What do you think?
Rate this book
Wampir z Ropraz
1903 rok, małe szwajcarskie miasteczko położone wśród lasów, owładnięte widmem strachu...
Rosa, córka sędziego, umiera na zapalenie opon mózgowych. Dzień po pogrzebie ktoś dokonuje gwałtu na jej zwłokach i rozrywa je na części. W pobliskich miejscowościach dochodzi do podobnych zbrodni. Psychopata bezcześci groby i profanuje zwłoki młodych kobiet. Ludzi ogarnia panika. Śpią z krucyfiksami, a domy obwieszają czosnkiem. Jednocześnie zaczyna się polowanie na zboczeńca. Podejrzanym jest Favez – niespełna rozumu alkoholik o długich zębach i czerwonych oczach, przyłapany na gwałceniu krów. Badanie psychologa potwierdza przypuszczenia: Favez miał ciężkie dzieciństwo, które wpłynęło na jego chorą psychikę. Dowody jednak nie są wystarczające i „wampir” zostaje wypuszczony na wolność. To co się później stanie, będzie zarówno efektem przypadku, jak i okoliczności historycznych. Chessex, wyraźnie zainspirowany historią obyczajów, zabobonów i psychologii początków XX wieku, ale także literatury wampirycznej, popularnej szczególnie w wieku XIX – stworzył powieść, która przeraża i trzyma w napięciu do samego końca. Pisząc językiem kunsztownym, mrocznym i niezwykle sugestywnym, autor analizuje zarówno motywy działania psychopatycznego mordercy, jak i postawę małomiasteczkowej społeczności w sytuacji zagrożenia. Oparta na faktach książka dla wymagających czytelników o silnych nerwach.
Chessex wie, że tematy, które porusza, wywołują niepokojącą fascynację; taką samą jak ta, która powodowała mieszkańcami Ropraz, i jak ta, która wstrząsa czytelnikami prasy współczesnej, przynoszącej najgorsze wiadomości.
L’Express Livres
Doskonale odtworzona atmosfera, która powstaje w wyniku mieszania się podejrzeń, zabobonów i chorej ekscytacji wywołanej pojawieniem się wampira. Mały, mroczny klejnot.
Le Monde
Chessex jest daleki od prostego przywoływania faktów. Inteligentnie wplata w swoją opowieść odrobinę poezji, naturalizmu, estetyki obrzydliwości i metafizyki potwora.
Lire
Chessex znów prezentuje arcydzieło, opisując wydarzenia rozgrywające się w jego nieprzeniknioym kraju.
Le Nouvel Observateur
Rosa, córka sędziego, umiera na zapalenie opon mózgowych. Dzień po pogrzebie ktoś dokonuje gwałtu na jej zwłokach i rozrywa je na części. W pobliskich miejscowościach dochodzi do podobnych zbrodni. Psychopata bezcześci groby i profanuje zwłoki młodych kobiet. Ludzi ogarnia panika. Śpią z krucyfiksami, a domy obwieszają czosnkiem. Jednocześnie zaczyna się polowanie na zboczeńca. Podejrzanym jest Favez – niespełna rozumu alkoholik o długich zębach i czerwonych oczach, przyłapany na gwałceniu krów. Badanie psychologa potwierdza przypuszczenia: Favez miał ciężkie dzieciństwo, które wpłynęło na jego chorą psychikę. Dowody jednak nie są wystarczające i „wampir” zostaje wypuszczony na wolność. To co się później stanie, będzie zarówno efektem przypadku, jak i okoliczności historycznych. Chessex, wyraźnie zainspirowany historią obyczajów, zabobonów i psychologii początków XX wieku, ale także literatury wampirycznej, popularnej szczególnie w wieku XIX – stworzył powieść, która przeraża i trzyma w napięciu do samego końca. Pisząc językiem kunsztownym, mrocznym i niezwykle sugestywnym, autor analizuje zarówno motywy działania psychopatycznego mordercy, jak i postawę małomiasteczkowej społeczności w sytuacji zagrożenia. Oparta na faktach książka dla wymagających czytelników o silnych nerwach.
Chessex wie, że tematy, które porusza, wywołują niepokojącą fascynację; taką samą jak ta, która powodowała mieszkańcami Ropraz, i jak ta, która wstrząsa czytelnikami prasy współczesnej, przynoszącej najgorsze wiadomości.
L’Express Livres
Doskonale odtworzona atmosfera, która powstaje w wyniku mieszania się podejrzeń, zabobonów i chorej ekscytacji wywołanej pojawieniem się wampira. Mały, mroczny klejnot.
Le Monde
Chessex jest daleki od prostego przywoływania faktów. Inteligentnie wplata w swoją opowieść odrobinę poezji, naturalizmu, estetyki obrzydliwości i metafizyki potwora.
Lire
Chessex znów prezentuje arcydzieło, opisując wydarzenia rozgrywające się w jego nieprzeniknioym kraju.
Le Nouvel Observateur
96 pages, Hardcover
First published February 7, 2007
12 people are currently reading
505 people want to read
About the author
Jacques Chessex
92 books26 followersJacques Chessex was a Swiss author and painter.
Born in Payern, Switzerland Chessex is a poet, writer and artist. He is among the most important writers who write in French. In 1973, he received international recognition when he became the first Swiss to win the biggest French literary prize - "Goncourt" for his novel "L'Ogre ". The same model was the first foreigner awarded the prestigious award. In 2004 and received "Goncourt" for poetry.
Jacques Chessex died in Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland, of a heart attack during a meeting with the readers on October 9, 2009
Source: http://www.shvoong.com/books/2232838-...
Born in Payern, Switzerland Chessex is a poet, writer and artist. He is among the most important writers who write in French. In 1973, he received international recognition when he became the first Swiss to win the biggest French literary prize - "Goncourt" for his novel "L'Ogre ". The same model was the first foreigner awarded the prestigious award. In 2004 and received "Goncourt" for poetry.
Jacques Chessex died in Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland, of a heart attack during a meeting with the readers on October 9, 2009
Source: http://www.shvoong.com/books/2232838-...
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 132 reviews
February 16, 2016
It is 1903; a tiny village in the Jura mountains. Dark nights, long winters, pine forests, wolves, and for the human population a lot of solitary brooding. One morning, a horrific crime: the body of a recently-deceased girl found violated in the cemetery. Cheeks bitten off, entrails removed, breasts cut away; the vulva has been severed and eaten, with bits of cartilage and pubic hair found spat-out in a nearby bush. The perpetrator is quickly dubbed ‘the vampire of Ropraz’, and the horror spreads as two similar crimes follow in nearby villages over the coming weeks.
The public demands a culprit. And one is found – a suitably damaged stableboy, caught abusing farm animals, who has appropriately reddened, vampirical eyes and even oversized canines. There are problems, of course – there is no physical evidence that he is responsible, and he clearly lacks the facility with a knife that would have been necessary to carve up the dead bodies as they were found. But perhaps, for the purposes of community justice, these objections are not so very important after all.
This brief novella has elements of reportage, elements of horror, elements of crime procedural – but they're all in the service of painting a mood-picture of a particular type of remote community as it was just before the modern age. It is as unromantic and gloomy and sensuous a picture of the Swiss mountains as you're likely to find.
Well as you can see, the writing here is fabulous. The book was released originally as part of Grasset's Ceci n'est pas un fait divers series (‘this is not a news story’), and it is in part a retelling of actual events in the village where Chessex lived until his death in 2009; he claimed to have been told the details by a cousin of that first mutilated victim. There are moments here where the prose style reminded me a little of García Márquez's News of a Kidnapping, except that this book is to be found in the fiction section and some parts, especially towards the end, must be the result of creative license. However, despite some research that showed me the case was more or less real, I could not work out exactly where the join was.
Le Vampire de Ropraz is also remarkable for the attitude it takes towards the ‘vampire’ himself. Though the full horror of his actions is made all too clear, he is also – through a tremendous exertion of authorial sympathy – somehow accepted. Chessex at one point addresses him directly – mon double, mon frère ! – and seems to suggest that crimes like these are within him, Chessex, too – indeed that they are within all of us, waiting, perhaps, for the right conjunction of desperation, remoteness and mental perturbation to bring them out. Not a traditional horror story, but plenty to make you shiver here all the same.
The public demands a culprit. And one is found – a suitably damaged stableboy, caught abusing farm animals, who has appropriately reddened, vampirical eyes and even oversized canines. There are problems, of course – there is no physical evidence that he is responsible, and he clearly lacks the facility with a knife that would have been necessary to carve up the dead bodies as they were found. But perhaps, for the purposes of community justice, these objections are not so very important after all.
This brief novella has elements of reportage, elements of horror, elements of crime procedural – but they're all in the service of painting a mood-picture of a particular type of remote community as it was just before the modern age. It is as unromantic and gloomy and sensuous a picture of the Swiss mountains as you're likely to find.
Ici on n'a pas de grands commerces, d'usines, de manufactures, on n'a qu'on gagne de la terre, autant dire rien. Ce n'est pas une vie. On est même si pauvres qu'on vend nos vaches pour la viande aux bouchers des grandes villes, on se contente du cochon et on mange tellement sous toutes ses formes, fumé, écouenné, haché, salé, qu'on finit par lui ressembler, figure rose, hure rougie, loin du monde, par combes noires et forêts.
Dans ces campagnes perdues une jeune fille est une étoile qui aimante les folies. Inceste et rumination, dans l'ombre célibataire, de la part charnelle à jamais convoitée et interdite.
Well as you can see, the writing here is fabulous. The book was released originally as part of Grasset's Ceci n'est pas un fait divers series (‘this is not a news story’), and it is in part a retelling of actual events in the village where Chessex lived until his death in 2009; he claimed to have been told the details by a cousin of that first mutilated victim. There are moments here where the prose style reminded me a little of García Márquez's News of a Kidnapping, except that this book is to be found in the fiction section and some parts, especially towards the end, must be the result of creative license. However, despite some research that showed me the case was more or less real, I could not work out exactly where the join was.
La misère sexuelle, comme on la nommera plus tard, s'ajoute aux rôderies de la peur et de l'imagination du mal. Solitaire, on surveille la nuit, ébats d'amour de quelques nantis et de leur râlante complice, frôlements du diable, culpabilité vrillé dans quatre siècles de calvinisme imposé.
Le Vampire de Ropraz is also remarkable for the attitude it takes towards the ‘vampire’ himself. Though the full horror of his actions is made all too clear, he is also – through a tremendous exertion of authorial sympathy – somehow accepted. Chessex at one point addresses him directly – mon double, mon frère ! – and seems to suggest that crimes like these are within him, Chessex, too – indeed that they are within all of us, waiting, perhaps, for the right conjunction of desperation, remoteness and mental perturbation to bring them out. Not a traditional horror story, but plenty to make you shiver here all the same.
June 13, 2017
That was really strange reading. The vampire of Ropraz is an atmospheric somewhat gothic tale illustrating old saying that when reason sleeps demons arise. Young girl died and was buried but the next day her violated and mutilated body was found on the local cemetery, and then next body and one more corpse. Local community was gripped by an uncontrollable fear. Someone indicated on own neighbor as a perpetrator of theses repulsive practices, someone heard something while another saw something. Finally someone cried vampire and so peculiar witchhunt began.
Writing here is beautiful, poetic even, with perfect evocation of time, place and people. Small, seemingly ordinary village turns out to be a hotbed of superstitions and poverty, avarice and obtuseness, incest and other degenerations, land of wolves and neglect. Villagers, you can almost feel their presence, lead their gloomy life, marked with suspicion and morbid fascination with horror, tormented by lust and dread.
Endlessly construing the threat from deep within and from without, from the forest, from the cracking of the roof, from the wailing of the wind, from the beyond, from above, from beneath, from below: the threat from elsewhere . You bar yourself inside you skull, your sleep, your heart, your senses; you bolt yourself inside your farmhouse, gun at the ready, with a haunted, hungry soul.
Prose is spare and economical, reminds more reportage than novel, and very naturalistic. Yes, some scenes leave you with sense of disgust and disbelief that described here horrendous events could take place, not in some distant era, but at the beginning of the last century exactly. If not the ambigous ending novel and its message could be a perfect example of how ignorance, prejudice and stupidity eternally prevail. And so you can read it as the irony of fate, muffled laugh of History.
3.5/5
June 5, 2019
Seldom does a writer of natural horror equal in ghastliness the best of supernatural terror, but Jacques Chessex—in this novella about a defiler of young girls’ graves active in the Swiss Canton of Vaud in the year 1903—manages to do just that.
Chessex accomplishes this in three ways: 1) he relates his detailed descriptions of sexual mutilation in a spare and disciplined prose, never once recoiling in disgust or smacking his lips in delight, 2) he envelops these otherwise sordid crimes with a supernatural aura, with references to monsters, charms, and prayers, and 3) he paints such a convincing portrait of the Swiss mountain people—fierce Calvinists ready to reach for a rosary when the going gets tough—that, although we never quite share their vision, we are affected by it, and experience both the clinical horrors and the spiritual terrors as they do.
This will give you an idea of the terror caused by the “vampire”:
“He didn’t touch her, the bastard, but he was there all the same, just look at the broken pane, and there, where the snow melted on the wood floor. You have to think he was scared off by the cloves of garlic and the crucifix she was sleeping with!”
For everywhere folk have again taken out the Christ they’ve kept hidden since Catholic days. Now, in every village and hamlet, you can see braided garlic and the holy images repugnant to the monster of Ropraz haning from the window frames and catches, from lintels, balconies, railings, even from secret doorways and in cellars. Crosses are erected again in this Protestant countryside where none have been seen for four centuries. The vampire fears the symbol of Christ? “There, that’ll make him think twice. And the dog is loose!”
October 11, 2020
#lêseteatreves
“Com que sonha um vampiro, de noite, fechado a sete chaves na sua cela medieval? Mergulha em cenas de infância onde só há morrer de fome, sofrer, suportar, submeter-se, tantas vezes desejar morrer."
“O Vampiro de Ropraz” é um livro horripilante que começou por ser uma leitura de 3 estrelas, porque cumpria aquilo a que se predispunha ser, uma história de terror, mas que a dada altura chafurdou numa depravação sexual muito nojenta que o atirou para as 2 estrelas, onde teria ficado, se não fosse o final surpreendente, que dá o que pensar. Passado na Suíça no início do século XX, Jacques Ropraz aborda três casos de profanação de sepulturas de jovens mulheres atribuídos a um presumível vampiro, que deixa toda uma região em polvorosa.
“De novo se erguem os crucifixos nesse país protestante, onde não eram vistos há quatro séculos. Nos montes, nas encruzilhadas, volta a ser implantado o objecto abominado desde a Reforma.
“Com que sonha um vampiro, de noite, fechado a sete chaves na sua cela medieval? Mergulha em cenas de infância onde só há morrer de fome, sofrer, suportar, submeter-se, tantas vezes desejar morrer."
“O Vampiro de Ropraz” é um livro horripilante que começou por ser uma leitura de 3 estrelas, porque cumpria aquilo a que se predispunha ser, uma história de terror, mas que a dada altura chafurdou numa depravação sexual muito nojenta que o atirou para as 2 estrelas, onde teria ficado, se não fosse o final surpreendente, que dá o que pensar. Passado na Suíça no início do século XX, Jacques Ropraz aborda três casos de profanação de sepulturas de jovens mulheres atribuídos a um presumível vampiro, que deixa toda uma região em polvorosa.
“De novo se erguem os crucifixos nesse país protestante, onde não eram vistos há quatro séculos. Nos montes, nas encruzilhadas, volta a ser implantado o objecto abominado desde a Reforma.
January 7, 2023
Um livro que promete mais do que entrega, já que somos iludidos por uma suposta história “verídica” sobre vampiros. Mas é o final deste livro e a forma como o autor ironiza ricamente as características dos povos rurais da Suíça de 1908, que salvam o livro.
Um livro sobre preconceitos, ignorância, superstição, pobreza e ruralismos, isolamentos e diferenças de classes, e (in)justiça popular.
“O povo é tão pobre que vende as vacas aos talhos das grandes cidades, contentando-se em comer porco, e come tanto, sob todas as formas, fumado, picado, salgado, curado, que acaba por se parecer com ele, cara rosada, cabeça vermelhusca, longe do mundo, em vales profundos e florestas.”
Um livro sobre preconceitos, ignorância, superstição, pobreza e ruralismos, isolamentos e diferenças de classes, e (in)justiça popular.
“O povo é tão pobre que vende as vacas aos talhos das grandes cidades, contentando-se em comer porco, e come tanto, sob todas as formas, fumado, picado, salgado, curado, que acaba por se parecer com ele, cara rosada, cabeça vermelhusca, longe do mundo, em vales profundos e florestas.”
June 29, 2018
Um livro surpreendente!
Violento, sem dúvida, mas agarra o leitor do princípio ao fim... e que fim!
Recomendado a leitores experientes com estômago e que não dispensam um final espantoso.
(Nota mental: depois deste tenho que ler o "Moravagine" de Blaise Cendrars).
Violento, sem dúvida, mas agarra o leitor do princípio ao fim... e que fim!
Recomendado a leitores experientes com estômago e que não dispensam um final espantoso.
(Nota mental: depois deste tenho que ler o "Moravagine" de Blaise Cendrars).
August 21, 2018
Un relato muy bestia, explícito y desagradable a más no poder, pero también muy interesante conocer los miedos, las supersticiones y costumbres de principios del siglo XX en zonas rurales.
Me ha gustado mucho.
Me ha gustado mucho.
December 8, 2017
El libro es tremendo y no es una obra de vampiros al uso, para nada, brutal y escueta por partes iguales.
Muy recomendable, pero no apta para almas sensibles.
Muy recomendable, pero no apta para almas sensibles.
November 1, 2009
A few years ago, I attended a wedding. We had known Mary (not her real name) and her family since she was a small girl; they had lived a few doors away from us at the time, and Mary had played with our kids. They were very fond of each other. The family was deeply Christian in that old-fashioned way which prioritises loving God and your neighbor, rather than, for example, campaigning to prevent third world aid that involves distribution of contraceptives. Not that there's anything wrong with that either, I hasten to add; I'd hate to appear prejudiced. To each his own. At any rate, Mary had grown up to be a beautiful young woman, and now she was getting married and leaving home.
We'd heard that Mary's fiancé was a soldier who had served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we'd never met him. On entering the church, it was obvious at a glance which side was the bride's, and which the groom's. On the left, we had the mild-mannered parishioners of St. Matthew's Church. On the right, and again I'd hate to appear prejudiced, there was a collection of seriously dangerous-looking men in their mid 20s. My first thought was that, if I'd seen one of them coming towards me on a dark night, I would instinctively have crossed the road and hoped he hadn't noticed me. A few seconds later, it occurred to me than several of them, maybe even many of them, had probably killed people in the line of duty. I found myself wondering which ones.
The start of the wedding was delayed by about a quarter of an hour. Mary had entered the hall, looking very lovely in her bridal gown, and then dissolved in tears before she got as far as the aisle. We were sitting near the back, and we could see her bridesmaids trying to comfort her. I have never found out why she was crying. Finally, she calmed down, and the ceremony got under way. There was another memorable incident. Shortly after the vicar had married Mary to her new husband, he gave an address where he told a bizarre joke. A young Welsh woman, who was about to be married, was asking her grandfather if he'd ever considered divorcing his wife. "I never once thought of divorcing her!" said the grandfather. "Murdering her... frequently!" It seemed in singularly poor taste. Perhaps the vicar's subconscious was trying to get out a warning. If so, its timing was less than perfect.
I thought of Mary's wedding when I read Le Vampire de Ropraz, a short, elegantly written Swiss French novel based on historical events. In January 1903, a beautiful 20 year old girl named Rosa Gilliéron, living in the village of Ropraz, near Lausanne, suddenly contracted meningitis and died. She was buried in the churchyard, and many people came to the funeral; she had been widely loved and admired, and it was generally felt to be a great tragedy. The next morning, a woodcutter was walking near her grave, when he saw that it had been forced open, and that there were traces of blood in the snow nearby. He summoned help, and the horrified villagers found that someone had unscrewed the lid of the coffin, removed Rosa's corpse, sexually abused it, and then cut off parts of her flesh and eaten them. It was one of the most shocking crimes of its day, and people began to talk of "The Vampire of Ropraz". Later, two other freshly dead corpses were abused in similar fashion in nearby churchyards. All three victims had been attractive, slightly built brunettes.
Suspicion quickly fastened on a young man, Charles-Augustin Favez, who had been arrested on charges of bestiality. As a child, Favez had been the victim of horrific abuse, first at the hands of his natural parents and then of his foster-parents, and as a result was more or less deranged sexually. He was an ideal scapegoat, not least because his powerful physique, long canines and permanently reddened eyes matched well the standard image of a vampire. Favez was held in custody, suspected of violating the three dead women. But the concrete evidence against him was thin, and the consulting psychiatrist had serious doubts that he was the culprit. While in prison, he was visited several times by a mysterious veiled woman, who bribed the jailer to let her see Favez alone. It is uncertain what happened while they were together, but everything suggested that they had some kind of sexual relationship.
Favez was released after four months due to lack of evidence; the public, however, was convinced that he was the vampire, and he was forced to go into hiding. The balance of his mind, already seriously disturbed, can hardly have been improved by this. Several weeks later, he was apprehended a second time, when he tried to rape a widow who apparently had flirted with him on a few occasions. This time, there was no chance of his being released. The trial only took five days, and ended with him being given a life sentence. The psychiatrist persuaded the court that it could be served at his hospital.
Favez stayed there for fifteen years, until he finally escaped one day, and headed over the French border. The First World War was in full swing, and he had no trouble enlisting with the Foreign Legion. He served with them for a few months, became friendly with his commanding officer, and told him his story. Shortly after, the Germans launched a major offensive on that part of the front. During the fighting, the officer was seriously wounded, and Favez was killed. His body was left lying on the field of battle, and never recovered.
But... modern science added a postscript. For reasons best known to themselves, people with access to DNA testing equipment decided to try and determine who the Unknown Soldier really was. They searched their gene databases, and, as you no doubt guessed, came to a surprising conclusion. The Unknown Soldier was none other than Favez, the Vampire of Ropraz.
I'm not sure how much of this is true; clearly not all of it. Snow, blood, sex, violence, insanity, the soldier's art. It's a powerful story. It probably shouldn't have reminded me of Mary's wedding, but it did. As far as I know, she's still happily married.
We'd heard that Mary's fiancé was a soldier who had served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we'd never met him. On entering the church, it was obvious at a glance which side was the bride's, and which the groom's. On the left, we had the mild-mannered parishioners of St. Matthew's Church. On the right, and again I'd hate to appear prejudiced, there was a collection of seriously dangerous-looking men in their mid 20s. My first thought was that, if I'd seen one of them coming towards me on a dark night, I would instinctively have crossed the road and hoped he hadn't noticed me. A few seconds later, it occurred to me than several of them, maybe even many of them, had probably killed people in the line of duty. I found myself wondering which ones.
The start of the wedding was delayed by about a quarter of an hour. Mary had entered the hall, looking very lovely in her bridal gown, and then dissolved in tears before she got as far as the aisle. We were sitting near the back, and we could see her bridesmaids trying to comfort her. I have never found out why she was crying. Finally, she calmed down, and the ceremony got under way. There was another memorable incident. Shortly after the vicar had married Mary to her new husband, he gave an address where he told a bizarre joke. A young Welsh woman, who was about to be married, was asking her grandfather if he'd ever considered divorcing his wife. "I never once thought of divorcing her!" said the grandfather. "Murdering her... frequently!" It seemed in singularly poor taste. Perhaps the vicar's subconscious was trying to get out a warning. If so, its timing was less than perfect.
I thought of Mary's wedding when I read Le Vampire de Ropraz, a short, elegantly written Swiss French novel based on historical events. In January 1903, a beautiful 20 year old girl named Rosa Gilliéron, living in the village of Ropraz, near Lausanne, suddenly contracted meningitis and died. She was buried in the churchyard, and many people came to the funeral; she had been widely loved and admired, and it was generally felt to be a great tragedy. The next morning, a woodcutter was walking near her grave, when he saw that it had been forced open, and that there were traces of blood in the snow nearby. He summoned help, and the horrified villagers found that someone had unscrewed the lid of the coffin, removed Rosa's corpse, sexually abused it, and then cut off parts of her flesh and eaten them. It was one of the most shocking crimes of its day, and people began to talk of "The Vampire of Ropraz". Later, two other freshly dead corpses were abused in similar fashion in nearby churchyards. All three victims had been attractive, slightly built brunettes.
Suspicion quickly fastened on a young man, Charles-Augustin Favez, who had been arrested on charges of bestiality. As a child, Favez had been the victim of horrific abuse, first at the hands of his natural parents and then of his foster-parents, and as a result was more or less deranged sexually. He was an ideal scapegoat, not least because his powerful physique, long canines and permanently reddened eyes matched well the standard image of a vampire. Favez was held in custody, suspected of violating the three dead women. But the concrete evidence against him was thin, and the consulting psychiatrist had serious doubts that he was the culprit. While in prison, he was visited several times by a mysterious veiled woman, who bribed the jailer to let her see Favez alone. It is uncertain what happened while they were together, but everything suggested that they had some kind of sexual relationship.
Favez was released after four months due to lack of evidence; the public, however, was convinced that he was the vampire, and he was forced to go into hiding. The balance of his mind, already seriously disturbed, can hardly have been improved by this. Several weeks later, he was apprehended a second time, when he tried to rape a widow who apparently had flirted with him on a few occasions. This time, there was no chance of his being released. The trial only took five days, and ended with him being given a life sentence. The psychiatrist persuaded the court that it could be served at his hospital.
Favez stayed there for fifteen years, until he finally escaped one day, and headed over the French border. The First World War was in full swing, and he had no trouble enlisting with the Foreign Legion. He served with them for a few months, became friendly with his commanding officer, and told him his story. Shortly after, the Germans launched a major offensive on that part of the front. During the fighting, the officer was seriously wounded, and Favez was killed. His body was left lying on the field of battle, and never recovered.
But... modern science added a postscript. For reasons best known to themselves, people with access to DNA testing equipment decided to try and determine who the Unknown Soldier really was. They searched their gene databases, and, as you no doubt guessed, came to a surprising conclusion. The Unknown Soldier was none other than Favez, the Vampire of Ropraz.
I'm not sure how much of this is true; clearly not all of it. Snow, blood, sex, violence, insanity, the soldier's art. It's a powerful story. It probably shouldn't have reminded me of Mary's wedding, but it did. As far as I know, she's still happily married.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 27, 2018
3.5 reviewing soon
August 19, 2018
Historia de terror que describe con sorprendente naturalidad la vida miserable de la época (principios de 1900), donde el hambre y la ignorancia crean mitos y leyendas.
Recomendada a todos aquellos que disfrutan de las historias de terror.
Recomendada a todos aquellos que disfrutan de las historias de terror.
April 6, 2023
nu foarte sigură încă dacă e de 4 sau 5 stele, o să mă lămuresc după ce trece ceva timp
genul de nuvelă gotică/horror ce ar trebui să fie încadrată la clasicii genului - un horror mai degrabă psihologic, în care protagonistul nostru e un paria al societății, reprezentarea tuturor aspectelor imorale și murdare (și nu vă dau spoilere, dar avem aici necrofilie, incest, zoofilie și multe altele care îți fac pielea de găină și te fac să spui ”mamă ce roman horror-psihologic bun!”)
nu atât o nuvelă despre vampiri, cât o introspecție despre nevoia umană indubitabilă de a avea un țap ispășitor, de a atribui toate crimele și atrocitățile CUIVA, pentru că e tare greu să ajungi la concluzia că firea umană e problematică.
tente filosofice, cu descrieri aproape chirurgicale, care sporesc misterul și lasă loc meditației.
oare nu toți construim un vampir din Ropraz, căruia îi atribuim tot ce nu vrem să ne asumăm?
oare nu fiecare dintre noi devine vampirul din Ropraz pentru cei din jur atunci când ei nu vor să își asume propriile fapte?
August 21, 2021
Il male si incarna e prende forma. La perversione, l'arretratezza, il conformismo, la repressione sessuale di un'intera comunita' si possono materializzare in un individuo che assomma tutti gli orrori e le tare che la societa' aborre e respinge ufficialmente ma che segretamente corteggia. Nel Giura svizzero, all'inizio del XX secolo, una serie di profanazioni a sfondo sessuale di cadaveri di giovani donne scatena una psicosi collettiva. Nella gretta e arretrata societa' calvinista del luogo, la presenza di un fantomatico vampiro, mette ognuno di fronte ai propri fantasmi e alle proprie pulsioni piu' o meno inconfessabili e piu' o meno assecondate. Solo l'immolazione della vittima sacrificale, del capro espiatorio che assuma su di se' la colpa, puo' far tornare la calma, apparente e ipocrita, come ci fa intendere l'autore, utilizzando uno stile quasi documentaristico (lo spunto e' un fatto di cronaca realmente accaduto) venato d'ironia leggera quanto tagliente, adatto a lacerare il contesto perbenista dell'ambientazione.
December 8, 2017
Una historia fascinante sobre la maldad humana, en una época oscura dominada por la superstición, la religión y la ignorancia. El vampirismo es solo una herramienta para esta excelente novela, dura e impactante de principios del siglo pasado.
October 12, 2025
En 1903, en Ropraz, muere la joven Rosa ¡oh pobre Rosa! Tan buena, tan perfecta. Que la tierra le sea leve.
Pero una buena mañana la tapa de su féretro ⚰️ se encuentra levantada y su cuerpo mutilado y profanado.
No necesitas saber más, salvo que es una novela crudísima de solo 91 páginas y buen tamaño de letra, que nos va a narrar la búsqueda del “vampiro” en el tiempo y las consecuencias de su posible aprehensión.
No se van a escatimar en detalles grotescos y perturbadores, de esos que a algunos lectores les supondrán un grave problema y posiblemente dejen de leerla. Se detallarán vejaciones, zoofilia y unas cuantas “filias” más. Advertidos quedáis.
El autor, Chessex, se basó en un hecho real para contarnos esta historia. Una historia que utiliza el sustantivo “vampiro” en el título de la novela; pero que esto no os confunda, no habla de vampirismo como tal; trata de un ser humano deleznable, un loco destripador.
Uno de los problemas que he tenido con esta novela, es su forma de narrármela; entre el ensayo y la novelización con un uso del lenguaje poético y oneroso.
Un Carrère, pero a años luz de éste, en mi humilde opinión.
Si vais a leerla, os sugiero que no leáis la sinopsis, teniendo en cuenta lo corta que es la novela, se desvela demasiado.
No me ha parecido una novela rompedora y sí extremadamente desagradable en algunos puntos ¿qué partes son reales y qué partes ficcionadas? Es algo que no os puedo desvelar.
Pero una buena mañana la tapa de su féretro ⚰️ se encuentra levantada y su cuerpo mutilado y profanado.
No necesitas saber más, salvo que es una novela crudísima de solo 91 páginas y buen tamaño de letra, que nos va a narrar la búsqueda del “vampiro” en el tiempo y las consecuencias de su posible aprehensión.
No se van a escatimar en detalles grotescos y perturbadores, de esos que a algunos lectores les supondrán un grave problema y posiblemente dejen de leerla. Se detallarán vejaciones, zoofilia y unas cuantas “filias” más. Advertidos quedáis.
El autor, Chessex, se basó en un hecho real para contarnos esta historia. Una historia que utiliza el sustantivo “vampiro” en el título de la novela; pero que esto no os confunda, no habla de vampirismo como tal; trata de un ser humano deleznable, un loco destripador.
Uno de los problemas que he tenido con esta novela, es su forma de narrármela; entre el ensayo y la novelización con un uso del lenguaje poético y oneroso.
Un Carrère, pero a años luz de éste, en mi humilde opinión.
Si vais a leerla, os sugiero que no leáis la sinopsis, teniendo en cuenta lo corta que es la novela, se desvela demasiado.
No me ha parecido una novela rompedora y sí extremadamente desagradable en algunos puntos ¿qué partes son reales y qué partes ficcionadas? Es algo que no os puedo desvelar.
December 4, 2008
Where I live, winter is not just the name of a season, it’s a state of being. Today I look out the windows – sure, there’s a line of geese heading to where the Boardman River pours out into West Bay making a little unfrozen spot, but there’s also snow like grit, like clouds of icy gnats, and the view beyond a block fades away into clammy gray. From below, all day long, comes the sound of chopping and metal on concrete. The few people on the streets walk with their shoulders hunched into collars and faces obscured by scarves. I can see my car from here, growing a toupee of white, the interior vinyl collecting its special frostiness.
But, when all’s said and done, I live in a city. A small city, but nonetheless convivial. You won’t find boys hacking their grandparents to death for a couple hundred bucks, or bar fights that end in the spring when the body catches in the dam. Superstition drifts harmlessly in the garden dream-catchers and cement angels of liberal townies.
The regional paper tells another story — one of generational alcoholism, incest, fundamentalism, the desire for the destruction of culture and the longing to survive by tooth and folklore. A drive to the nearest major ski resort (30 minutes) takes you past homes sided with black plastic, ancient peeling doublewides, windowless cinderblock bars, and tiny isolated stores that sell gas and the smoked flesh of the local wildlife. In the summer there are campers and cabin-owners in these hundreds of acres forests of northern Michigan; in the winter, there’s the ticking of your own brain, or your wife’s brain, or your kid’s.
The people who live in the deep forests are not the entrepreneurial spirits found in cities — for a city attracts idea-makers whether they’re thieves or manufacturers. They’re not of the farmer-type either, who must clear the path to plant and watch the weather, who must plan for good times and bad. Backwoods people live day-to-day, scrap to scrap. Most of them were born in the place; some have been pushed there, like to the end of a rope; a few have invented the place for themselves.
Which is all a long introduction to the kind of chill of the suspected-unknown The Vampire or Ropraz, short novel by Prix Goncourt winner Jacques Chessex, produced. High in the Jurat mountains, the twenty-year old daughter of a local dignitary dies of meningitis and is buried in the frozen February earth. Two days later her grave is discovered open, the coffin unscrewed. Intestines are hanging out in the snow, the girl’s left hand has been severed, and her flesh bitten everywhere and spit out in the bushes. Although the story takes place in Switzerland, it is not so far geographically from the land of Vlad, and this rapist of dead women is quickly entitled “Vampire” by the press.
All right, so the press has always loved catchy titles for their criminals, and although the violation takes place in the isolated, squalid areas, where “[i]deas have no currency, tradition is a dead weight,” where poverty and lack of education leave people “barred inside their skulls,” where ailments are nourished with potions, and spells are concocted with menstrual blood and toad spittle, they don’t lynch the suspect when they finally get their hands on him.
They hand him over to a psychologist who takes him to his ward on Christmas Day to “sing of Christ’s birth, drink mulled wine and eat little cakes baked by volunteers in the kitchen.”
The young man ages twelve years in the ward before the War arrives, opening the gates. Immediately, he joins the Foreign Legion (he was rejected by the army in his youth, in his own country) and is killed seven months later on the Souain road. A broken body in a muddy battlefield would seem to be the end of it, but no: in 1920, France’s Unknown Soldier is chosen by lot from among eight anonymous coffins. Recent DNA research suggests that the body of the soldier who lies beneath the Arc de Triumph is none other than Charles-Augustin Favez, convicted in Switzerland of vampirism and desecration of graves. And the question is, how could this man be a monster in one place and a hero in another?
The Vampire of Ropraz is a superb choice for fiesty book clubs.
But, when all’s said and done, I live in a city. A small city, but nonetheless convivial. You won’t find boys hacking their grandparents to death for a couple hundred bucks, or bar fights that end in the spring when the body catches in the dam. Superstition drifts harmlessly in the garden dream-catchers and cement angels of liberal townies.
The regional paper tells another story — one of generational alcoholism, incest, fundamentalism, the desire for the destruction of culture and the longing to survive by tooth and folklore. A drive to the nearest major ski resort (30 minutes) takes you past homes sided with black plastic, ancient peeling doublewides, windowless cinderblock bars, and tiny isolated stores that sell gas and the smoked flesh of the local wildlife. In the summer there are campers and cabin-owners in these hundreds of acres forests of northern Michigan; in the winter, there’s the ticking of your own brain, or your wife’s brain, or your kid’s.
The people who live in the deep forests are not the entrepreneurial spirits found in cities — for a city attracts idea-makers whether they’re thieves or manufacturers. They’re not of the farmer-type either, who must clear the path to plant and watch the weather, who must plan for good times and bad. Backwoods people live day-to-day, scrap to scrap. Most of them were born in the place; some have been pushed there, like to the end of a rope; a few have invented the place for themselves.
Which is all a long introduction to the kind of chill of the suspected-unknown The Vampire or Ropraz, short novel by Prix Goncourt winner Jacques Chessex, produced. High in the Jurat mountains, the twenty-year old daughter of a local dignitary dies of meningitis and is buried in the frozen February earth. Two days later her grave is discovered open, the coffin unscrewed. Intestines are hanging out in the snow, the girl’s left hand has been severed, and her flesh bitten everywhere and spit out in the bushes. Although the story takes place in Switzerland, it is not so far geographically from the land of Vlad, and this rapist of dead women is quickly entitled “Vampire” by the press.
All right, so the press has always loved catchy titles for their criminals, and although the violation takes place in the isolated, squalid areas, where “[i]deas have no currency, tradition is a dead weight,” where poverty and lack of education leave people “barred inside their skulls,” where ailments are nourished with potions, and spells are concocted with menstrual blood and toad spittle, they don’t lynch the suspect when they finally get their hands on him.
They hand him over to a psychologist who takes him to his ward on Christmas Day to “sing of Christ’s birth, drink mulled wine and eat little cakes baked by volunteers in the kitchen.”
The young man ages twelve years in the ward before the War arrives, opening the gates. Immediately, he joins the Foreign Legion (he was rejected by the army in his youth, in his own country) and is killed seven months later on the Souain road. A broken body in a muddy battlefield would seem to be the end of it, but no: in 1920, France’s Unknown Soldier is chosen by lot from among eight anonymous coffins. Recent DNA research suggests that the body of the soldier who lies beneath the Arc de Triumph is none other than Charles-Augustin Favez, convicted in Switzerland of vampirism and desecration of graves. And the question is, how could this man be a monster in one place and a hero in another?
The Vampire of Ropraz is a superb choice for fiesty book clubs.
May 19, 2024
3,5 tirando a 4
esto ha entrado tan bien chicas ojalá fuese más largo necesito leer más cosas sobre vampiros y brujas estoy cansado ya de tanto libro realista ponme un sacrificio y una mordedura sangrienta venga
esto ha entrado tan bien chicas ojalá fuese más largo necesito leer más cosas sobre vampiros y brujas estoy cansado ya de tanto libro realista ponme un sacrificio y una mordedura sangrienta venga
January 9, 2025
No sé qué me esperaba de esta lectura, pero desde luego me ha sorprendido. No por la historia en sí, que no es innovadora, sino por cómo está narrada. Creo que eso es lo que me hace subirle la puntuación a 4 estrellas.
Si venís buscando una historia de vampiros clásica, no la vais a encontrar. Aquí hay miseria y 0 romantización de la criatura: es más bien un retrato costumbrista de una sociedad asolada por las creencias religiosas y las supersticiones de la época, que de pronto es atacada por un "monstruo" al que llaman vampiro.
Las escenas son crudísimas, muy explícitas, así que id con cuidado. Eso sí, se lee en una tarde.
Si venís buscando una historia de vampiros clásica, no la vais a encontrar. Aquí hay miseria y 0 romantización de la criatura: es más bien un retrato costumbrista de una sociedad asolada por las creencias religiosas y las supersticiones de la época, que de pronto es atacada por un "monstruo" al que llaman vampiro.
Las escenas son crudísimas, muy explícitas, así que id con cuidado. Eso sí, se lee en una tarde.
November 7, 2022
4*
a+ creepy vibes
a+ creepy vibes
April 4, 2017
Es una historia atípica de vampirismo que se desarrolla en una pequeña localidad suiza de principios del siglo XX. La brevedad del libro y los capítulos cortos hacen que puedas leerlo de un tirón.
La descripción de algunos hechos son grotescas, así que están advertidos. Y en cuanto al final como que no iba con el resto del relato.
La descripción de algunos hechos son grotescas, así que están advertidos. Y en cuanto al final como que no iba con el resto del relato.
September 9, 2022
literalmente no tengo nada más que decir sobre este libro que: no sé qué acabo de leer.
July 28, 2018
Leído de un tirón. Interesante novelita negra sobre el prejuicio y la superstición. Nada del otro mundo, pero se deja leer.
Read
June 14, 2015Difficile stellare, questo racconto lungo ha il fascino dell'orrido, come avere davanti un piatto di vermi brulicanti. Chessex descrive una svizzera profonda dove qualsiasi cosa pulita e luminosa verrà prima o poi, in vita o post mortem, deturpata e sommersa dal fango putrido di menti abitate dalla follia, dalla depravazione, dalla miseria culturale, da de-menti frutto a loro volta di abusi e violenze indicibili, ma della di cui descrizione Chessex é maestro.
Da lettrice alquanto disturbata da certi passaggi del racconto, mi sono chiesta come ci si sente a immaginare e scrivere certe cose. Non so se voglio avere una risposta.
Da lettrice alquanto disturbata da certi passaggi del racconto, mi sono chiesta come ci si sente a immaginare e scrivere certe cose. Non so se voglio avere una risposta.
January 16, 2017
Esta novela breve de Chessex, adopta el estilo de crónica: el cadáver de una joven en el pueblo de Ropraz es brutalmente profanado. El episodio provoca una reacción fuertemente emocional de los puritanos ciudadanos, quienes bautizan al agresor como "el vampiro de Ropraz". La tranquilidad pública requiere encontrar a un culpable, papel que recae sobre Charles-Agustin Favez.
La historia muestra las miserias humanas en un poblado de Suiza de principios del Siglo XX, aunque creo que podría referirse a los prejuicios de las sociedades humanas de todos los tiempos.
Un libro interesante, para leer de un tirón.
La historia muestra las miserias humanas en un poblado de Suiza de principios del Siglo XX, aunque creo que podría referirse a los prejuicios de las sociedades humanas de todos los tiempos.
Un libro interesante, para leer de un tirón.
June 13, 2016
So this is what happens when the Swiss write horror.
January 13, 2021
En una pequeña comunidad se desata el horror tras la mutilación del cadáver de una joven. Pero ese es solo el inicio de una ola de crímenes atroces.
__
Este libro aparece recomendado en innumerables listas de "Los mejores libros vampíricos" junto con clásicos como Drácula o Déjame Entrar... pero poco sabía yo que esta novela corta es mucho más oscura y perturbadora que aquellos dos.
Es la clase de historia que está contada de manera magistral (y por eso se merece todas las estrellas de la clasificación) pero cuyo contenido es tan escalofriante y a veces nauseabundo, que no se merece ni que lo recomiende, a menos que el lector busque una trama conducida por creencias folclóricas, más histeria colectiva, más un oscuro retrato de lo peor de la sociedad y un análisis psicológico sobre lo que puede generar una mente perturbada. Aquí todo es descarnado y feo, real y traumático.
La narración es tan absorbente que te sumerge de inmediato en ese pueblo europeo de inicios del siglo XX, con toda la mentalidad que conlleva y se entiende porqué un crimen tan atroz como el que acontece da pie a ese miedo primitivo entre toda la población y despierta entre gritos la vieja mitología del vampiro. En ningún momento decae el interés por descubrir quién se esconde en las sombras, quien es el criminal aberrante que vigila los panteones y cuando finalmente se conoce, no deja de ser interesante por la perplejidad aturdida que despierta ese personaje.
Existe un tramo especialmente desagradable para el que definitivamente deberían poner una advertencia de contenido: .
Se agradece que sea una novela corta porque semejante intensidad debe leerse en cantidades pequeñas. En resumen, una historia que no deja indiferente y demuestra que las criaturas de la oscuridad no rondan solo por la noche.
Lo Mejor
La narración es hipnótica.
Lo Peor
Ya lo dije en el spoiler.
Citas
En estos páramos, el síntoma del vampiro durará mientras esta sociedad sea víctima de la miseria primitiva: suciedad de los cuerpos, promiscuidad, aislamiento, alcohol, incesto y supersticiones que infestan estas campiñas y crearán otros focos de sevicias sexuales y horror inmisericorde.
__
Este libro aparece recomendado en innumerables listas de "Los mejores libros vampíricos" junto con clásicos como Drácula o Déjame Entrar... pero poco sabía yo que esta novela corta es mucho más oscura y perturbadora que aquellos dos.
Es la clase de historia que está contada de manera magistral (y por eso se merece todas las estrellas de la clasificación) pero cuyo contenido es tan escalofriante y a veces nauseabundo, que no se merece ni que lo recomiende, a menos que el lector busque una trama conducida por creencias folclóricas, más histeria colectiva, más un oscuro retrato de lo peor de la sociedad y un análisis psicológico sobre lo que puede generar una mente perturbada. Aquí todo es descarnado y feo, real y traumático.
La narración es tan absorbente que te sumerge de inmediato en ese pueblo europeo de inicios del siglo XX, con toda la mentalidad que conlleva y se entiende porqué un crimen tan atroz como el que acontece da pie a ese miedo primitivo entre toda la población y despierta entre gritos la vieja mitología del vampiro. En ningún momento decae el interés por descubrir quién se esconde en las sombras, quien es el criminal aberrante que vigila los panteones y cuando finalmente se conoce, no deja de ser interesante por la perplejidad aturdida que despierta ese personaje.
Existe un tramo especialmente desagradable para el que definitivamente deberían poner una advertencia de contenido: .
Se agradece que sea una novela corta porque semejante intensidad debe leerse en cantidades pequeñas. En resumen, una historia que no deja indiferente y demuestra que las criaturas de la oscuridad no rondan solo por la noche.
Lo Mejor
La narración es hipnótica.
Lo Peor
Ya lo dije en el spoiler.
Citas
En estos páramos, el síntoma del vampiro durará mientras esta sociedad sea víctima de la miseria primitiva: suciedad de los cuerpos, promiscuidad, aislamiento, alcohol, incesto y supersticiones que infestan estas campiñas y crearán otros focos de sevicias sexuales y horror inmisericorde.
Read
January 28, 2024chessex fala-nos sobre uma frança provinciana assombrada por uma série de crimes hórridos e desumanos. nitidamente inspirado pela literatura gótica do século XIX, o escritor acompanha charles-augustin favez, suspeito apelidado de “o vampiro de ropraz”.
o recurso à religião nos momentos mais obscuros, a força da opinião pública no mecanismo judicial, o mítico como uma escapatória à realidade… tudo temas admiravelmente bem conseguidos.
um livro de diminutas dimensões mas uma excelente leitura. como dizia baptiste liger: “a verdadeira vingança da amoralidade.”
o recurso à religião nos momentos mais obscuros, a força da opinião pública no mecanismo judicial, o mítico como uma escapatória à realidade… tudo temas admiravelmente bem conseguidos.
um livro de diminutas dimensões mas uma excelente leitura. como dizia baptiste liger: “a verdadeira vingança da amoralidade.”
March 28, 2019
Este es in libro valioso literariamente hablando, en muchos aspectos me gusto, en otros no.
El autor usa una excelente prosa descriptiva, muy detallada, una muy buena trama para quien guste de este tipo de género. El vampiro sanguinario cumple con su cometido, profanando tumbas de mujeres muy jóvenes y devorando sus cuerpos; no obstante, a mi me parece que el autor llega a la depravación y perversión más cruel que en lo personal no me agrada, pero el libro es bueno.
El autor usa una excelente prosa descriptiva, muy detallada, una muy buena trama para quien guste de este tipo de género. El vampiro sanguinario cumple con su cometido, profanando tumbas de mujeres muy jóvenes y devorando sus cuerpos; no obstante, a mi me parece que el autor llega a la depravación y perversión más cruel que en lo personal no me agrada, pero el libro es bueno.
July 2, 2022
A rather morbid tale of a small town community and how a witch hunt takes place. Although, it is in many ways understandable, as these morbid occurrences makes one fear for what’s next, it is also a tale about how the fallings of a system and a community can turn an innocent life into a monster of the dark.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 132 reviews