I went to visit a bookstore by one of my friends (Not local to me) and a lovely worker at the store handed me east of Eden. That woman looked into my soul because this is exactly the kind of book I was looking to read next.
If you’re like me and knew nothing it’s apparently a retelling of the garden of Eden story in rural California. I am studying marine science (not marine biology sorry)
I’ve only read 2 chapters so far, and the only other work I’ve read by Steinbeck was out of spite as a child or in class, so I did force myself to dislike it. I’m very interested in how the rest of this book would go! I really enjoy the inclusion of the environment and how it affects the people living there, it’s one of the most fascinating parts of marine science to me. Especially cool to learn Steinbeck had a close marine bio friend in his later years!
Back when I had a class where we read Frankenstein, it was commented by someone that it's ironic that Mary Shelley would write such a misogynistic depiction of women given that her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, was one of the founding feminist philosophers.
But Frankenstein's narrator is usually Frankenstein, and when you compare the depictions narrated by Victor (very one dimensional, with neither agency nor moral complexity) to those narrated by the monster (actually feels like people) it becomes apparent that Victor is a misogynist. It's one of his many flaws.
My formative discussing Frankenstein memory is having a chat in the student union with a friend about it and her dismissing my analysis of it with “the book was SO clearly written by a man” expecting me to agree with her and completely genuinely. That was the last conversation we had about any kind of art <3 she was an art history major <3
Across the many works about vampires, one can see influences from earlier vampires on newer ones, but vampires need not only be influenced by other vampires and can take inspiration from other sources. While we don't have a definitive list of influences on J. S. Le Fanu's Carmilla, it is often considered that Samuel Taylor Coleridge's unfinished poem "Christabel" may be an influence on the story of Carmilla or even that Carmilla may count as an adaptation.
"Christabel" is a poem in two parts, though Coleridge intended to continue the story to 5 parts. Today I intend to go through part 1, and on another day part 2. And perhaps eventually I'll do one of these on the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner".
Part 1:
Much like in Varney the Vampire (though this was written a half-century earlier) we begin with church bells marking midnight. There is something I find a bit funny in the mixing of the vulgar into high art sort of way in his rhyming of rich with bitch, though as there is an actual dog being referred to it's not as though the vulgarity is intended. Important about the dog, though, is that in the last line of the first stanza, it's presented as a possibility that the dog sees "my lady's shroud".
It's cold night in April, but not dark, and Christabel has headed out a furlong (1/8 mile; 1/5 km) into the woods by her father's castle to pray for the welfare of her Knightly fiancé. She's praying silently beneath an oak tree that has mistletoe; I wonder if kissing under the mistletoe is an old enough tradition for that to be a possible way for the supernatural lesbian to get a kiss. Brittanica says there's an example from the 1780s, and this started being written in the 1790s, so maybe! We of course still need to meet the supernatural lesbian.
There is a mysterious moan from around the tree, what could that possibly be? It's still cold out and hardly windy enough to say it must have been the wind. Let's check it out, decides Christabel, who finds a woman that wearing a sleeveless white robe; no shoes and generally dressed way too lightly for this weather, yet still has hair filled with jewels. Notably, though, this woman's skin is white enough to make the robe look grey by comparison.
Christabel (paraphrased): "Jesus Christ! Who the hell are you?"
Geraldine introduces herself and explains her circumstances as the daughter of a noble and having been kidnapped and left here temporarily. Christabel promises aid in Geraldine's return home, but for now takes her back to her own father's castle.
At the castle gate Geraldine starts feeling immense pain Christabel has to carry her in, and once in Geraldine is fine, albeit still tired from the kidnapping ordeal. I expect this often gets brought up as an example of needing permission to enter, but it's an iron gate so it may very well be an aversion to iron instead. Depends on if she'll have similar trouble with exiting later, but even if she does that does not detract from the possibility of influencing the need to ask for permission to enter.
Making their way to Christabel's room, quietly as Sir Leoline, Christabel's father, has enough trouble sleeping already, a couple things occur as Geraldine passes by: the sleeping dog growls and a near-dead fire grows a tongue of fire.
Finally in Christabel's room, Christabel trims the lamp held by silver chain and Geraldine is again having issues. Problems with silver too?
Christabel's dead mom is brought up, and it's mentioned that said mom heard the bells striking 12 of Christabel's wedding day. It's possible those bells are not of noon, but instead of this midnight, while still about romance.
Geraldine has an episode of something. I think quite possibly driving off the spirit of Christabel's mother who is attempting to protect her from Geraldine. Whatever holy thing it was that attacked Geraldine, it was not long after that Geraldine told Christabel to unrobe (for reasoning I don't quite get of needing to pray yet already being in bed). Christabel did as such and laid in bed, and then Geraldine removed her own clothing, but then does nothing for a bit; a moment of oddness.
Then of course Geraldine joins Christabel in bed and holds her, saying that Christabel will know tonight and tomorrow "this mark of my shame, this seal of my sorrow". The last lines of part 1 prior to the conclusion thereto definitely are discussing sex, but I feel there is another half to it which I'm not quite putting together.
Conclusion to Part 1:
This summarizes what we've seen so far but also covers the morning after before the rising from sleep. Christabel is tearing up in the morning, which makes me wonder if there is a pattern beyond this and The Great Awakening of sex (particularly sex that society would disapprove of) being implied by crying after the act.
Geraldine, "worker of these harms," is described holding Christabel "As a mother with her child." My memory may not be the best, but I seem to recall that at times in Carmilla I felt as though some moments the difference in maturity due and the tendency to take command resulted in something that made it feel like Carmilla would at least be of an older generation.
The last major aspect is that this part does focus on the immense holiness of Christabel. It would seem to be that after the midnight encounter with Geraldine, there is not any injury to that holiness.
Part 1 end.
There's definitely a lot more that can be said and looked into, but my understanding of poetic language (and at times archaic language) aren't quite enough to dive deeply into the religious/holy aspects that come up, as there's something going on with Christabel that I'm not able to parse the piece we have in part 1 to the level it deserves, though hopefully part 2 will help with some of that. On the other hand, if I need part 2 to help understand part 1, then the lack of parts 3+ may make understanding part 2 nigh impossible for me. We'll only know when we get there though.
If I keep at this long enough, then at some point I'm going to have to start looking up and getting actual citations for these, as I do want to continue having some supplemental information beyond just that which is contained within the texts. In the meantime, it's safe to assume that most of my contextual information is from Wikipedia, though the actual texts tend to be from elsewhere—in this case, the Poetry Foundation.
Augh!!! I read christabel but so long ago. I need to reread it. I really do think you see a lot of the influence in Dracula and Carmilla! Especially the weird sort of starkly perceived as Proper but Odd and Off putting means of implicitly romantic entanglement. Makes me think a lot about Brahm Stoker’s reaction to Oscar Wilde’s trials
things in phm that really tickled me as a marine biologist:
the concept of star-eating microbes causing a crisis and the solution being the introduction of space wolves to space yellowstone to control the space elk population. i love a good trophic cascade
dr ryland grace immediately pitching "turn the spaceship into a giant centrifuge to generate gravity" and then not balancing his actual centrifuge later on
the entire "life is reason" scene really
grace forgetting to open the mystery alien container in a fume hood AND immediately sticking his nose in it. if we did this in chemistry lab we were executed on the spot
academia drama being one of the cornerstones of grace's character
grace switching through every spectrum setting on the microscope to try to see into the astrophages and not being able to (relatable)
also: the astrophage dying and grace going "ohhh it died..." (very relatable)
grace having his not-scientist buddy Carl to give him frank solutions when he's overthinking. yes, often the solution is just to put the box in another box
copious duct tape usage
just sticking a filter into the path of the petrova line to collect astrophage goop
eva going "so it's alive" when grace tells them the astrophage are moving, and him being like "WELL ok that could be for a lot of reasons" in the tone of someone who doesn't even know where to start explaining why that's a hasty assumption
grace referring to the first new astrophage as his and carl's baby multiple times (HIGHLY relatable)
humanity's greatest hope being a teacher. humanity being saved by grace's ability to find novel ways to communicate well with others -- something that made him excellent as an educator, and enabled him to bond with rocky
James Ortiz shared his headcanon of Adrian and Rocky being in an arranged marriage that surprisingly worked out and they ended up being perfect for each other. I have ten billion questions about these important families and the expectations of this arranged marriage. And of them realizing they actually do love each other and this arrangement isn’t so bad!!!! Ortiz is a genius someone get him a tumblr. Get him a microphone and a stage, I want an uninterrupted hour of what he thinks abt these characters
i looove misinterpreting. i love misunderstanding. i love overanalyzing <3 getting good use out of my brain, doin some thought exercises pop quiz style
Recently, by something of coincidence, I found my interest in vampires piqued. First from Castlevania, where I was informed that the character Varney was based on the likewise named character from decades before Bram Stoker's Dracula. Soon after, I encountered a video discussing the movie Nosferatu and relevantly mentioning Varney the Vampyre, The Vampyre (which is based on Byron's Fragment), and Carmilla (which I have previously read and intend to reread), which was enough for me to go on Project Gutenberg and find each story.
When searching for The Vampyre, I did run into some confusion as the book cover shown in the video said Byron, not Polidori, so I did get sidetracked by trying to figure out where Byron's The Vampyre could be found. As it turns out, the chain of events is that Byron's submission to the famous competition which brought about Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was a short, incomplete piece (one might call that a fragment) later expanded upon by Polidori into The Vampyre, which was then published without Polidori's knowledge with the false attribution to Byron (whose own fragment was appended to the publication of Mazeppa, a Poem without his knowledge and against his wishes), and even once the book editions removed Byron's name they did not initially replace it with Polidori's, instead leaving the attribution empty. In any case, this gave me awareness of “A Fragment,” and my existing curiosity and the brevity of the fragment mean reading through it is a quick task.
As for how I decided to write about these things, that would be because reading Varney the Vampyre would certainly not be brief; as a serial that ran weekly between 1845-1847 (with an author paid by the line), reading the entire thing would be quite the task. But, this was a serial, already meant to be digested weekly, not continuously, and while I don't intend to pace myself out to one section per week (and not even to just one penny dreadful per week, as it would appear most versions seem to merge multiple pamphlets into each chapter) the idea of having a set pace to read something through—
especially if it was originally serialized—instead of unregulated chunks has felt like a good idea ever since encountering Machine Man in its page-a-day reading style for its serial form; conversely, trying to speed through a serialized work in a week (e.g. Crime & Punishment in a week because of waiting until the end of summer to start on AP Lit reading) is not a fun time. Then, I think due to remembering that Dracula Daily because of the scheduled reading and getting reminded of its internet presence, I had the idea that a blog to write about these things, both to organize my own thoughts also also hopefully to give others something at least mildly interesting to read (which would then help motivate me to continue this), would be a good idea. Not sure what sort of schedule I may keep, but hopefully at least weekly.
Now, for the actual meat of this issue: Byron's “A Fragment,” a 210 year-old beginning of a vampire story.
The story is written in the form of a letter dated June 17, 1816; tomorrow 210 years ago. It discusses events dating at least 17 years prior, as we are told the events occur in 17—. The narrator has a friend he “designates” as Augustus Darvell, an alumnus of the same schools as the narrator but a few years older*. We are not told much detail about Darvell; but we are told that there are contradictions (though not what they are; being as we are going into this knowing this is a vampyre story, I'm sure we can all guess why some bits of his story don't add up) in what Darvell has told him. In any case, the narrator is fascinated by this man.
*Wikipedia actually listed him as “a wealthy, elderly man”, I assume due to a misunderstanding of the line “a few years my elder”, so I finally got around to getting a Wikipedia account.
More interesting would have to be the temperament of Darvell: with certain affections missing and others heightened to fill the gaps, though supposedly at the same time often made to have different appearances than they would naturally have, so it is not yet clear why the narrator would be so certain. A mystery often comes with an evil, the narrator believes, not that he has any idea what such an evil might be.
Darvell is senior to the narrator in many ways, including travel, and while asking for advice on the journey he intends to take, the narrator also asks Darvell to accompany him; Darvell, surprisingly, agrees. The journey is uneventful, at least as far as this telling is concerned, but during it Darvell is wasting away, though not for any obvious reason like tuberculosis. While accompanied by a “serrugee” (which I cannot find an actual definition for, and is probably using an unusual spelling anyhow) and a Janissary in Western Anatolia, Darvell's condition deteriorates to the point they have to stop at the cemetery of an abandoned town. Darvell happens to know where to get water from because he'd been there before (you'd think that would have come up in the discussions of travel plans, but nope). As Darvell approaches death, he commands two things: that his death be concealed, and that the narrator must take his ring and go do a certain ritual with it at the appropriate time and place.
A stork holding a snake appears, but does not eat the snake despite it being its natural prey. Darvell says that where that stork landed is where he should be buried (which happens to be where someone already is) and when he dies soon after, his body quickly darkened.
The end. (well, they did bury the body too, but that's not really important)
As a story, this certainly isn't much. Presumably, had the story continued, then the ritual the narrator would have (or would have not) performed with the ring would have led to further developments and learning more about the vampire Augustus Darvell, but it does at least paint a scene in the Turkish cemetery.
The inconsistencies in Darvell's backstory that we never hear, as well as the strangeness regarding emotions, feel fair to attribute to vampirism. Most interesting, though, is the stork not eating its prey, as presumably Darvell was starving himself to avoid attacking the narrator, or rather the other way around where the narrator was saved because Darvell was trying to bring himself to death.
Welp. Hopefully I'll have more to say in later installments when I have more experience and have larger pieces to actually work with.
I love that flowery deltarune tries to Show to the main party (and Asgore?) that you can live according to your own rules, in the face of whatever tragedy or dissapointment, (and be happy and kind and loving to others and have community)… and falls frustratingly flat partially because the failure to communicate that to others is Clearly Obstructing his happiness and partially because it’s Not Getting Through and that Does Mean He Dies. He’s my silliest Jarona
debating whether to read steins;gate, the next shibou yuugi light novel, or the Project Hail Mary book. I shooould be finishing Damian or even like The Orchid and The Octupus…….. but blorbo…. and then there are the translations. augh
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