Customer Reviews

Sundays with Vlad: From Pennsylvania to Transylvania, One Man's Quest to Live in the World of the Undead

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I've always been fascinated with Stoker's Dracula novel, but never with any of the movies, books, or countless manifestations of the character he created. I've never understood how the Dracula figure has grown into a pop-culture juggernaut over the last century on the strength of terrible movies, lousy novels, and breakfast cereals. This book addresses all of those issues.

I've never thought of the spread of the Dracula phenomenon as inherently vampiric until I read Sundays with Vlad. Paul Bibeau chronicles the transformation of a fictional character, based loosely upon a vague historical figure from a remote region, created in a novel that was not even mentioned in its author's obituary, into an unrivalled marketing powerhouse that has penetrated global culture with the same viral potency that gave Stoker's figure its true terror. The Dracula persona has been escalated by wave after wave of fans, freaks, and economic opportunists to the point where legend, history, literature, and pop-culture are permanently, and irrevocably intertwined. Sundays with Vlad untangles the mess.

But that sounds boring.

The true strength of Sundays with Vlad is Bibeau's humor.

This book is an impressively thorough examination of the Dracula phenomenon, that transitions smoothly between political, historical, literary, and pop-cultural issues - always with a brisk wit that keeps the matter interesting. Not only does Bibeau examine all angles of Dracula worship, he does it all personally. He goes to Romania on his honeymoon, he marches in a parade dressed as a clove of garlic, he watches every god-forsaken vampire movie he can find in a weekend, he goes LARPing in Kentucky, he speaks to the creator of Count Chocula, he almost gets attacked by hookers and skinheads in Hungary, and he even tries on vinyl pants. None of it is pretty, but it's all there.

The result is a very extensive, very entertaining, journey through a landscape littered with eccentrics in plastic capes and sanguinarians running for political office. Bibeau handles all topics from the sublimity of literature to the absurdity of Aaron Spelling vampire dramas with a sincere touch; non-judgmental, yet crucially observant, and always funny. As he follows the unlikely trail of arguably the most influential icon of the last century, Paul Bibeau's own thoughts, reservations, and shortcomings, often serve as a familiar point of reference for the reader in the face of the absurd. As we walk with him through the ranks of the unrecognizably strange, Bibeau's natural, comfortable wit may be the true appeal of the book.

Not only is this book hysterical (Mr. Bibeau's use of imagery truly makes one laugh out loud at times), it's full of interesting and insightful historical facts about Dracula, Vlad the Impaler and Romanian history. For someone who thought vampires were only about garlic and avoiding the sun, this book was not only informative but a fun read too. Mr. Bibeau has a knack for educating the reader while keeping it light, funny and anything but boring. His humor is dark and weird but that just makes this book all the more perfect since the Dracula legend is dark and weird. A great read!!!!!

Paul Bibeau's articles were usually the only thing readable in Maxim magazine. They were great pieces of investigative journalism spiked with Bibeau's twisted sense of humor. Now he brings both to Dracula.
Sundays with Vlad is a great book. There are some wonderful laugh out loud moments, as well as a really thorough (and at times bizarre) look at the legend and pop-culture ramifications of Dracula.

Great, great book.

In each chapter Paul Bibeau's book has a beautiful way of delving into discrete histories while keeping to a captivating narrative style. Bibeau has a funny, self-deprecating personality, sometimes jokey, sometimes wistful and sincere that keeps you close to him while he chases his childhood fantasy. This is a fascinating look at Vlad-Dracula. It draws connections that I never knew before and illuminates the fictional and historical characters in a lively, effortless style. I flew through the book.

Paul Bibeau is a very funny, very engaging writer. That's what saved this book from 2 stars - or even 1.

His problems come with the particular topics he chooses. Some - for example, the trips to Romania - are right on target. Others - like the defunct Dracula-themed amusement park in Wildwood, NJ - just leave the reader bored and hoping the next chapter covers something a little more a propos. And some of his digressions (like his diatribe against some guy at the Bucharest Business Week) just leave you scratching your head and wondering what happened to the editor.

Other failings include no overarching theme (he tries to tie globalism into it all, but fails miserably) and the lack of any real, concerted research (it reads more like he simply tied together a bunch of light magazine articles together).

All in all, I'd recommend The Dead Travel Fast: Stalking Vampires from Nosferatu to Count Chocula instead. Still, Bibeau is an excellent, very funny writer (think Bill Bryson). He just needs a better topic and a lot more structure.

Fully agreeing with earlier reviewers that Bibeau is a witty and clever writer, his disjointed travelogue and discombobulated anecdotes become tedious after the first 100 pages. His first-hand interviews and hands-on research are commendable. But he frequently jumps topics -- and for lengthy stretches at that. This hyperlinked-style of storytelling meanders too much. Also, nitpicking here, the spelling, punctuation and word confusion (weather v. whether) should have been edited out by the time a book hits paperback. Maybe Bibeau will tighten and rewrite a better book on this fascinating topic.

Simply put, this book is a testament to what it means to grow up a geek and pursue some aspect of that as an adult. Bibeau's humor is cynical, charming, relateable and right-on-the-mark. You really have to have a healthy sense of humor about yourself and any interests you have in anything sci fi, fantasy, or yes, vampires and vampire subcultures. I really can't recommend this book enough and again, if you're like me and grew up as a "suburban geek," then you'll get pretty much what he's talking about in this book. Seriously, buy it and read it today.

Paul Bibeau knows vampires. But he also knows a hell of a lot of other stuff as well, about little things like politics and history and human nature, which is why this gem is such an engaging read, whether you're into the undead scene or not. Any author that can pivot from arson on the Jersey shore to the finer points of intellectual property law to eating disorders in the course of 50 pages is well worth getting to know.

And if you're wondering how, exactly, he can touch on all those things in the context of vampires, for God's sake...well, read and find out.

Throughout this lighthearted (but revealing) romp across America and Europe, Bibeau is your faithful guide to some of the weirdest characters and places you'll ever encounter, and his asides alone are worth the price of a copy ("Romania has always been like the pretty girl with the string of bad relationships behind her...").

Early on, Bibeau recalls how the tagline for his high-school seminar on vampires was "Attend: You'll Sleep Safer." I can't warranty that you'll sleep safer after giving Sundays With Vlad a read, but you'll most assuredly rest with a smile on your face.

I thought the Vampire genre was spent until I came across Sundays with Vlad! I have read Bibeau's work before and he truly brings his gift of taking the bizarre, filtering it through who you think is the average suburbanite and truly entertaining the reader.

Might I compare him a bit to Davis Sedaris? If I knew Mr. Sedaris I would ask him to read this collection of some of the most wittiest left-field stories that we need more of. Take a break from the reality of other works of fiction and non-fiction and get into Paul Bibeau's world, he won't let you down.

"Leering at me from across the canyon of merchandise at the Wal-Mart Supercenter is a giant inflatable lawn statue of Mickey Mouse dressed in a tuxedo and velvet cape with a widow's peak and tiny, somehow cute fangs poking out of his mouth ... Above all in the West, the Dracula industry is about change. We take the gripping image and tweak it until it becomes the best product it can possibly be. No one wants a lawn statue of a bloodthirsty medieval prince or a dated Hungarian actor ... They want Mickey." - Author Paul Bibeau in SUNDAYS WITH VLAD.

In SUNDAYS WITH VLAD (and Monday through Saturday too, for that matter), author Bibeau sets out to discover everything vampyrish (is that a word?) from the mainstream (Halloween vampire costumes) to the eccentric (Jonathan "the Impaler" Sharkey who ran for Minnesota governor in 2006) to the way-out-there (those who literally drink blood).

Paul is at his narrative best and most hilarious when he's traveling outside the United States, i.e. in the first and second-to-last chapters. In the former, he recounts that 3-day part of his 1999 honeymoon spent seeking the historical Vlad the Impaler in the Romanian province of Wallachia, at the end of which time he and his new bride, Anne, were prepared to buy an airplane ticket to anywhere just to get out of the "godforsaken crapheap". (Perhaps it was the infestations of beggars and feral dogs that took the romance out of the occasion.) In the latter, seven years later and the wife having opted to stay at home, Bibeau travels back to Romania and its province of Transylvania to retrace the fictional Jonathan Harker's route (in Bram Stoker's Dracula (Enriched Classics Series)) to Count Dracula's fictional castle. In this case, homesickness, bad roads, and anarchic local drivers seem to be the chief perils.

In between, in chapters that range from mildly to not at all amusing, Paul examines the Dracula/vampire fascination in the West, from films to clubs to swinger groups to killers to music to amusement park funhouses to consumer products to museums to live-action-role game playing. At one point, Bibeau mentions seeing an example of the anti-vampire kits that were ostensibly available at hotel front desks to Victorian-era travelers traipsing through Eastern Europe, but, in a major omission, he doesn't describe the kit's contents. Garlic, crucifix, holy water, mirror, and sharpened stake, perhaps? Also, he makes almost no reference to my personal favorite American icon and resident of my most fevered dreams, Elvira Mistress of the Dark.

Because the humor in SUNDAYS WITH VLAD is so inconsistent and the subject matter sometimes poorly chosen, I'm awarding a generous 4 stars, and that because of the two chapters set in Romania that are, by themselves, worth the price of the book. It's important to realize that the Romanians themselves, badly in need of tourist dollars, have pretty much declined to capitalize on the Dracula legend because there's little to no connection between the fictional character, a monument to Western kitsch and imagination, and Vlad the Impaler, a national hero for his opposition to the Turks. It would be like building a theme park celebrating George Washington the werewolf.

My reservations aside, SUNDAYS WITH VLAD will be considered essential reading by any aficionado of the blood sucking tradition.