Lecture 13: Sprites, War Criminals, and Vampires

English 140UC Santa Barbara

Summer 2012

27 August 2012

“Authors write books, but cultures create literature. And no culture crafts a literary essay or an in-depth book review better than the British.”

—Academic junk mail from the London Review of Books

Illustration by D.H. Friston, published with Joseph Sheridan LeFanu’s Carmilla in The Dark Blue, 1872.

A few words on Prof. Victorinix …

“All her books were still in print […] In the academic world, this approached immortality.” (4; ch. 1)

“Last time he [Nelson]’d met with her, he’d nearly lost his finger. This time she’d tear his throat out.” (67; ch. 4)

“Because of the dim light, perhaps, or Victorinix’s pale complexion, Nelson could make out only himself and Gillian in the door; the two round, black discs of Victorinix’s glasses seemed to hang unsupported in empty, gray space.” (68)

“Even now, he was certain, Victorinix was adding a scathing letter of reprimand to his file, driving a stake through his professional heart.” (71; ch. 4)

“Around the table Miranda had not touched her bottle of Evian, and Victoria Victorinix sat with one half of a blood orange and the shredded skin of the other half on a plate before her.” (187; ch. 11)

“Victoria Victorinix’s face faded to a pale mask again. The light in her eyes shrank to pinpoints, coldly watching, as if from the shadows, the idiot behavior of the warm-blooded.” (233; ch. 12)

“Victorinix smiled. Her long canines glittered.” (272; ch. 14)

“‘What I enjoy,’ said Victoria Victorinix evenly, ‘is beyond your comprehension.’” (273)

“Fifteen miles from where we’re standing, in every direction, are thousands of decent, warm-blooded citizens, just like you, who do their jobs and love their children and pay their taxes and wouldn’t hurt a dog – and nearly every one of them would just as soon burn me at the stake, cut out my heart, and bury my headless corpse at a crossroads. They will never accept me as human, Nelson, let alone as ‘normal.’” (274)

“You define yourself by what you are not. You define yourself by excluding the Other from your idea of ‘normal’ and ‘moral’ and ‘decent.’ And out of all the Others there are, I’m the most ‘Other’ of them all.” (275; ch. 14)

“I offered her [Vita] a community of passionate friends, of intimate companionship! A community where there are no fathers and husbands […] where all we exchange is blood and trust and love! […] Not romantic love […] but a material and sensual love with no dominance or hate in it, a love in which we do not bear children, but create companions.” (277)

Miranda: “I just got the most frantic phone call from Gillian, of all people. She seems to think that Victoria is missing, poor girl. So have you buried her under your basement floor out in married housing, you wicked boy? […] I hope you drove a stake through her heart first.” (331; ch. 17)

“He saw Victoria’s face before him, her pupils narrowed to vertical slits like a snake’s.” (363; ch. 18)

“She did not answer him, but floating up the elevator shaft, raising the hair on the back of his neck, he heard her voice falling away from him, her laughter pealing like an icy chime.” (370)

Media credits

David Henry Friston’s illustration for Carmilla is out of copyright (it was first published in 1872). Original source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Carmilla.jpg