She's done it again. Lea gave me more than just Fables to investigate. She also handed me three books to read which based on my back cover blurb (and conversations we've had about Phoenix Rising) she thought I might enjoy because they seemed like they take a similar bend.
It's true that Julie and Julia or A Year of Living Biblically are a very specific exploration of a given topic during a set amount of time. It's true that Phoenix Rising is set during a specific amount of time, however, it is a novel. Yes it draws on some very real experience as all good stories must, but it is fundamentally a novel.
The books Lea lent me are along the Julie and Julia type of book, with a few major exceptions. They are totally quirky, dark, and seem to have no set quantum parameters. Now, I should warn you that if you have a weak stomach and a vivid imagination when it comes to blood you should stop reading this post now. I had to stop reading the first book at parts because my arms got weak and I thought I might faint. (This is the curse of vivid imaginations when combined with a strong dislike of needles and generalized gore.)
The first I picked up to read was Sundays with Vlad by Paul Bibeau. It chronicles the quirky (and dorky) writer's search for the real Dracula and what he discovers along his path. At first he debunks a few myths about Vlad the Impaler and plays these off the legends of literary Dracula, who have two totally different time-lines, geographies, and reputations. It's an interesting journey, with cute pithy jibes at the media as well as various government agencies. Then the book transitions into intellectual property rights and makes me want to impale the American judicial system and possibly stop reading.
Just when I thought it was going to be a horrible spiral worth shelving, Bibeau changes it up by exploring the realms of gaming and vampires in role-playing. He explains the distinctions and histories of White Wolf v. D&D and relates an experience he has with vampire LARPing (live action role-playing). However, this line of thinking brings him to the logical conclusion that some of these people must take this further, and so he discovers the hidden recesses of Goth and then Vamp culture. This includes partying, costumes, dental grade fangs, and the types of feuding previously relegated to Sunni - Shiite caliphate battles. While other portions of the book were weird, nothing compares to this last bit. Suddenly you're reading about people with eating disorders claiming they need human blood to live. The lesser explored darkness of vampire obsessed youth lies with the many bodies lying in the morgue with blood engorged stomachs because they bled themselves to death. WHAT?!?!
Look, I have always thought there was a spectrum of stupid, but I didn't realize the spectrum included the level beyond using leeches as a form of modern medicine in 2010. No, these are the Meyers fans that have taken it one step too far. I am prepared to stop reading at this point, but press on out of sheer morbid curiosity.
Luckily, in the last few chapters Bibeau lightens it up a bit by taking a trip down scholarly lane and then again visiting merchandising, where vampires are a veritable minefield, with one last tribute to the book that started it all. Weird. The whole thing is weird. I find myself having difficulty with almost every aspect of his unveiling. It's not the writing. It's not the logic he uses or the path of his book (although in some ways I wish he had ended the journey in the darkest part with some warning about what these kinds of things can lead to etc). Mostly its just that everything around vampires is depressing.
The prince, on which this tale is predicated, had a horrible life. The book Dracula isn't based on any facts of Vlad's life and is primarily conjecture drawn from a small brochure Stoker read once. The intellectual property rights and the endless merchandising and playing on the story is enough to give a person permanent bile burn in the esophagus. This whole role-playing culture is weird but okay except for the fact it seems like the gate way drug into these body modifications (which I find highly problematic) and provide rationalizations for the atrocious behaviors and acts of the most obsessed "vampires." The only thing that isn't absolutely horrible was the section on literary/historical scholastic work that has developed recently based on everything Dracula. Because even though it is weird, at least it studies all this crazy shit that has gone down. Maybe a sociologist or anthropologist can really study this vamp culture and drill down the danger line to preempt police intervention. That would be the next chapter I would love to read. It is an interesting enough thought, it's worth trying to find the sociologist doing just that. If I find them, I'll let you know.
Stay tuned for two more quirky reviews shortly. The other two are bound to be just as wild.
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