“I was a newborn vampire, weeping at the beauty of the night.“
Anne Rice, Interview with a Vampire
The Vampire Path to Rebirth
A “newborn vampire”—when I saw this quote out of context, the term newborn struck me. Being newborn is to experience everything anew, with wonder. It’s to be present, in the moment. We hold on to that ability in childhood and often lose it as adults. Maybe a vampire provides a path to rebirth, whether good or bad.
Is the vampire’s path to rebirth part of their lasting appeal?
Rebirth As Passion and Wonder
I hear the terms melodrama and purple prose often used in critiques of vampire novels, and the critiques aren’t incorrect. However, isn’t that, at least for one segment of the vampire genre, sort of the point? I know it’s why I read vampire novels—for the chance to experience the lushness of life, the miracle of things we hardly see anymore, the chance to be naively poetic and to wonder at everything.
New love—whether love of another person or love of history or art or cooking or mathematics—is infused with passion, focused and dedicated, wondering at each new feature learned. Emotions are intensified, senses in tune.
Is the vampire’s path a rebirth of knowledge or love?
It was for me when I first read Anne Rice’s novels as a teen. And it is for me as I write my vampire short stories and novels now. I’ve also heard the appeal of melodrama attributed to escapism. I don’t deny luxuriating in the sensual world might be escape from daily living and even from finding refuge in something grander. But I find that often in vampire stories, vampires do come to find something beyond themselves, turn to something ethical or sublime. It’s a journey this rebirth.
Of course, vampires appeal to writers and readers for other reasons too: power, immunity, vengeance, immortality. But for this moment, I’m looking at these particular words from Anne Rice, reassured that vampires in fiction are still around for a reason.
Beside the Darker Shore is available in ebook or paperback at most online retailers. Universal Buy Link.