I vill suck your blooooood...
Jun. 4th, 2006 12:00 pmNote to self: Reading vampire books late at night? Not a good idea. Not a good idea at all.
I'm 150 pages into Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian, which is a bit like The Da Vinci Code would be if it had well-written prose and interesting characters who are more than just ciphers to move the plot along, were about Dracula and the history thereof, and were generally not crap. (I don't dislike it because it's popular, I dislike it because it's bad.) It's very good so far, and I hope the following five hundred pages won't disappoint.
However, vampires, when well-written, are just about the only horror genre trope that can genuinely scare me. So, in addition to Kostova really knowing how to reel out tension, this book is really quite creepifying. I think it goes back to childhood. Remember that series of "Scary Stories" books (Scary Stories 1-3)? The ones with the really quite spooky illustrations that were basically just urban legends retold? Mostly I just thought they were kind of disgusting, but one of them did actually get to me. It's the one where there's a girl on a lonesome farm in the middle of nowhere (naturally), who has to face various vampires, whose glowing red eyes she can see at night through her window, coming towards her. I think her two brothers, and probably various farm animals, fall victim to the vampires (who are randomly showing up from a cemetary nearby, or something like that) before she does herself. Anyway, we used to live on a fairly busy road, and out my window at night, I could see the brakelights of passing cars, which, to my eight-year-old mind, looked exactly like glowing red vampire eyes. The fact that they were inevitably going away from me didn't really help things much.
So, yes, vampires, not so much. But the book is still really good.
(Actually, the whole "go into a bathroom, turn off the lights, chant Bloody Mary/Mary Worth x amount of times, spin around a few times, and then look to see her escaping the mirror to scratch your eyes out" always kind of freaked me out as well. Remind me again why this is a popular sleepover game?)
*
( A quiz stolen from alto2 )
I'm 150 pages into Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian, which is a bit like The Da Vinci Code would be if it had well-written prose and interesting characters who are more than just ciphers to move the plot along, were about Dracula and the history thereof, and were generally not crap. (I don't dislike it because it's popular, I dislike it because it's bad.) It's very good so far, and I hope the following five hundred pages won't disappoint.
However, vampires, when well-written, are just about the only horror genre trope that can genuinely scare me. So, in addition to Kostova really knowing how to reel out tension, this book is really quite creepifying. I think it goes back to childhood. Remember that series of "Scary Stories" books (Scary Stories 1-3)? The ones with the really quite spooky illustrations that were basically just urban legends retold? Mostly I just thought they were kind of disgusting, but one of them did actually get to me. It's the one where there's a girl on a lonesome farm in the middle of nowhere (naturally), who has to face various vampires, whose glowing red eyes she can see at night through her window, coming towards her. I think her two brothers, and probably various farm animals, fall victim to the vampires (who are randomly showing up from a cemetary nearby, or something like that) before she does herself. Anyway, we used to live on a fairly busy road, and out my window at night, I could see the brakelights of passing cars, which, to my eight-year-old mind, looked exactly like glowing red vampire eyes. The fact that they were inevitably going away from me didn't really help things much.
So, yes, vampires, not so much. But the book is still really good.
(Actually, the whole "go into a bathroom, turn off the lights, chant Bloody Mary/Mary Worth x amount of times, spin around a few times, and then look to see her escaping the mirror to scratch your eyes out" always kind of freaked me out as well. Remind me again why this is a popular sleepover game?)
*
( A quiz stolen from alto2 )
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