"Carmilla" (1872)

Once I decided to get to Irish writer Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu it made sense to get to this long story and stone classic of vampire literature sooner rather than later, and glad I did. Mostly I've only read ghost stories by him so far. "Carmilla" feels different from other Le Fanu, even in that last collection, In a Glass Darkly, where it appears with some of his best stuff. It leans brazenly into erotic themes—"Carmilla" is not just a vampire tale but a lesbian vampire tale, circumspect yet insistently overt. I heard an interesting theory lately that interest in vampires rose in the late 19th century with the onset of embalming. The idea is that knowing corpses of loved ones were preserved in lifelike form freaked people out even more than knowing they decomposed. Certainly, predating Bram Stoker's Dracula by 25 years, "Carmilla" trucks in the uncanny spells of attraction under which people fall for these handsome and beautiful creatures who never age, according to the ancient legends. Setting aside embalming, "Carmilla" may be the place where vampire erotics as we know them start. It's typical of Le Fanu in that the writing is restrained and straightforward, and it's also typical of vampire lore in specific ways. For example, it has become almost comic to me how often in these stories a charming stranger shows up like a Jane Austen rock star and everyone is enchanted and wants to know them. But at the same time a sudden rash of unexplained diseases, wounds, and deaths erupts in the isolated rural area around them. Most of these incidents are going on offstage in "Carmilla," but it's a steady drumbeat. People are always late to understanding the obvious in horror and sometimes it makes you want to scream (you fools! wake up!), but it works that way in life too. Victims can often be the last to suspect they are victims. Le Fanu also plays the anagram game here, another notable influence on Stoker—other names used by Carmilla across her centuries-long vampiring career are Marcilla and Mircalla. In appearance she is young and vibrant, though notably "languorous," and in this story she is preying specifically on a 19-year-old innocent, our Laura, the first-person narrator and heroine. It's all so luscious with campy appeal. Serialized originally, the story's 16 chapters are short and move the busy lumbering tale along, with doppelgangers, churchyards, midnight rambles, shrieking in the night, and, yes, puncture wounds. Le Fanu assumes our understanding of vampire rules, which are notoriously slippery. Carmilla keeps late hours and sleeps until the afternoon, but appears to tolerate sunlight. She seems able to affect dreams and confuse her victims. Laura is entirely susceptible to her. The titillating erotics are a lot of outrageous fun, slyly flouting Victorian expectations, and include BDSM edges as well. "Carmilla" had obvious influences on Stoker and Dracula in terms of vampire lore—in many ways "Carmilla" is the bolder tale. It is slowed some by antiquated language and overworked structure, but mostly it is lucid and proceeds with all due speed. Carmilla shows up and takes charge of Laura, even as Laura writes. She does what she likes with Laura and makes her forget a lot of it. It relies on our own imaginations to fill in the gaps and get over and so it does, in the best ways.

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