Carmilla

Jordan Hall said it best: “this ethereal, infuriating book”

Reader's log: • Came for Carmilla Karnstein, stayed for the mystical moon child Mademoiselle De Lafontaine • Steamiest passage: “A small income in that part of the world goes a great way; eight or nine hundred a year does wonders.” [Half] kidding. It's probably: “Sometimes there came a sensation as if a hand was drawn softly along my cheek and neck. Sometimes it was as if warm lips kissed me, longer and longer and more lovingly as they reached my throat...” • Langor¹⁷ • Everything I could want in a good Gothic — dark, damp, and dusty castles, dramatic carriage wrecks, creepy portraits, unexplainable maladies, strange dreams, mysterious strangers, a story within a story...

Now, how many stars should I knock off for the author promulgating the whole ‘queer women as monsters' trope?

Thank goodness for Lanternfish's edition, which is Le Fanu's Carmilla, kintsugi'd. Carmen Maria Machado's edits and commentary make this 1872 Gothic much more accessible. And the modern reframing of the narrative adds nuance while turning the monstrous lesbian trope back onto its makers, whose “own accounts become highly suspect.” “I wished this edition to bear LaFanu's shame,” Machado writes. “I wish the reader to come to the book with a complete understanding of its inadequacy.”

Now that's the punk rock Mary Shelley energy I'm here for.

And how about those illustrations by tattoo artist Robert Kraiza?

This was a fantastic, short little vampire tale! While reading it, you can definitely see a lot of the tropes common to more recent vampire stories, but seeing tropes being first established is something I always find interest. The narration of the story seems much more fresh and contemporary than most Victorian literature, and it was interesting to see such explicit lesbian content from an era that mostly frowned upon it.

Is this my favorite vampire book? Yes. Is this the only one I've read? Pretty much, because Twilight barely counts (especially since I read it against my will). 

There's a whole lot I could say about Carmilla. Like hey, what about that whole theme of infantilizing the women and keeping them in the dark about things they have every right to know including their own health? How about all the spoilery-type stuff I can say about Carmilla and her behavior? Or what about how so many ignore Carmilla, instead showering Dracula with all of the love? 

But perhaps more importantly: early in their friendship, Laura says of Carmilla, “I experienced a strange tumultuous excitement that was pleasurable, ever and anon, mingled with a vague sense of fear and disgust. I had no distinct thoughts about her while such scenes lasted, but I was conscious of a love growing into adoration, and also of abhorrence. This I know is paradox, but I can make no other attempt to explain the feeling.” Laura was so gay for Carmilla she didn't even know or understand and also Jesus told her not to and that's exactly how I felt when I had my first girl crush. I see you, Laura.

I like this story a lot. It comes from a time before vampires were in every single piece of fiction. Luckily, it's not so old that the language is unreadable, a fate that befell Polidori's The Vampyre. I haven't gotten around to Dracula yet, so I can't make the same comparisons I see others make, but I can say that I think this is beautiful. The language is gripping, and the emphasis that Le Fanu places on the mysticism and seductive powers of the vampire makes the genre feel unique from other styles of horror.

Side note: I believe this is the oldest story I've ever read with a strong LGBT presence in it. That on its own makes it noteworthy.

“Carmilla is an 1872 Gothic novella by Irish author Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu and one of the early works of vampire fiction, predating Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897) by 26 years.”

I find the anagram game fascinating:

“The vampire is, apparently, subject, in certain situations, to special conditions. In the particular instance of which I have given you a relation, Mircalla seemed to be limited to a name which, if not her real one, should at least reproduce, without the omission or addition of a single letter, those, as we say, anagrammatically, which compose it.”

sigh