I found these stories to be really fascinating, and it just sort of goes to show that vampire legends have sprung up everywhere and through all times in human history.
The Book of Vampires- I thought that the most interesting part of this story were the margins with all of the names for vampire throughout different cultures. It explained a lot from when I've read other books and certain terms were used, such as incubus and chupacabra. It helped me understand how all of the languages around where the vampire stories originated are similar. I also found the methods that the Wallachians used to get rid of vampires and their ways of determining if someone is a vampire to be fascinating. It also defines what a vampire is.
The Phantom World- It seems as if this story is telling different accounts of how people have become vampires and what they ended up doing, as well as how the village folk dealt with the problem of someone coming back from the dead. In all of the reports, the corpse of the vampire is found to be bloated and overflowing with blood and it appears to be just dead. The body is also dealt with in a similar and gruesome manner.
Tale of a Russian Vampire- I found this to be the most novel-like account of the four stories. It read the smoothest. Anyway, in this story there was an older man who was jealous and mean who wed a young and pretty girl, denying her true love. This seems like a general character setup for a vampire story, since most seem to involve an older man and a pretty girl. The way in which the girl acted after her late husband kept coming back to suck her blood was similar to how the female protagonist in Dracula acted. It had a pretty brutal ending, but at least the vampire was dealt with!
Vampires of Roumania- This story was the one I found a tad bit hard to follow. From what I understand the girl's lover turned into a vampire and killed her parents and threatened to kill her after she saw him coming out of his grave one night. He killed her, and she was buried in a supersticious manner. A little while later, she turned into a flower and was picked by the emperor's son and eventually turned back into herself and they got married and lived happily ever after. It was an interesting story, if not a little confusing. The second story in here was also quite interesting. I felt pretty bad for the girl at the end of the story. Who knew you could become a vampire just by being around them?
All in all, I really liked these selections and I look forward to reading more in the book.
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5 comments:
I found Vampires of Roumania to be one of the easier stories to read. I however, though the girls in both the stories were kind of stuck up and panicky. In both the stories, the vampires loved the girls, but they were too scared to see it and ended up runing something that could have been wonderful.
You make an intresting point I hadn't really thought of before. "This seems like a general chracter setup for a vmapire story, since most seem to involve an older man and a pretty girl." I mean it's true, and I guess I had thought of it, just never in direct terms. You make some intresting points. I liked that it explained different terms that are used relating to vampires as well.
I agree the last story was a little weird. The second was harder to fallow, though the first was weird. It was strange she just came back as flower and then was able to return as herself. I still liked them though
The Roumanian story confused me too a bit because usually when a person is buried without proper rights and such, it is said to be one of the ways a person can turn into a vampire, so i did not understand completely why she merely turned to a flower adn then back into herself
I agree with you about the seconed story that it seems like a normal setup for a story like this, i said that in mine hte it isent aroningal but i still liked it. i also like what you thought about all the other sorties i agree with you in the mosrt part.
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