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However, I have realised just how little I know about vampires. I didn't realise, for example, that they don't eat or drink. Or sleep. Or that they could move so fast or play baseball so well. Or that they could tell what people are thinking. I don't think I've actually read a book about vampires, not even Dracula. I don't think I've ever watched a vampire movie either. So no wonder I didn't know how much was based on vampire myth and how much had been made up by Stephanie Meyer.
Why are people so into vampires at the moment? The YA shelves are crammed full of books with titles like Vampire Academy. I'm not sure I really get it. And why is sex with a vampire such a very desirable thing?
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My daughter is *really* into the Twilight series at present, and I'm glad in one way because at least it's books! She watched the film and wanted to know more so decided to read the entire saga in a week. (Doe it show how chuffed I am that she is reading?!?)
Wonder if it ties into your other theory though Liz - Fantasy to cross geographic boundaries? Vampires are recogniseable characters and can act in their own vampirical way without having to conform to any particular secular society?
Yes, I think you're right - vampires do cross boundaries, so readers from all nations can identify with them.
Random vampirical thoughts for you!
Generally, the skills of the vampire depend on what the writer particularly needs their character to do. Some eat and drink, some don't. Some have to sleep on their native soil, some don't. Turning into bats/wolves/mist appears to depend entirely on the author's whim, as does the vampire's ability to move by day.
The more romantic the novel, the more likely the author is to do away with inconveniences such as bad breath, longer nails and being a walking dead person...
You can go back to Polidori's The Vampyre to find a romantic sort of vampire - quite literally a Byronic hero; Polidori had been Byron's physician - and Le Fanu's Carmilla also has a dreamy romanticism. Fanged Superstud as a concept really came in in the late 1970s, mainly as a result of Anne Rice's 'Interview With the Vampire', although other writers like Chelsea Quinn Yarbro were leaning that way.
I'm not really into fantasy, though there have been a few books I've enjoyed in that genre. I like a world to be recognisable, hence I enjoyed the early Harry Potters (because he was in a normal world, then went off to school to learn to use his magic) and I have also enjoyed some urban fantasy (I enjoyed Hex, even when it got totally mad). I also loved drageon1's The Two Pearls of Wisdom, because it sort of was China. It's the LOTR-type stuff, where nothing's really recognisable, that kills it for me.
Thanks for the info on vampires! It sounds as if most of Twilight was based on Stephanie Meyer's needs as opposed to anything mythical about these beings.
There's so much more to fantasy and SF than people realise. Certain sectors have an awful lot of dross - space opera, genre fantasy and military SF spring to mind and they're what people generally react against, but even they have good stuff.
Twilight's a vampire book I haven't actually read, but Meyer has taken some stick for pushing a Mormon agenda in the books or for pushing a pro-abstinence (sexual) stance. (I'm not qualified to comment on either.) The books haven't appealed to me, as I almost always loathe romances that cross into SF/fantasy, and the 'forbidden love' trope has been played out in vampire novels for decades, to the point where it's now utterly tedious, and I decided Teen Vampire Forbidden Twoo Wuv would be a step too far...