Hello fellow geeks and nerds, Jarys here.
I just finished a
very interesting book, by the name of Abraham
Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Go back and reread that title for me, please, I
want to make sure your mind has every possible opportunity to drudge up
presupposed ideas of the book. You may think the author brought forth a trashy
and over dramatic pulp action novel, in which the 16th president
takes every impossible leap of logic and character development to become a
totally awesome vampire hunter. You’d be wrong, though I would not blame you
for thinking thus.
The author, who also wrote Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, takes
care to research Lincoln Lincoln
In fact, the relationship between slavery
and vampirism is one of the key elements of the story. Without giving too much
away, Abe learns of this relationship the same day he famously saw his first
slave auction in New Orleans, allowing the emotional impact of one (upon his
collected quotes and correspondences) to make real the other. The creepy
idolization of the Vampiric condition (by which immortality, murder, and
hedonism is romanticized) becomes a metaphor for the horrifying dehumanization
of the institution of slavery (in which people are bought and kept as property,
sexually objectified, and their dignity ignored). The excesses and aristocracy
of the Antebellum South have often been a favorite setting for American Vampire
stories; this book seeks to explain this within such a world through cultural
and political rhetoric that I found very well thought out. Abraham’s
perspective as a non vocal abolitionist is used to explore the Vampiric myth
which does quite well as a metaphor.
I have long thought about the symbolism
that I take from vampire stories, why I find them fascinating, though am
typically disgusted by the vampiric condition. To me vampires are an easy
metaphor for the aristocracy and the fear they engender in lower classes. Like
aristocrats, vampires are obsessed with their bloodlines, and wield economic
and social advantage, having increased these over a long period of time. Anti
aristocratic rhetoric depicts them as parasites, living off of the work of others,
just as vampires live off of the blood of others. Not only are many of the most
famous vampiric characters aristocrats, but most vampires have a cultured sense
of “cool”, and are often written to draw victims in by their glamorous
lifestyle. Vampires wield incredible martial power, like the aristocrats of
old, and can bring death and destruction down on lesser mortals. They are the
essence of the elite, and the loss of empathy through power.
It is idealistically
believed that class has no place in American society, but never was this less true
than the Antebellum South. Affluent salve owning families lived off of large
parcels of land, amassing wealth that established dynasties, many of which are
still important in Southern high society today. One’s family heritage was very
important to rich Southerners, as we can see in the writing of Mark Twain.
Without having to work, slave owners hosted balls, warred with one another, and
generally lived a life of relaxation. These Aristocratic themes been tied to
vampirism since at least the writing of Ann Rice.
While I amuse myself
by pretending to write a paper on these themes, I won’t have readers leave with
the idea that the book is purely intellectual. There are a number of excellent fight
scenes, emotional moments in which the losses of Lincoln ’s
life are depicted as the consequence of his hunting, and incredibly witty lines
(many of which Lincoln
I highly recommend
this book to the armchair historian, conspiracy theorist, or vampire fan. I ate it up in record time.
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