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Sometimes after an hour of apathy, my strange and beautiful companion would take my hand and hold it with a fond pressure, renewed again and again; blushing softly, gazing in my face with languid and burning eyes, and breathing so fast that her dress rose and fell with the tumultuous respiration. It was like the ardour of a lover; it embarrassed me; it was hateful and yet overpowering; and with gloating eyes she drew me to her, and her hot lips travelled along my cheek in kisses; and she would whisper, almost in sobs, "You are mine, you shall be mine, and you and I are one for ever."
(From Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu)
~*~
I've always been obsessed with vampires, specifically the older versions of the stories, like Dracula, the myth of the creatures of the night, mostly the European folk tales that inspired our now-a-day versions of werewolves and vampires. I know the long, somewhat questionable pedigree that has produced what we know today, and it's utterly fascinating to me, how they evolved, what they came from. For example--most people accused of lycanthropy were the world's first serial killers, and really not those suffering from a monthly fur growth-age. Which, you know, makes it a lot less fanciful and happy, but there you go. XDDDD
However, my favorite of ALL of these is the novel (though, really, it's more of a novella) entitled Carmilla. It was written by Le Fanu some twenty years before Dracula, and is the inspiration for Stoker's epic. Stoker's vampire is the one that everyone knows, the vampire that hollywood cashed in on in the twenties, thirties and forties (and hell, still today), but Carmilla got pushed to the wayside. Some argue that her story is less known because she was a woman.
But the truth of the matter is that I believe the story is not well known...because she was lesbian.
The book is lesbian. There's no two ways about it. The way it's described, the deep passion between Mircalla (Carmilla) and Laura is off the freakin' charts.
The story? ( Read more... )
Sometimes after an hour of apathy, my strange and beautiful companion would take my hand and hold it with a fond pressure, renewed again and again; blushing softly, gazing in my face with languid and burning eyes, and breathing so fast that her dress rose and fell with the tumultuous respiration. It was like the ardour of a lover; it embarrassed me; it was hateful and yet overpowering; and with gloating eyes she drew me to her, and her hot lips travelled along my cheek in kisses; and she would whisper, almost in sobs, "You are mine, you shall be mine, and you and I are one for ever."
(From Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu)
I've always been obsessed with vampires, specifically the older versions of the stories, like Dracula, the myth of the creatures of the night, mostly the European folk tales that inspired our now-a-day versions of werewolves and vampires. I know the long, somewhat questionable pedigree that has produced what we know today, and it's utterly fascinating to me, how they evolved, what they came from. For example--most people accused of lycanthropy were the world's first serial killers, and really not those suffering from a monthly fur growth-age. Which, you know, makes it a lot less fanciful and happy, but there you go. XDDDD
However, my favorite of ALL of these is the novel (though, really, it's more of a novella) entitled Carmilla. It was written by Le Fanu some twenty years before Dracula, and is the inspiration for Stoker's epic. Stoker's vampire is the one that everyone knows, the vampire that hollywood cashed in on in the twenties, thirties and forties (and hell, still today), but Carmilla got pushed to the wayside. Some argue that her story is less known because she was a woman.
But the truth of the matter is that I believe the story is not well known...because she was lesbian.
The book is lesbian. There's no two ways about it. The way it's described, the deep passion between Mircalla (Carmilla) and Laura is off the freakin' charts.
The story? ( Read more... )
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