On Vampires, Metaphor, and Elvis Presley

Dead Until Dark, by Charlaine Harris

This is a thought-provoking book, albeit it may not intend to be. For one thing, it brings the old vampire-as-homosexual theory out of 1920s films and into modern pop fiction, and that's always worth a ponder or two, especially when a vampiric form of AIDS rears its ugly little head. For another, it manages to take that connection a step or two further, all while meandering along in gloriously down-to-earth first-person narration that manages not to be either too omniscient or too oblivious -- a difficult trick to pull off in any genre.

Also, this is no run-of-the-mill vampire novel a la Anita Blake. Although vampire humping is involved, the setting and style are more Christopher Moore than Anne Rice -- that reminds me, I should reread Moore's Bloodsucking Fiends for comparison -- and also contains one of the many recent literary sightings of Elvis -- or as he's known here, Bubba. It's a creepy Elvis, too.

But one thing this novel makes clear, is the way human beings have invented vampires purely for the sake of being what we are not, and therefore scary. They are dead, first and most obviously, while we are comfortingly alive (well, most of us). They are most powerful at night, while we cower in the dark, and when we are basking in sunlight, they hide in graveyards and coffins and other things of that morbid ilk. They are arrestingly incarnated examples of some of our most deep-seated fears.

Especially, I should think, about death -- aren't vampires really just an expression of the unknowableness of dying? They have, after all, passed through death -- and so doing, have become monstrous perversions of humanity. At the same time, death has given them stregths and powers unavailable to pre-death humans -- and if those powers appear to be primarily sexual, well -- there's death again, really. Are humans naturally inclined to monsters that are in essence ourselves in mirror reflections?

I'm beginning to believe so.