#Life's dream is for someone to write an essay explaining why Kay is so obsessed with Carmilla.

[yvesdot]

June 29 & 30.

A little more free time.

JUNE 29

"Back, back, to your own place! Your time is not yet come. Wait! Have patience! To-night is mine. To-morrow night is yours!" There was a low, sweet ripple of laughter, and in a rage I threw open the door, and saw without the three terrible women licking their lips. As I appeared they all joined in a horrible laugh, and ran away.

Again, I'm hardly the person for this, but I find it an obviously fruitful pursuit to discuss the way Jonathan is passed from man to women. Virginity, sexuality, sex-as-power... I don't know. There's just a lot of it. I really do understand why people love the book; I'm just not personally intrigued by these sorts of possibilities. I'd have to read someone else's (cleanly and simply written) analysis.

JUNE 30

I could not see a key anywhere, but the heap of gold remained.

I didn't take care to annotate this earlier, but Stoker is so set on reminding us how incredibly wealthy Dracula is that I'll do it. WE GET IT. HE HAS SOCIAL POWER THROUGH WEALTH OF MANY COUNTRIES. HE HAS INFLUENCE THROUGH MONEY. Okay now I hope I never have to talk about this again.

There lay the Count, but looking as if his youth had been half renewed, for the white hair and moustache were changed to dark iron-grey; the cheeks were fuller, and the white skin seemed ruby-red underneath; the mouth was redder than ever, for on the lips were gouts of fresh blood, which trickled from the corners of the mouth and ran over the chin and neck. Even the deep, burning eyes seemed set amongst swollen flesh, for the lids and pouches underneath were bloated. It seemed as if the whole awful creature were simply gorged with blood. He lay like a filthy leech, exhausted with his repletion.

We all know I'm a swoony sort of writer so my vampires have to be pretty all the time, but I do love the idea of the combination of youth and swollen leechishness. Quite nice description even if I have to wonder whether Dracula would really not wipe his mouth? Me when I have dinner .5 seconds before Shabbat candle-lighting, I suppose.

I am alone in the castle with those awful women. Faugh! Mina is a woman, and there is nought in common. They are devils of the Pit!

Did you know I almost wrote an essay on this? No, instead I took the path of least resistance and wrote about sexual ambiguity in Carmilla; a decent paper but covering absolutely no new ground whatsoever. A hamster could tell you that the crux of Carmilla is ambiguity.

In this case, I thought this passage might be a useful entry point into vampire gender... but didn't feel confident enough to do anything else. The Count, obviously, is also ripe for analysis in this regard, particularly if you blur the lines of (gender/)sex and sexuality, but I still find this the most interesting line in the entire story.

Can evil remove manhood, or only womanhood? Does the Count retain his sex because the dominance of his approach to Harker is natural for men but unnatural for women? What is the nature of male vs. female evil?

I've said this before and will continue to say it, but please, if you have papers you've written or read or liveblogs you've enjoyed, send them my way! I'd love to hear your thoughts on this and to see more discussion of all these questions.

General commentary:

Here's a snip from that Carmilla essay, since I know Max @goose-books will ask:

Would you seriously not rather be reading this book right now. There's a vampire bite orgasm in it. There are lesbians-- evil lesbians, who say deranged crap like "love is always selfish; the more ardent the more selfish" and "love will have its sacrifices." What do I even do with this? It's like it was written for me. It was written for Kay Rainier, I guess, but if not her it would have been written for me. By a guy who would have been horrified by every aspect of my being, no less.

Oh well. More Dracula when I rise to it.

Alright fine after FOUR PEOPLE asked me about Dracula Daily I will in fact be participating if only to satisfy the masses. Instead of memes I am going to be talking about what’s going on subtextually and my varied vampire-as-metaphor thoughts. Also, I really do not like Dracula. Alright? Alright. See reblogs for later additions.

NAVIGATION:

May 7 (here) | May 8 | May 9 | May 11 | May 12 | May 15

May 16 | May 18 | May 19 | May 24 | May 25, 26 | May 28 | May 31

June 5 | June 18, 24, 25

May 7: In which Jonathan Harker is racist about books, and the Count declares his intent to fondle England.

Keep reading