The Vampire Tapestry
Suzy McKee Charnas
Living Batch Press
1980
Ms. Hen decided to read this novel because she did a search
online for vampire books, and this appeared. She had never heard of it, so she
decided to see is this is something she would like. She is into vampires right
now, and if you are a regular reader of Ms. Hen’s blog you would already be aware of this. She is studying the vampire genre because she recently completed a draft
of a novel about vampires, since she was in semi-quarantine, and had ample free
time. She thought vampires would keep her mind off the troubles of the world.
This is probably Ms. Hen’s favorite novel that she has read
about vampires during her quest. It is a novel told in different stories about
an anthropology professor, Edward Weyland, who is a vampire. The novel starts
at Cayslin College in upstate New York, where he is being pursued by a cleaning
lady who figures out that he drinks blood from his research subjects in the
sleep lab. His time there ends in drama, but he lands in New York City, where
he is held prisoner by some young men, but he escapes and is sent to therapy by
the college where he was employed.
After he finishes therapy, he goes to New Mexico where he
has a difficult time finding sustenance, since the population is sparse.
However, he is resourceful and maneuvers ways to feed on human blood. Dr.
Weyland is a hunter and knows how to render a person unconscious so he can feed.
He is not like other vampires in the way that he can walk in the sun, and there
are none other like him that he knows about. He is solitary, and has
lived for a long time, and he sleeps for several years and wakes up, then
forgets what happened to him during his former wakings.
Ms. Hen liked this novel because it was well written and
engaging. She felt sorry for the vampire; though he kills people, he is compelling. She roots for him in spite of the fact that he is evil. She pictured him as
George Hamilton in LOVE AT FIRST BITE, which she saw many years ago, but
remembers vividly.
Ms. Hen thinks the different points of view in the chapters
work well. It’s difficult to write in varied voices in the same book
describing the same thing, but the novel flowed seamlessly through the
sections. Weyland is a handsome vampire, ruthless, sexy, appealing, a father
figure, and an intellectual.
There is one mention of a chicken in this novel when the
opera singer Tremain sits down to eat his dinner, “Nevertheless, he sat down
discontentedly to his ritual pre-performance bowl of chicken broth.” Ms. Hen is
not sure why Tremain eats chicken broth, but he dies before the end of the
night. His broth was his last meal on Earth before he became Weyland’s meal.
Ms. Hen recommends this as the best vampire novel she has
read yet. The second best was LET ME IN, and the others were not as
illuminating. She thinks that there is a dark underbelly to everyone and she
wants to be able to find out what it is. She wants to know about drinking
blood, or performing evil deeds, or fighting against the darkness that’s inside
us, where the inner vampire dwells, waiting to come out.
 |
| Lunch break without Ms. Hen. She doesn't come to work now because of contagions. |
No comments:
Post a Comment