The problem with Twilight and most every other piece of relatively modern vampire literature is that the author forgets or omits that all vampires are by definition malevolent, undead monsters and turns them into sexy high elves with funny dietary requirements.
The seductiveness and beauty of Count Dracula and Carmilla wasn’t in opposition to their terrible nature, it made them more dangerous and scarier. They can’t be well meaning or good people for the same reason that a tiger can’t be well meaning and good natured, an undead and immortal being that depends on blood for sustenance just can’t live in the same sort of moral universe as a human being.
Aside from Stoker and Le Fanu, the other works of vampire literature that I would recommend are: Lord Byron’s The Giaour, Coleridge’s Christabel and Wuthering Heights, even though Heathcliff isn’t actually an undead bloodsucker he embodies the spirit of one. I find very little to be redeemed in things like Varney the Vampire, The Hunger, I Am Legend, Salem’s Lot, the Barnabas Collins novels or Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles.
Mavricivs t1_j0unwzy wrote
Reply to Twilight could've been so much better. by mushroomgoth
The problem with Twilight and most every other piece of relatively modern vampire literature is that the author forgets or omits that all vampires are by definition malevolent, undead monsters and turns them into sexy high elves with funny dietary requirements.
The seductiveness and beauty of Count Dracula and Carmilla wasn’t in opposition to their terrible nature, it made them more dangerous and scarier. They can’t be well meaning or good people for the same reason that a tiger can’t be well meaning and good natured, an undead and immortal being that depends on blood for sustenance just can’t live in the same sort of moral universe as a human being.
Aside from Stoker and Le Fanu, the other works of vampire literature that I would recommend are: Lord Byron’s The Giaour, Coleridge’s Christabel and Wuthering Heights, even though Heathcliff isn’t actually an undead bloodsucker he embodies the spirit of one. I find very little to be redeemed in things like Varney the Vampire, The Hunger, I Am Legend, Salem’s Lot, the Barnabas Collins novels or Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles.