Finally, a classic that I enjoyed! Published only one year before the author died, the 1872 novella Carmilla is an engrossing tale of one woman's hold on others through her vampire charms. It's narrated in first person by a female protagonist named Laura (and one who I initially thought was a male narrator!). Normally I do not like first person voice, but in this story it's not obnoxious or overwhelmingly ridiculous.
The story is of the Countess Karnstein, who has lived for a century or more, moving from place to place and changing her name - but always the new name being an anagram. We meet her as Carmilla, but in earlier times she has gone by Mircalla and Millarca. Naturally until the story is quite advanced, the actors in this drama have no idea of Carmilla's age or her vampire traits.
Wikipedia declares this to be a lesbian vampire story, but there isn't any overt lesbianism in it and I think in declaring it as such, the author of that article (who I'd be willing to bet is a male!) misses the fact that in Victorian times women were often in close relationships with impassioned statements of love and feeling, but without necessarily any lesbian inclinations or behaviors. Perhaps that's what le Fanu intended, or perhaps it wasn't. For me, I don't care either way; I just don't think the case has necessarily been made.
In many ways this story was a template for Bram Stoker's much better known Dracula which came a quarter century later, but vampire tales and legend precede both of these books by a good many years. There is the female victim, Laura, and clueless male companions and friends, but again I take odds with Wikipedia's assertion that this is a female empowerment novel since it isn't Laura who saves herself in the end. In fact, she plays a rather passive role in this story. Predictably (in hindsight!), it is an older male expert who shows up later and finally dispatches the vampire in her coffin.
This story begins with the oddball overture of a carriage racing along and overturning right outside where Laura and her father live, and the plea of the female who is riding in it that Laura's father take charge of her youthful (so it's understood!) and out-of-sorts daughter, to enable the woman to continue with her urgent journey.
Those were much more trusting times, and the nobility were much more reliable, and trustworthy in general, so none of that is particularly strange for the era. What is strange is that this traveling party is neither explained, nor is it ever seen or heard from again. There's no explanation offered as to who the travelers are or why they're in such a confounded hurry, or even what their relationship is to Carmilla, if any. So they disappear and we're left with Carmilla and her blossoming relationship with Laura.
The two become, as they might have said back then, bosom companions, despite Carmilla's somewhat odd traits: her lethargy, her sleeping very late into the day, her pallour, and her off-kilter habits. They declare love for each other, but nowhere do they exhibit any overt behavior or any behavior beyond what might be expected of any pair of young Victorian ingénues who are very fond of one another and excited to have such a suitable companion.
After a time through, Laura starts succumbing to some sort of a wasting illness, accompanied by bizarre dreams, and stories are spreading of deaths in the nearby communities. Despite this, it isn't until General Spielsdorf comes into the story that Laura and her father learn that the supposedly extinct Karnstein family has an extant descendent: a countess who does not die, but relocates herself periodically under a new name and preys on vulnerable, young local women. After a search, Carmilla's tomb is located on the derelict Karnstein estate, and she is summarily dispatched, leaving Laura with bittersweet memories.
I throughly enjoyed the story, perhaps being primed to favor it through having seen the 1970 Hammer Film production of Carmilla which was titled The Vampire Lovers and which played very much into the lesbian aspect. It starred Ingrid Pitt, a vamp herself, as Carmilla, along with the startlingly fresh and youthful Madeline Smith as Laura, and the inevitable Peter Cushing as Spielsdorf. It was the first of a trilogy, but I can't recall if I ever saw any of the sequels. I enjoyed that movie however, and it does follow the story quite well, so anyone who isn't interested in reading an old novella might like to see the film instead. I commend the book though as a worthy read.
