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Our Vampires, Ourselves (Paperback)

by Nina Auerbach (Author) "VAMPIRES WERE NOT DEMON LOVERS or snarling aliens in the early nineteenth century, but singular friends..." (more)
Key Phrases: vampire iconography, girl with the hungry eyes, vampire trap, Van Helsing, Stoker's Dracula, Christopher Lee (more...)

2.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
"My central idea: that vampirism springs not only from paranoia, xenophobia, or immortal longings, but from generosity and shared enthusiasm. This strange taste cannot be separated from the expansive impulses that make us human." Our Vampires, Ourselves is not your ordinary work of literary criticism, but rather an entertaining, thought-provoking tour of the history of vampires in Western civilization. The vampires and works discussed include Lord Ruthven, Varney, Carmilla, Dracula, Fritz Leiber's "The Girl," famous film Draculas, Fred Saberhagen's Dracula, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's Saint-Germain, Anne Rice's Louis and Lestat, Stephen King's Barlow, films such as The Lost Boys and Near Dark, and countless books. As the New York Times writes, "Ms. Auerbach presents her arguments with wit and clarity ... Ms. Auerbach implicitly rejects the Freudian and Jungian interpretations of these figures as either psychosexual metaphors or archetypes, preferring to see them in sociopolitical terms. But such interpretations need not be mutually exclusive. There is, after all, more in vampire metaphors than meets any one mind's eye."

From Library Journal
Literary scholar and vampire enthusiast Auerbach (Forbidden Journeys, LJ 4/15/92) poses this book as a history of the Anglo-American culture through its ever-changing vampires. Tracing the evolution of vampires from 19th-century England through 20th-century America, Auerbach makes a number of new and interesting observations that will undoubtedly spur future scholarly discourse on vampirology. From depictions of vampires by Lord Byron down to those of Stephen King and Anne Rice and their various adaptations throughout literature or film, Auerbach illustrates how vampires are personifications of their age, reflecting and embodying social, political, and cultural change. Auerbach's interjections of personal and political points of view may raise questions about objectivity, but her compelling assertions definitely whet the appetite for further exploration and analysis of vampires and culture. Recommended for most public libraries.
Jeris Cassel, Rutgers Univ. Libs., New Brunswick, N.J.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

Paperback: 240 pages
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press (April 7, 1997)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0226032027
ISBN-13: 978-0226032023
Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #315,324 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
Popular in this category: (What's this?)
#9 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Horror > Reference

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Inside This Book (learn more)

First Sentence:
VAMPIRES WERE NOT DEMON LOVERS or snarling aliens in the early nineteenth century, but singular friends. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
vampire iconography, girl with the hungry eyes, vampire trap, psychic vampires, vampire literature, vampire romance, male vampires, psychic vampirism, vampire women, first vampire, vampire fiction, vampire stories, female vampire

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Van Helsing, Stoker's Dracula, Christopher Lee, Anne Rice, Bela Lugosi, Bram Stoker, Alan Raby, Stephen King, Frank Langella, Jonathan Harker, Lugosi's Dracula, Max Schreck, Vlad Tepes, Anno Dracula, Lord Ruthven, Sandy Stone, Castle Dracula, New York, Planch�'s Ruthven, Stoker's Lucy, Jack Palance, Stoker's Jonathan, Danny Glick, Elephant Man, Oscar Wilde

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Citations (learn more)

This book cites 100 books:

Hollywood Gothic: The Tangled Web of Dracula from Novel to Stage to Screen by David J. Skal on 8 pages
Hollywood gothic: The tangled web of Dracula from novel to stage to screen by David J Skal on 8 pages
Children of the Night by Dan Simmons on 7 pages
Anno-Dracula by Kim Newman on 6 pages
The Dracula Tape by Fred Saberhagen on 5 pages

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70 books cite this book:

Catholicism, Sexual Deviance, and Victorian Gothic Culture (Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture) by Patrick R. O'Malley on 6 pages
Blood Read: The Vampire as Metaphor in Contemporary Culture by Joan Gordon on 6 pages
Dracula: Bram Stoker (New Casebooks) by Glennis Byron on 5 pages
Vampires: Myths and Metaphors of Enduring Evil (At the Interface/Probing the Boundaries 28) (At the Interface / Probing the Boundaries) by Peter Day on 5 pages
Dracula in the Dark: The Dracula Film Adaptations (Contributions to the Study of Science Fiction and Fantasy) by James Craig Holte on 5 pages

See all 70 books citing this book

Books on Related Topics (learn more)

In Search of Dracula by Raymond T. McNally

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Three Vampire Tales by Bram Stoker

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The Vampire Film by Alain Silver

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Hollywood Gothic by David J. Skal

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Customer Reviews

5 Reviews

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2.8 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An interesting take on the familiar, February 27, 2002

By A Customer

Cogently argued, thoughtfully presented, entertainingly written. Since purchasing this book when it was first published, I've reread parts of it many times, just for the enjoyable and lively style of argument. Sure, there are many points I disagree with (but I could say the same for Neitzsche and Wittgenstein, too), but I always put the book down impressed by Auerbach's style and imagination. Others may claim that the book warrant only a single star in terms of a rating, for no other reason than their disagreement with the thesis. I say, whether you wind up agreeing or disagreeing--buying into everything Auerbach says or writing her off as wrongheaded--this book gives you plenty to chew on. If you disagree, ask yourself why you disagree; you may end up embracing the viewpoint of the third mind.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Interesting Take, March 7, 2009

By	M. Jones "turandot8289" - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

For those who aren't interested in a Lit Crit approach: Don't bother to read it, then complain that it's focused on Literary Criticism! If you bother to know what you're getting into however, and want to approach it not as a collection of horror stories but as a provocative take on what these "little stories" mean when applied to the broader cultural perspective, then I definitely recommend it. This is a well-written book by a very intelligent and engaging author.

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8 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Why Do Cultural Ctitics Have To Write Like This?, September 21, 2005

By	Christopher Weaver "weaverc" (Wayne, NJ) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

OK--I know that Nina Auerbach is a famous, groundbreaking feminist literary critic. I don't disagree with many of her points in this book. (Though I'm innately suspicious of any system that fits as perfectly as hers does. She never seems to find an example that doesn't fit her thesis--rather like an undergraduate writing a paper and discarding any evidence that doesn't fit.) And I am interested in cultual criticism--particularly the idea that horror fiction reflects the fears, desires, and fixations of particular time periods. This said, I found Auerbach's book tough slogging. Why do cultural critics seem to feel that the "lower" the text they're criticizing, the more jargon-filled, pedantic, and convulted their prose style must become? The endlessly long sentences with their multpile references and their twisting, parenthetical asides made my eyes glaze over. Certainly Auerbach is not the worst prose stylist of any academic I've read, but this fact, itself, is an indictment of the kind of writing that gets university professors published these days.

So, yes, there are insights and arguments in this book that make it worth reading. But I found the experience of reading the book a rather depressing enterprise, and it made me long for clearer, livlier, and more accessible writing from theorists and literary critics. I can't say that I'm optimistic on this count.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars How to Ruin Fun Horror Fantasy with Pseudo-Intellectual Feminism.
According to Nina Auerbach, there's no such thing as a good old fashioned horror fantasy story, written purely for fun and entertainment. Read more

Published 15 months ago by Red Demon

1.0 out of 5 stars Paranoia and Loathing
Auerbach got one thing right. Vampires are a reflection of the times. Nina as a literary critic has a wonderful sense of lower criticism, in fact, I say she's been bitten by the... Read more

Published on January 19, 2000

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