Before I began reading "Interview w/ The Vampire", I had always been a fan of Vampires ever since I saw the original Dracula movie with my mum when I was young; the characteristics of the Vampires as a "species" are certainly of the things I admire the most, considering no other fiction "monster" shares quite the same with them: the hematophagy trait (blood-feeding), the unique undead mortality (or immortality is you will) which forces them to continuously feed, their lack of resistance to mere sunlight (unlike werewolves, zombies, ect.), and even the recently abandoned idea of vampires taking on the form of vampire bats, just to name the most prominent.
The early literary works of vampires all had special traits and shared details which bore connections to their existence in the fictional world as the quintisencial monsters; the most common way a vampire comes into existence is by being bitten by another [Vampire], and the way the vampires live is though a pseudo-zombie fashion, not by the demonic possession of a slowly decomposing body, but of a repetition of nightly acts (the blood-feeding) which keep the Vampire's body from decomposition and eventual death. This form of living is of course not too discernable from how regular mortals live (we mere humans stay alive by eating and drinking), but the big difference is Vampires have an unlimited life span as long as they continue to feed from the blood of mortals (virgin women are the most popular, as I learned from watching the original version of the film Nosferatu). And this brings me to one of the things I enjoyed in Anne Rice's novel, about how long the Count Lestat has been "living", for hundreds of years. Another thing I enjoyed in her writing regarding this same issue is how living for so long may seem like such a wonderful thing, until you unfailingly witness the passing of your non-immortal family and friends; clearly, she made a good point about something we humans have for so long immaturely wished for.
In conclusion to my first reading class assessment, I enjoyed Rice's novel thoroughly, as I did the movie some many years ago, both I viewed as very well as opening the true portrayal of Vampires. My favorite part of the reading/watch list, however, was watching the original and color versions of Nosferatu, because the film-makers were not only able to create and save a film that had been condemned by the originators of the Dracula films, but because they took a popular monster type and recreated it [though the creation of Count Orlock] without removing or corrupting any of the major and exciting traits of the Vampire. And that's more then I can say for the "Twilight" franchise.
No comments:
Post a Comment