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Vampires, Wine, and Roses
A collection of tales about vampires contains fiction from noted writers such as Bram Stoker, Rod Serling, Edgar Allan Poe, Edith Wharton, H.P. Lovecraft, Sting, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
384 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1997
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
April 9, 2015
This is one of my "placeholder" reviews - which means that I have this book on my "to be read" anthology shelf (probably inherited from my sister's holdings, as I'm not a big vampire fan but can't pass up an anthology) but haven't read it yet, but I did just read a story that appears in it (probably online) because said story appears on my "to be read" short fiction list, and I have to put the review SOMEWHERE - so putting it here, where it will likely end up anyway, come the day, just makes the most sense (yes, I'm *that* insanely organized).
So, here's the review (with more to come eventually):
"Bewitched" by Edith Wharton was a new read for me and I liked it quite a lot. It's got that stiff/starchiness of Wharton, so if you don't like genre stories from lit writers, or find classic construction and pacing too slow for these fast-paced times we live in, well.... This is essentially a vampire/witch story (from 1925, just as WEIRD TALES and just before Universal Films and monster manuals, etc. codified such complex folkloric constructs into "rules" and "types", etc.) but a *very* New England version of the same. A wife pleads with fellow local landowners to save here husband, who is wasting away as he visits with a dead girl down at the pond. This story really entertained me with its deliberate mixture of raw-boned, crusty old New England archetypes and Gothic literature touches (a snowbound, abandoned shack at sunset, a man wasting away, personal stories of madness in a character's past trip to an insane asylum). This, to me, was actually a great example of how "Lit Horror" does not always need to mean high-falutin' concepts and deep meditations on uncomfortable, universal truths - sometimes all it means is careful character work, well-crafted dialogue, deliberate pacing and plot construction. The climax is especially well-handled, moody and powerful without recourse to tone-ruining grue. Turn-of-the-century New England is also engagingly represented with a nicely subdued clash between strongly felt old world religion and Yankee pragmatism (when prayer is suggested as a recourse to solve the problem, the wife openly scoffs at the ideas as impractical and indirect!). As a minor note - checking my references, it seems this story is not particularly liked by the standard references. The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural - usually reliable if occasionally stuffy - thinks the story is "weakened by a prosaic ending" (which was one of the best parts in my view) and St. James Guide to Horror, Ghost & Gothic Writers thinks the story "veered off track because of the supernatural content" (which seems like wishing for the story you didn't get, to me!)
So, here's the review (with more to come eventually):
"Bewitched" by Edith Wharton was a new read for me and I liked it quite a lot. It's got that stiff/starchiness of Wharton, so if you don't like genre stories from lit writers, or find classic construction and pacing too slow for these fast-paced times we live in, well.... This is essentially a vampire/witch story (from 1925, just as WEIRD TALES and just before Universal Films and monster manuals, etc. codified such complex folkloric constructs into "rules" and "types", etc.) but a *very* New England version of the same. A wife pleads with fellow local landowners to save here husband, who is wasting away as he visits with a dead girl down at the pond. This story really entertained me with its deliberate mixture of raw-boned, crusty old New England archetypes and Gothic literature touches (a snowbound, abandoned shack at sunset, a man wasting away, personal stories of madness in a character's past trip to an insane asylum). This, to me, was actually a great example of how "Lit Horror" does not always need to mean high-falutin' concepts and deep meditations on uncomfortable, universal truths - sometimes all it means is careful character work, well-crafted dialogue, deliberate pacing and plot construction. The climax is especially well-handled, moody and powerful without recourse to tone-ruining grue. Turn-of-the-century New England is also engagingly represented with a nicely subdued clash between strongly felt old world religion and Yankee pragmatism (when prayer is suggested as a recourse to solve the problem, the wife openly scoffs at the ideas as impractical and indirect!). As a minor note - checking my references, it seems this story is not particularly liked by the standard references. The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural - usually reliable if occasionally stuffy - thinks the story is "weakened by a prosaic ending" (which was one of the best parts in my view) and St. James Guide to Horror, Ghost & Gothic Writers thinks the story "veered off track because of the supernatural content" (which seems like wishing for the story you didn't get, to me!)
June 12, 2024
This book was such a fun read for me! It has a lot of collected vampire short stories/references and I thought they were all organized very well. I gotta say tho, this is probably a 4.5 stars for me because there were a few that I didn’t understand or just carried on too long for my liking lmao. Definitely recommend if you like gothic works and great story telling
February 25, 2011
Just wasn't my cup of tea. I received this book as a gift for Christmas a couple of years ago and just hadn't read it yet... apparently for good reason. Don't get me wrong, I like vampires and usually most stories along with/about them. But for some reason, this compilation just didn't work for me. Oh well, you win some, you lose some, right?
October 21, 2009
Ok, seriously this book is being returned to the bookstore! After reading the introduction all I can say is "dude, you can find a vampire type character in any story, it is not a literature obsession for all great writers!" (shakespeare in R and J? seriously? idiot)
March 26, 2012
This book both intrigues and annoys me. Any excerpt taken out of context can be molded to mean something it doesn’t. Some of the pieces in this collection are legitimately about vampires… too many are not.
August 13, 2007
It's hard not to like the classics.
Want to read
October 12, 2015Another gift from my nephew.
July 9, 2009
Nice collection of stories with not the usual authors. A good mixture of poetry, song texts and stories. Recommended.
January 30, 2011
This is a great collection of short stories by everyone from Lord Byron to Stephen King. If you like literature and vampires it is a great book to read.
December 17, 2015
If you look hard enough, its easy to find a reference to the undead in a lot of literature. While some of the extracts were a far reach, the book did have some interesting short stories.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews