VAMPIRE, n. These fanged undead creatures show up in romance novels a lot, often as protagonists, so it’s sort of surprising that I haven’t looked up the word until now.
People love to argue about vampire lore—what powers they have, what weaknesses—and I’m not sure the Oxford English Dictionary is anyone else’s first choice of authority on that question, but it’s what I’ve got for you today. A vampire is “A preternatural being of a malignant nature (in the original and usual form of the belief, a reanimated corpse), supposed to seek nourishment, or do harm, by sucking the blood of sleeping persons; a man or woman abnormally endowed with similar habits.” The first recorded instance in English happens in the mid-1700s (1745 per the OED, 1732 per the Online Etymology Dictionary). That 1732 instance is an entry in the London Journal, which you can read in the entry, and is also paraphrased and embellished in the beginning of British writer John William Polidori’s 1819 tale The Vampyre:
In the London Journal, of March, 1732, is a curious, and, of course, credible account of a particular case of vampyrism, which is stated to have occurred at Madreyga, in Hungary. It appears, that upon an examination of the commander-in-chief and magistrates of the place, they positively and unanimously affirmed, that, about five years before, a certain Heyduke, named Arnold Paul, had been heard to say, that, at Cassovia, on the frontiers of the Turkish Servia, he had been tormented by a vampyre, but had found a way to rid himself of the evil, by eating some of the earth out of the vampyre's grave, and rubbing himself with his blood. This precaution, however, did not prevent him from becoming a vampyre[2] himself; for, about twenty or thirty days after his death and burial, many persons complained of having been tormented by him, and a deposition was made, that four persons had been deprived of life by his attacks. To prevent further mischief, the inhabitants having consulted their Hadagni,[3] took up the body, and found it (as is supposed to be usual in cases of vampyrism) fresh, and entirely free from corruption, and emitting at the mouth, nose, and ears, pure and florid blood. Proof having been thus obtained, they resorted to the accustomed remedy. A stake was driven entirely through the heart and body of Arnold Paul, at which he is reported to have cried out as dreadfully as if he had been alive. This done, they cut off his head, burned his body, and threw the ashes into his grave. The same measures were adopted with the corses of those persons who had previously died from vampyrism, lest they should, in their turn, become agents upon others who survived them.
[2] The universal belief is, that a person sucked by a vampyre becomes a vampyre himself, and sucks in his turn.
[3] Chief bailiff.
In case you, like me, read that and went “What the heck is a Heyduke?”, the answer is that it’s an Anglicization of hajduk, which means a militia member/mercenary/bandit/freedom fighter, depending on how you feel about the Ottoman Empire. They were usually from Central, Eastern, or Southeastern Europe, so it seems slightly unusual for one to be called Arnold Paul, but I guess that’s why the London Journal took an interest in him. And his name being Arnold Paul is not the most unusual aspect of this “curious, and, of course, credible account.” Of course credible.
Arnold Paul’s travel from England to Hungary retraces the word’s journey, though it really got around. “Vampire” came to English through French, via Hungarian, from a Slavic word. They are creatures from Eastern European folklore and as such, forms of the word are found in Russian, Polish, Czech, Serbian, and Bulgarian. There is a possible, but disputed, connection with Turkish “uber” or Kazan Tartar “ubyr” (both words mean “witch”).
“Vampire” very clearly sired “vamp,” as in a beautiful woman who would manipulate you. That, we can date to the novel A Fool There Was (by American novelist Porter Emerson Browne, 1909) and its 1915 adaptation with silent film star Theda Bara as The Vampire. She’s not literally a vampire—she doesn’t drink blood—but as “the woman who did not care,” she does ruin a man’s life. Bara was so sexy and powerful in the role that people immediately started using the word “vamp” to talk about this kind of femme fatale.
Here she is in a publicity still for the movie (sourced from Wikipedia).
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This little detour into film history is especially exciting for me, since I’ve been reading Nghi Vo’s Siren Queen, a fantasy novel about Hollywood’s Golden Age, where all the studio executives are literal monsters. No vampires yet, but plenty of draining the life out of people. I don’t usually mention books in this newsletter unless I’ve finished them, but I’ve loved everything else I’ve read by Vo, and it felt right to make this connection.
Naturally, here’s some small-r romance with vampires.
Vampires of El Norte (m/f, both cis and het, historical, fantasy) by Isabel Cañas. This takes place right around the Rio Grande, so the present-day US-Mexico border, before and during the Mexican-American War (1846-8). It follows two childhood friends—Nena, the daughter of a wealthy land-owning patrón, and Néstor, the child of laborers—as they are separated in the aftermath of a mysterious attack (spoiler: it’s vampires) and then reunited nine years later. The prose is lovely and the whole book is so lush and atmospheric. It’s clear a lot of loving historical research went into this, but it’s also full of big emotions, like fear and anger and a yearning cross-class romance, and even more action. It is, after all, a western that is also a romance and a horror novel. They go fight a war! They run from the battlefield in disarray and have to rely on each other to survive! Vampires hunt them through the wilderness! This book’s interpretation of vampires draws from local folklore, and they’re less sleek sexy inhuman and more feral and monstrous, but still not as monstrous as the Anglos coming to conquer.
A Long Time Dead (f/f, both cis and lesbian, historical, fantasy) by Samara Breger. This is a luxurious grand tour of nineteenth-century Europe through the eyes of newly made vampire Poppy Cavendish, formerly an impoverished twenty-one-year-old sex worker. Poppy pines for Roisin, a serious and stoic older vampire who can’t permit herself to feel anything for Poppy, lest her abusive ex Cane take an interest and punish them both. Here, vampirism is all about dangerous, unbridled desire. Sexy, and sensual (the prose!), but also filthy. Appropriately for two immortal characters, the romance unfolds over the course of decades. There are, of course, Dracula references, but also at least one to What We Do in the Shadows. I love a serious, dramatic book that isn’t afraid to make jokes.
In things that are neither Romance nor romance, I’m still reading Mahmoud Darwish in translation by Fady Joudah, and I just finished A State of Siege (2002), one long poem comprised of short sections that meditate on violence, death, sorrow, and survival, but also the desperation of boredom and waiting, and, always, the futility and necessity of art. The sections echo each other and contradict each other over the course of the poem, so it feels a little wrong to extract them from their context, but also I want to show them to you. One section, weary and aching, reads:
This rhyme was not
necessary, not for melody
or for the economy of pain
it is additional
like flies at the dining table
While another captures so intimately the yearning and frustration of living under siege:
He finds time for song:
While I wait for you, I can’t wait for you
I can’t read Dostoevsky
or listen to Om Kalthoum or Maria Callas
or anyone else. While I wait for you the hands
in my wristwatch move to the left, a time
that has no place, while I wait for you
I didn’t wait for you, I waited for eternity
Anyway. Sorry to be bringing you the old news “internationally acclaimed and beloved poet Mahmoud Darwish is amazing,” but internationally acclaimed and beloved poet Mahmoud Darwish is amazing.
Also, I can’t think of Egyptian diva Oum Kalthoum without thinking of the story of her 1967 concert in Paris at the Olympia (link in French, but there is concert footage if you want it), where the French organizer did not really understand how massively popular and important she was in the Arab world, and had no idea how crowded the theatre would be, or how people would prostrate themselves and try to kiss her feet, or how she would improvise in response to the crowd’s wishes and sing for six hours.
I read more nonfiction and fiction about espionage, too, but I will save that for another newsletter. I’ll be back in your inbox on July 7.