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Chinatowns in a Transnational World
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Curious kisses the Chinatown fantasies of Thomas Burke. After reading Burke's other short story collections I wasn't so interseted in reading his Limehouse Nights about Chinatown and the relationships between English women and Chinese immigrants. But this article presented the stories as a much more ... (continue)
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The story of the Ere-dw-
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The story of the Ere-dw-
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Morbidfrog
Varney the Vampire
Varney is a three volume penny dreadful that I found a lovely complete wordsworth edition of. It's almost 1200 pages of very tiny Wordswoth print. I wasn't sure if I'd manage all three volumes in one go. But as much as I was enjoying the book after finishing volume 2 I thought I'd take a short break ... (continue)
Varney is a three volume penny dreadful that I found a lovely complete wordsworth edition of. It's almost 1200 pages of very tiny Wordswoth print. I wasn't sure if I'd manage all three volumes in one go. But as much as I was enjoying the book after finishing volume 2 I thought I'd take a short break as I was just desperate to read some history and I found that my enjoyment was starting to slip. So I thought I'd write up the first two volumes while I could still remember and will probably go back and read the third volume in a week or two.
Volume I
I started reading this after finishing Bram Stoker and it was SOO nice to read something that had a dramatic plot that just kept building with a strong start. The first chapter saw the heroine attacked by the Vampire in her bedroom. One of the things that really sold me on the book was that the second time the Vampire attacked the young girl the brothers had left her alone with a pair of pistols to protect herself with and when the vampire showed up she shot him and frightened him off. It was quite brilliant and totally the opposite to Lucy in Dracula! With the exception of a few chapters devoted to the setting up of duels. I really enjoyed the first volume. Varney was civilised yet obviously evil and manipulative. He wasn't the charicature I was expecting but much more sly and I really enjoyed him. He had such touching moments of humanity, like when he sat and talked to the girl he attacked and explained that she wouldn't turn into a vampire despite his attack. He was trying to convince her to leave the house and yet he was much kinder than he needed to be for just that.
One of the things that I really liked best in this book so far is Rymer's portrayal of mob mentality. It is really good and in so many ways so much more frightening than the vampires. I love how in a book about Vampires the author can go on about how it is terrible for the people to be so superstitious and commit dreadful acts because they are ignorant and believe in vampires. Even when the threat is real it shows how things can be distorted and fear is played on to cause much more damage than the original threat ever could (link to today's world and terrorism).
Volume 2
Started with the continuation of the story of the Bannerworth's having to flee their home after being tormented out of it by Varney. Varney though had his own trouble continually being hunted. I think my favourite part of the volume was when he was being hunted by the villagers fleeing from rooftop to rooftop and eventually ended up at the doorstep of Flora, the girl who he attacked in the begining. In the end she saved his life twice. At that point he was at his most vulnerable and human.
The book diverged shortly after this with the introduction of a "Wealthy foreign baron" who was quite obviously Varney in disguise. It was a little annoying that the pretext of him being the Baron was kept up for so long. Towards the end of the second volume it felt like it kinda lost pace, with the exception of one very good scene of a vampire rising from the dead in a charnel house there was very little horror or gothic. The focus instead shifted to humour and the evils of women who are only interested in money. Who sell their daughters into marriage and have no feeling for their happiness or well being. It just started to all drag on a bit.
Still so far this is probably the second best story about Vampires that I've ever read. I'm greatly enjoying the style and the dramaticness of it all. There is real tension in the writing and Rymer writes some incredibly spooky scenes.
Vol. 3
Started like Vanity Fair it was all about another woman trying to marry her daughter off, this time to a retired indian general. It wasn't at all gothic till her solicitor read a grim (and really great) story about a young girl about to be married to a vampire who turned into a skeleton at the altar and then it turned out (what a shock!) that the general was actually Varney. The first part of volume 3 did get a bit repatitive and almost a bit dull with Varney showing up different places, trying to get married, getting discovered and then having to flee and start again. The tale of him in Bath I think was my favourite of these. Partly because it was in Bath and partly because it had a gruemsome murder. He then went to Europe and had a series of shorter and less successful engagements. But the book really got back in stride when he returned to England.
It was like the repeated short stories were there to show how repeetitious and hideous his life had become. And how he tried to kill himself. When that failed he decided to become truly evil but that didn't work either. I did love the scenes in Hampstead where the group of vampires brought back to life one of their own. That was brilliant. As were all the scenes with the female Vampire brought back to life. I think those were some of my favourite in the entire book so I'm very glad I stuck with it all the way to the end. The very end where he "revealed" his life was very odd as it seemed to contradict everything that was set up in the first two volumes. But still overall I did really like the third volume. I'm really glad I read this story. I think taking into account all three volumes Varney is my second favourite vampire story of all time (second to Carmilla). I am definitely going to read more penny dreadfuls and more stories by Rymer! Victorian horror melodrama is my new love!
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