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Reviews tagging 'Death'
Le Vampire: édition bilingue anglais/français (+ lecture audio intégrée) by George Gordon Byron, John Polidori
1 review
steveatwaywords's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
For its place as one of the earliest literary appearances of vampires (especially as creatures rooted to seduction) and for a relatively brief story, Polidori's story is curious enough and approachable. It moves quickly from scene to scene and leans heavily on the emotional responses of its impotent victim who can only watch the mayhem about him.
I found it interesting for its seemingly unironic acceptance of wealth and class as proper (along with a cringe-worthy condescending infatuation for a peasant girl because of her youth, beauty, and "innocence" from society); for the vampire who clearly does not discriminate; and for the frailty of its protagonist who places various corrupt social "virtues" above the lives of his friends.*Spoiler: You're not going to expose the vampire and save your sister because you made a promise to a vampire not to? Really?
Taken as a whole, though, this failing by the protagonist makes him almost entirely unsympathetic, and if I felt that he was thus a spoiled and naive every-aristocrat and Polidori was thereby passing some judgment upon the just purging of that class, I might be more interested. More, that failed sympathy is worsened by a story which rarely offers any dialogue at all, choosing instead to spend the great majority of its storytelling in summary. Months of deception and debauchery by the monster go by, for instance, in a few sentences; so do months of plots and schemes to thwart him.
Even so, the roots of the popular version of the legend are here exposed, and it is worth the time it takes to meet it. About an hour.
I found it interesting for its seemingly unironic acceptance of wealth and class as proper (along with a cringe-worthy condescending infatuation for a peasant girl because of her youth, beauty, and "innocence" from society); for the vampire who clearly does not discriminate; and for the frailty of its protagonist who places various corrupt social "virtues" above the lives of his friends.
Taken as a whole, though, this failing by the protagonist makes him almost entirely unsympathetic, and if I felt that he was thus a spoiled and naive every-aristocrat and Polidori was thereby passing some judgment upon the just purging of that class, I might be more interested. More, that failed sympathy is worsened by a story which rarely offers any dialogue at all, choosing instead to spend the great majority of its storytelling in summary. Months of deception and debauchery by the monster go by, for instance, in a few sentences; so do months of plots and schemes to thwart him.
Even so, the roots of the popular version of the legend are here exposed, and it is worth the time it takes to meet it. About an hour.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death
Minor: Sexual assault
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