The Sharp Spine

My brother and I shared a strange, almost devotional fascination with horror and the Gothic. He eventually outgrew it and me being my obsessive self got into Gothic literature, and Dracula became my Roman Empire.

But before the Count Dracula there was Carmilla. Carmilla was a gift to me, I believe books summon their readers.

Written in 1872 by Irish author Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Carmilla has greatly influenced the written and lived Gothic-Vampire subculture ever since.Our narrator is Laura, a young woman living in sequestered Austrian castle with her father. Into this secluded world arrives Carmilla, beautiful , enchanting and mysterious. What unfolds between the two women is coloured by dark romantic desires and violent vampire attacks on Laura.(quite phenomenal for it’s time). Carmilla is not your traditional predator. She forms emotional and physical bonds with her victims, blurring the line between affection and annihilation.

As Laura weakens under Carmilla’s influence, the novel tightens its grip against the backdrop of dread and suspense. When the truth of Carmilla is finally unearthed, it does not arrive as relief but as devastation. Carmilla leaves behind indelible mark on Laura’s body, on her psyche, and on the reader too.

Carmilla is seductive and menacing, intimate and horrifying. It then became blueprint for Vampire-Human romances for the times to come.