those who dream only by night: the gothic short stories rec list
have you ever felt like you want to read more fiction in the gothic tradition, but you haven’t the money or the time, or you’re the sort of person who only reads a novel if you’re sure you like the writer? i can help with that! here is a list of short stories, novellas, and one poem, all of which are important in the gothic tradition, the gothic revival, or contemporary gothic fiction, and they are all on the internet! for free! (i enjoy making rec lists, but i particularly enjoy making rec lists where i know that everyone who reads the list can get all of it for free.) so, take a night, make some hot chocolate, and frighten the life out of yourself. you’ll thank me!
Why thank u dear, such a lovely compliment! I shall have to post more selfies… unless u are referring to my inner beauty of which I have an abundance *u*
I do ship L/L! Absolutely! However did u guess?? sometimes Louis doesn’t ship them but thats fine bc nobody ships L/L as hard as Lestat ships L/L.
I don’t remember when exactly, but I think AR did call Louis a “damaged pilgrim” at one point. There’s that.
If you want to cry over Louis, read Merrick, if you haven’t already. He has a lead role in that one ;] But be prepared because your feels will be squarely hit.
Hit the jump for my thoughts on why we don’t get much Louis action post-IWTV.
(ok because Louis spoke in English, and the French followed MOST of the same patterns in literary history, I’m going to base this mostly with British literature)
Yep! Louis manner of talking was much more flowery. It was lush and decorative without the higher philosophical trappings of the earlier 1800′s. Louis is more along the lines of the Oscar Wilde’s era of the very late 19th century, which is what most people think of today when they think “Victorian writing.” Similar in voice (though not subject) would also be Matthew Arnold (read some of his essays, and tell me that’s not how Louis talks), Wilkie Collins, and Henry James.
The trade mark of the era was the fading out in popularity of language for the sake of language: the British (and to a lesser extent the French) had a love for the intricacy of the language, how it all worked together, and (take a look at Charles Dickens for an Example of this) it would result in using several paragraphs to tell what could be summed up in a couple sentences.
The realists in France and a few in Russia (as the Russians idolized France in the 1800′s) were starting something new by the close of the century: keeping their prose short, sweet and to the point. With no less artistry they found beauty in a minimalistic approach: instead of “Roses of velvet that matched the shade the rubies dripping from the mark of the asp on Cleopatra’s breast,” for example, it was now “soft, bloody roses.”
They still evoke the same image, but not the same tone.
Going back to what this has to do with Louis: he’s not so much involved in human goings on, he’s aware of events and films, but still speaks in the language of the century where he spent the most time communicating with others–also he would not have lost his speech patterns over those decades with Armand because Armand was mostly isolated in his language circles. So we can look at all of that as to why Louis talks the way he does.
I’m sorry if that was incoherent and rambling; I’m cooking and writing at the same time.
^I knew I could count on annabellioncourt for some excellent points ❤
She also added: “Louis does show a HEAVY influence from the French symbolist poets (the school that Charles Baudelaire was from).”
Of course Louis would express himself in the language of the writers he enjoyed. OF COURSE HE WOULD. We all know he’s basically a big ol’ bookworm w/ fangs.
I love how werewolf/vampire/monster tv shows are now considered girl shows. Like, that genre is ours now. Fangs, claws, and the supernatural are now considered girl stuff, and that pleases me far more than I’d like to admit.
The first werewolf story written down was Bisclarvet. Written by a woman.
Mary Shelly.
Christina Rossetti’s goblins.
Ann Radcliffe’s Gothic horror castles. Angela Carter’s women with fur and fangs and fear of nothing.
Anne Rice telling of a woman vampire goddess. Shirley Jackson and the horrors rooted in our own suburbia.
Flannery O’Conner. Margaret Atwood at times.
Three sisters on the cold English moors writing stories of ghosts and death and wicked love.
Massive slews of ghost stories written by women and churned out by 18th and 19th century literary pamphlets.
Am I the only one who saw Lestat, Louis, and Claudia in that “One Unfulfilled Idea of Family” in Hannibal, Will, and Abigail? Or am I just one of those helpless cases of VCians who can easily find reference to VC just anywhere and everywhere? 0_o
It’s definitely not just you. I know I’ve talked to adirotynd and wicked-felina about this very phenomenon. There’s a hell of a lot of common ground between the VC and Hannibal: perverse yet more-intense-than-anything-ever intimacy based on mutual experience of (committing) violence; heightened sensuality; a fine line between black comedy and high-flown philosophy… and then of course Hannibal is in itself a fanfic-like remix of the Thomas Harris canon, which is interesting to look at, considering the fanon that has grown up around the VC over the years.
I was surprised-yet-not-surprised when I found out that Bryan Fuller was a huge IWTV fan growing up – there’s a Nerdist podcast in which he describes how, at the age of 13, he phoned Anne Rice because he wanted to work on the IWTV screenplay. The story is a gem and starts about 32 minutes in, but the whole thing is really great:
Edit: basically what I’m saying is, if you’re a VC fan who can handle looking at gore, there is a very good chance that Hannibal will be right up your street. Meanwhile, if you are a Hannibal fan who enjoys historical settings and can cope with a canon that gets increasingly bizarre as the series progresses, you might find a happy home in VC fandom. Hey, I like to matchmake.
The Queen of Shadows has been silent for too long; her powers have regrown and her subjects move to shift the balance. Few stand against her, and those that do aren’t exactly hero material. An unlikely group of inhumans is brought together by circumstance and find themselves drawn into the war against the shadows while struggling to deal with their own problems. Between vampire politics, lost aliens, and the struggle to blend in with humanity, they have the odds stacked. The patchwork group may be the only hope left as the Shadow Queen nears her ultimate goal…godhood.
I think the body’s original owner is described as Anglo-Indian, a term that makes me think of the British Raj, though Wikipedia says it’s still in use today.
the body belonged to the son of indian immigrants [if I am not mistaken. idk, read that book a month ago but not very carefully]
Does anyone remember the first time it’s mentioned? If you don’t mind sending me a quote, just curious. Just can’t find it myself 😛
Some people of mixed English and Indian descent self-describe as Anglo-Indian; I’m thinking of a friend of my mother’s in this case. But that’s not to say that’s what Anne Rice meant in this instance – I’m digging through the text online but no luck finding the quote so far.
However! I did find an academic paper that, at a glance, looks super-relevant:
cloudsinvenice: #vampire chronicles, #david talbot, #the tale of the body thief, #i get that it’s super bad form to delete stuff from posts you reblog but I took out the question with the racist slur, #because what the fucking fuck
Thanks for answering that, will have to read that article, I’m intrigued that someone tackled it as a subject!
Also, re: your other good point in your tags, I should have deleted that racist thing myself, but when I published that question I addressed in my response that the term is deragotory. I published it bc it did raise the question regarding how David must have felt about being a different ethnicity.
I-want-my-IWTV 