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that Dracula is a vampire, and Van Helsing devises a plan to kill him. The short, short ver- sion is that they all end up back in Transylva- nia, with Van Helsing killing the three lady vampires and Harker helping to take down the count. They live happily ever after. Dracula is really a much better book than this synopsis would suggest. The novel wasn’t a smash hit, but it was well-received by some pretty impressive names, including one Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes novels. Bram Stoker died penniless, as all the best authors do. The novel might have faded into obscurity if not for a burgeoning film industry in Hollywood and a loophole in U.S. copyright law that placed the novel in the public domain years earlier than it should have been. Moviemak- ers could thus film all the Draculas they want- ed and not pay the Stoker estate a dime, so they did, and they didn’t. “Did you know that Dracula is based on Vlad the Impaler?” you interrupt. No, I didn’t, because that’s not quite accu- rate. The name “Dracula” was undoubtedly taken from Vlad III Dracula of Romania, but that’s about it. ( Dracula translates from Old Romanian as “son of the dragon,” though that is probably incidental.) Dracula’s origi- nal name in Stoker’s notes was—I cannot be- lieve this is real, but it is—Count Wampyre, which is like writing a book about were- wolves and calling the main character Bere- wolf. Stoker ran across the superior name while researching Transylvania and knew a good thing when he saw it. The original title of the novel was The Dead Un-Dead , and later, The Un-Dead . We know all this be- cause to make ends meet, Stoker’s widow had to sell his research notes at auction. They fetched two pounds. “But what about the garlic?” you ask. You’re just going to have to wait. I’m spinning a yarn here. Vampires are all over books, film and tele- vision, and to run through the list would be to fill about 10 of these magazines. But if you thought you would get through this piece without an overlong and loving mention of the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer , you were mistaken. There are only two kinds of GARLIC AND VAMPIRISM: A HATE STORY

people in this world: those who have seen it and know that it is the best television series ever written, and those who have not seen it. If you know someone who has seen it and didn’t love it…well I’m not advising you to drive a stake through their (absent) heart, but I’m not saying don’t do it, either. The title really gives the game away. It’s a show about a vampire slayer named Buffy, and the entire series is an extended meta- phor for adolescence and adulthood. What makes the story and its titular character so compelling early on is that Buffy falls in love with a vampire named Angel—a vampire with a soul . Poor Angel. I rend my garments for Angel! For centuries, he was the evilest of all vampires, but after slaying a Roma family is cursed with a soul! Another century elaps- es with him now feeling guilt for all the evil he has done. But it gets so much worse, as there is a second part to his curse: If ever he experiences true happiness, he is doomed to lose his soul again. Then he meets Buffy, and trouble ensues. And oh, Buffy, forced to car- ry the weight of the world on her shoulders. No one can know her ancient mystical call- ing, and so she stares alone into the abyss every night, fighting the forces of darkness, an outcast among her peers, servant of a calling she did not seek or want. And then she begins a doomed romance with a man who cannot love her back. Over the course of the series, a little at a time, she sacrifices everything. But I have gotten carried away. You’re wondering about garlic and vampires. But first, some mind-blowing trivia. Vampires are sometimes depicted in fiction as having obsessive-compulsive disorder. This is why when Fox Mulder encountered one on The

X-Files , he spilled sunflower seeds on the floor in order to escape. The vampire had no choice but to pick up and count the sun- flower seeds, giving Mulder the distraction he needed. Why do I mention this? (Aside from it being one of the finest hours in the history of television, Buffy notwithstanding.) Because when you are watching Sesame Street , it is not coincidence that the Count is a vampire. Counting things is what he and his army of the undead do! Ah ah ah. In popular culture, modern depictions of vampires—including Dracula—haven’t had much use for the garlic rule. A good behead- ing, immolation or stake through the heart, sure—there are no better ways to kill the undead (and also the living, come to think of it). On television, the best way for a vam- pire to protect him- or herself is to be really popular with fans. Then nothing can kill you, as Spike on Buffy the Vampire Slayer can attest. (Even Dracula, who appeared in a single episode, as you recall from the binge, somehow managed to survive being staked— twice. We also learned in that episode that Buffy has a sister! And I know that’s a spoiler but the show is 21 years old. Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father and Bruce Willis is a ghost. You’re late and that’s the price you pay.) Vampires fear garlic on Buffy. They do not fear it in Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire . (An awful lot of vampire legends are dispatched in that novel, all dismissed as superstition and nonsense.) So what, exactly, is the deal with garlic? As it turns out, there are a few real-world reasons that vampires (assuming they are not real-world, which I am not doing) would

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