's lame jokes but also the larger humor of casting adolescent growing pains as externalized demons. Wilson goes to great pains to catalogue the times of "time-honoured buffoonery" that abound on the show, making connections to the comic impulse in history from William Shakespeare to David Letterman with extensive dialogue examples. This essay might be much ado about nothing, but it will probably be one of the more enjoyable ones for readers.

5. Karen Sayer, "It Wasn't Our World Anymore--They Made It Theirs: Reading Space and Place," looks at the concept of Home on both "BtVS" and "Angel." Sayer is particularly interested in how the group on each soul takes over the space of a specific individual (e.g., Giles in terms of the library, his apartment and the Magic Box on "BtVS"). However, Occam's razor reminds us that
these shows have "x" number of sets and building/finding/using news ones costs money. Just keep that particular grain of salt in mind while you read this one.

6. Zoe-Jane Playden's "'What You Are, What's To Come': Feminism, citizenship, and the divine" starts off with the idea that important aspects of Virginia Woolf's seminal feminist manifesto are reflected in "BtVS." Playden uses the metaphor of Buffy on patrol to explore some pretty heavy philosophical notions and deals most explicitly with Christian imagery and Buffy's spirituality. I think this is probably the most ambitious essay in the collection.

7. Anne Millard Daugherty's "Just a Girl: Buffy as Icon" is concerned with how Buffy exists as a "post-gaze" product (i.e., she functions as a "feminist spectator icon"). Daugherty looks at the episodes "Beauty and the Beasts," "Family," and "Buffy vs. Dracula" to argue that no matter how cute Buffy is, she remains an icon for female representation.

8. Dave West's "'Concentrate on the kicking movie': "Buffy" and East Asian Cinema" argues that "BtVS" draws thematically on the entire tradition of East Asian cinema while using those themes in a decidedly different context. However, surprisingly West draws more upon the films of Akira Kurosawa, most notably "Seven Samurai" and "Yojimbo," rather than the Hong Kong martial art films that seem an obvious reference point. The more you know Kurosawa, the more you will enjoy this essay.

9. Esther Saxey's "Staking a Claim: The Series and Its Slash Fan-Fiction," is the essay that may well send the more innocent Buffy viewers who have stumbled across this book running to the hill. Slash is a genre of fan-fiction in which the relationships between characters are developed along overtly loving and sexual lines (i.e., a different interpretation for all that tension between Spike and Xander). However, the key point of Saxey's essay is how the series actually invites such interpretations. The "gay" subtext of Buffy's "coming out" as a Slayer to her mom was particularly interesting as was her exploration of the Buffy-Faith dynamic. This essay actually devotes relatively little time to actual examples of slash stories.

10. Ian Shuttleworth's "''They always mistake me for the character I play!': Transformation, identity and role-playing in the Buffyverse (and a defence of fine acting)", makes the compelling argument that actors in genre shows are called upon for greater complexity of performance than do most naturalistic dramas. This essay examines the complexity of identity as a major thread in both series, with some solid analysis of Xander, Willow and Giles.

There are some nice critical insights into "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" in this volume, and I think that overall, despite the academic verbiage, most of the show's fans will be able to follow along.

I can't begin to describe what it was like to get this as a Christmas present a couple of years ago. As a confirmed Buffy addict and a modern lit major, there were times where the "watch Buffy" parties lasted much longer than my friends could stand because I wanted to TALK ABOUT THE SHOW. Finally here was a volume of people who were just like me - well, maybe better educated and clear spoken, but you get the idea.

If you're new to a show that's was on the air for 7 or so seasons, and like a little light theory, I'd advocate getting this book simply to put in perspective what all of those crazies are talking about. While every essay may not strike a chord, some of them will begin the painful process of explaining just why there are a number of fanatics out there who will watch this silly main character fulfill improbably plot lines till the very end. Read She saved the world. A lot. - An introduction to the themes and structures of Buffy and Angel. Don't skip it. It's the most important one for you.

And for those of you who loved the show in the good old days but can't watch it past season three (because that's when it started to get bad), there's plenty of material here for you as well. Most of the discussions center around the early years - with good reason. That's when the identity of the show was forming itself and so many of the characteristics that make it so exciting were created. And they do talk about them, with abandon.

Then for everyone who's like me, and watched the show till the bitter end, not just because you didn't have anything else to do on Tuesday nights, but because the characters (even when they were developed badly) and the sequences (even when they become overly dramatic) still had an almost inexpressible draw - you'll love this book because it whets your appetite for more. Each essay will call up just as many memories of watching the show as it does ask some of those questions your non-lit friends just don't want to entertain (or your het friends just don't want to discuss - see Staking a Claim #9).

But in a very real sense, these essays seem like introductions to topics that can be discussed at greater length. Maybe it's simply wishful thinking on my part, but I think almost every chapter could begin it's own book. Maybe someday?

Let's face it: academics are people, too. And like everyday folk, they enjoy being fans. Truth be told, the contributors didn't write these essays so much because they had deep insights into the nature of society, but because they, like me and probably you, love BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER and ANGEL. I don't fault them for this: I praise them.

We are currently seeing a growing number of academic books focusing on Buffy/Angel. I am completely on the fence as to whether this one or the volume edited by Rhonda V. Wilcox and David Lavery--FIGHTING THE FORCES: WHAT'S AT STAKE IN BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER--is the better. Both are superior to the more recent BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER AND PHILOSOPHY: FEAR AND TREMBLING IN SUNNYDALE, edited by James B. South. Interestingly, all the academic studies so far have been anthologies. It will be curious to see if anyone undertakes a book-length study.

For the most part, these essays in this collection are very interesting. I suspect that each individual will respond more or less strongly to various essays. I particularly enjoyed the essays in the first half of the volume, especially "Vampire dialectics: Knowledge, institutions and labour" by Brian Wall and Michael Zyrd. I had a lot less interest in an essay discussing Buffy in terms of East Asian martial arts films. And I must confess that I am utterly baffled by Slash fiction--i.e., fan fiction depicting major characters from television shows in kinky homosexual relationships, a practice that originated in STAR TREK. Personally, the appeal of imaging Xander and Spike as lovers utterly escapes me. The essay dealing with this aspect of Buffy, therefore, failed to engage me. But I acknowledge another reader might prefer those essays that I found dull to those I found invigorating.

What is not debatable is the high quality of the essays as a whole. All anthologies are uneven, either in the abilities of the individual contributors, or in the intrinsic appeal each essay makes to a particular reader. No reader is likely to enjoy all of this collection, but I'd bet that any academically oriented fan of BUFFY and ANGEL will find more than a few to their liking. I heartily recommend this.

I should note that there is a second book with nearly the same title edited by Roz Kaveney scheduled for publication in January of 2004. I am unclear as to whether this will be a reprint or a new, expanded, and updated edition. The pagination for the new book shows it to be longer. At any rate, I would heartily recommend anyone interested in this one to also investigate that book, to determine whether it is a second, distinct volume.

This is a really great collections of essays about Buffy and Angel, but PLEASE NOTE THAT A NEW EDITION IS COMING OUT IN JANUARY 2004. I have been trying to find out more about it, and right now it isn't clear whether they are changing the contents completely, or just allowing the authors to revise their articles. At any rate, I would strongly recommend checking out the contents of the newer volume before getting this earlier edition.

There are many reasons why Buffy the Vampire Slayer has been a successful show for six years, and Roz Kaveney's collection of essays from diverse critics enumerates those reasons. Kaveney's own opening essay is the best of the good lot, demonstrating thematic arcs within seasons (and connecting seasons) and likening them to classical music composition. Other essays include Buffy in slash fan-fiction, Buffy and Kung Fu cinema, set and setting in the show, Capitalism/Commercialism vs. Idealism, and perceptive analyses of actor performances.

Any fan of the show will find new appreciation for its intricacies, and virgins may begin discovering the roots of its popularity. A fascinating read, even for those with no real interest in Buffy, as it pertains also to television in general and pop-culture studies.

For the literary, the overeducated, or just those seeking like minds about how truly truly awesome Buffy can be, this book is great. From discussions about its fractured and fantastically unique dialogue to about a zillion essays on why Buffy isn't a feminist but still kicks guys' all over the screen, you *want* to read this book. Honestly, don't hesitate. I desperately love the critiques on its comedy: "This isn't the blather of kids who can't speak well, it's an honest reflection of the way our increasingly odd and perplexing world eludes easy expression. By pushing language to do what it's not supposed to, these lines capture the sensations and images of modern life that Webster's hasn't caught up with yet." (Wilson)

Most fans of Buffy of the Vampire Slayer don't watch the show for the butt-kicking action or the hottie cast members (though they don't hurt); they watch the show for the high-caliber acting, deep characterization, clever dialogue and inspired plotting - all aspects of the show addressed in this book. With well thought-out, in-depth essays on subjects ranging from feminism to martial arts to the show's mythos, Reading the Vampire Slayer gives a nice overview of the various aspects of this witty show. It certainly gave me a deeper appreciation of the tasty goodness that is Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I should start this review by admitting that I am an unrepantant fan of "Buffy -- The Vampire Slayer" so reading this volume was hardly a chore.

Reading The Vampire Slayer, subtitled "An Unofficial Critical Companion to Buffy and Angel", is definitely one for the more literate Buffy fan. Edited by Roz Kaveney we have a number of essays on various aspects of the Buffy-verse ranging from Kaveney's own piece, a well written but simple essay on the themes and structures of the TV series, through to more academic subjects such as "Vampire Dialectics - knowledge, institutions and labour".

All the essays are well written, though some might be a little too academic in tone for some. Not all, however, are excellent criticisms of Buffy, becoming more academic erudtion using Buffy as an excuse to peddle a line.

Taken as a whole this volume is worth the money, while not excellent it deserves a place as a collection of essays devoted to an interesting TV series and a part of modern culture.

Reading the Vampire Slayer, an Unofficial Critical Companion to Buffy and Angel consists of ten essays covering the varying aspects of both shows. Because of the date when it was written, this volume suffers from the fact that it's dated. The book covers up to season five in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and season two in Angel. Because of this, many of the assumptions and assertions made in this volume are slightly misdirected.

While I thought this volume read better than others, I still wasn't impressed. While I thought the paper on martial arts movies interesting, and the slash topic fascinating, I really felt most of the book could have benefited from some tightening and reading aloud. I found the prose droning, and my eyes wandering the page. A die-hard fan of Buffy, not even the subject matter - one of my favorite television programs - could hold my interest. No, it was only the last few essays that I found interesting.

On a fan level there is so much information, discussion, and speculation about the entire Buffy/Angel universe, that many much better articles have been written by fans and posted online or in various forums. I would advise searching them out, and leave this book only if you're looking for something that reads more like a college textbook.

It is true that this does not contain any new information for Buffy the Vampire Slayer. However, that really isn't the point of the book.
This is more of a references book for any one who wanted to know any thing ( and probably more then you needed to know,) about Buffy.
It is very well organized and easy to read, and understand.
In the very first chapter you learn who the key players are ( ie, Buffy, Willow, Xander, Giles, and etc...) As well as pass relationships and family units.
The book also has a full episode guide through season one to seven. Short description of each episode and it also does this for Angel.
There are also some side notes on script format and tie in notes for ideas for the show.
A helping book for any one who is just getting interested in Buffy, or for one who has been, a lone time fan.