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A review by beforeviolets
Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu
I'm so glad to live in a world in which there's an 1800 sapphic vampire novel that predates Dracula.
Thoughts on Carmilla itself:
I am having a hard time pulling apart my thoughts on this story due to the edition I read (more on that below) but I can see why this story has such a cult following and why so many works were inspired by it. The intimacy and fragility of the love between these two women is beautiful, and something wonderfully and surprisingly queer for the era it was published in. Much of the story and world is left vague, which makes for a simultaneously disappointing and brilliantly enticing open-endedness. The Black woman in the carriage is left unknown. The large cat that appears to Laura is left unexplained. We never find out where Mademoiselle de Lafontaine goes after she leaves Carmilla. But it's almost more exciting to not know. It makes the story read as a bit of a riddle, a puzzle only partially put-together, with stray and missing pieces left behind for the reader to ponder over. The end is a bit anti-climactic, with the two women missing out on what would have been a riveting confrontational scene, and with the last chunk of the story being told through second-hand accounts. The end just felt more distanced and passive rather than mysterious, which was a bit disappointing. But I really enjoyed the story overall, and I am now really interested in engaging with retellings, reimaginings, scholarship, and debate all inspired by this fascinating tale. There's much to marinate on.
Thoughts on this edition:
I started off loving this edition, but am left feeling VERY torn about it. Carmen Maria Machado is one of my favorite authors and I was really looking forward to experiencing this story for the first time with her edits as a guiding hand. The book opens with an introduction from CMM herself, explaining that this story was actually inspired by preexisting letters written by a woman named Veronika Hausle. Machado continues by citing a scholarly publication about the finding of these letters and criticizing Le Fanu's censorship of said letters in his publication of the story. She asks her readership to engage with the story ahead critically, to consider the way Le Fanu insults his own narrator through the limitations he places on her descriptors and experiences. And I've spent the past few days telling friends about this mysterious backstory to Carmilla, insisting that I couldn't possibly judge Carmilla as a story in its current form, as I'm missing so much of its original content and context. And then I went to go look up that source CMM cites in the introduction to learn more about these letters and their author... and reader, can you guess what I discovered? The source doesn't exist. Neither does Viktoria Hausle. The entire introduction was completely fictional and made up. And I have VERY mixed feelings about that.
As a storyteller and a fan of experimental writing, I find this so artistically thrilling. The idea of crafting a fictional backstory to a pre-existing work and presenting it in the format of an introduction to said work in a new publication is smart and fascinating. And this act of fictional expansion spread beyond the introduction and into the footnotes of the main text, where I found it most successful. These footnotes added entirely fictional anecdotes, Carmen Maria Machado sprinkling in additional world-building through her own silly little writings. And that worked SO well. There was no citation or real grounded-ness to these footnotes, so it was pretty clear that these were purely made-up additions. What a fun way to edit a book, by adding your own imaginative headcanons between the lines of the original text! I really appreciated the creative initiative and gall to craft an entirely new story and pitch it to your audience as fact. It was immersive and ground-breaking and so very Carmen Maria Machado.
But I also found it incredibly frustrating and somewhat morally irresponsible. See, the blurred line of fact and fiction amidst Carmen's additions to this work is cool in concept but inconsistent and unreliable in practice. I have three main issues with this introduction, so let me break it down:
1. "Censorship."
The entire Point of CMM's introduction is to ask the audience to question this story's author via some made-up story of queer historical censorship. To craft an absence, a false negative space, around the text. And though, again, I artistically am obsessed with this choice to paint in the space untouched by a preexisting text, I found this a bit distracting. There are very true stories out in the world about queer censorship. It's a very real thing that happened. There are many authors who took the words of women around them and then painted those women as monsters (look no further than F. Scott Fitzgerald), and this introduction feels like it's looking to garner that misplaced sympathy. I would've found it more interesting and appropriate if CMM wrote an introduction about the history of censorship, or even maybe wrote an entire novel that creates this fictional backstory about Le Fanu in order to ask these questions about censorship on a larger stage (and one that would be more obviously fictional). But placing this story as the introduction to the actual text itself is just distracting and frankly, shadows the beauty of the fact that Carmilla IS a queer story that did survive historical censorship, misogyny, and lesbophobia.
2. A Betrayal of Trust.
Now, one might disagree with me, but I find the editor of a text, especially the editor of a classic text, to be morally responsible in taking on the role of a sort of Virgil to the reader's Dante. Many readers, especially ones without prior experience with Carmilla (such as myself), will be looking to Carmen Maria Machado as a North Star to guide them through this unknown journey. I read classic literature fairly often, especially Shakespeare, and the editorial hand heavily shapes the reading experience. The introduction acts as a sort of guide, giving the reader a little spark of knowledge to help them take their first steps through the text's doorway with confidence. The reader is armed with the knowledge of metaphor or historical reception or scholarly debate or several of the many other gifts that are often granted via a work's introduction, then led along a path carved by footnotes that offer the reader stepping stones and road signs of translations or alternate meanings. So to me, it feels manipulative and academically dishonest to assert a misleading narrative onto your audience, who might be dipping their toes into this water for the first time, that will heavily affect their perspective on this text. I feel a bit like Red Riding Hood, tempted off the path by false promises. It felt almost predatory and malicious to use the introduction, which traditionally exists to serve the reader, as a way to toy with the reader instead. It caused me (and others, who I know had the same experience) to feel manipulated, humiliated, and honestly a little bit used. Now, I did say that I thought the footnotes were mostly successful and I do stand by that. But whereas the footnotes were clearly fictional (again, VERY anecdotal and without citation), the introduction was quite scholarly and contained (fake) sources. Even a reader with strong critical thinking skills would very easily fall for this trap until/unless they actually did the work of looking into these sources provided. Though again, this experiment of Machado's is wildly inconsistent, because there's an article referenced in one of the footnotes later on in the story that IS real. Why would readers expect a combination of true and false sources in a text? I think this inconsistency only heightens the manipulation.
3. A Lack Of.
Like I mentioned earlier in this review, I really love Carmen Maria Machado. And I was really excited to read this story through her eyes. And just as disappointed as I am that I was misled, I'm also disappointed I never actually got the experience I was promised. CMM is clearly incredibly smart, incredibly well-researched, and is frankly an important figure in modern queer literature. I think her scholarly takes on Carmilla would have been profound and interesting on their own, without this warped narrative. The end result of this cool storytelling experiment is just a lack of. A lack of knowledge from CMM, a lack of certainty, a lack of understanding, and most importantly: a lack of a helpful introduction. And with this experience being my first with Carmilla, I'm feeling a bit disoriented, and am having a hard time separating the story itself from all the smoke and mirrors.
Overall, I'd call this edition a really cool artistic experiment but a cruel literary prank. I kind of loved it, and kind of hated it. I do recommend it, but with a heavy emphasis on the fact that Carmen's words are not to be trusted, and with a strong suggestion to read the original text elsewhere first. And of course the illustrations were an absolute joy. So sapphic. So gothic. Every time I read a book with interior illustrations I am reminded how much I wish every book had interior illustrations. It's certainly a pretty edition, even if its roses have hidden thorns.
CW: racism (the text itself), illness, death, blood, hallucinations, death of child, decapitation, car accident, death of mother (past), suicide (mention)
Thoughts on Carmilla itself:
I am having a hard time pulling apart my thoughts on this story due to the edition I read (more on that below) but I can see why this story has such a cult following and why so many works were inspired by it. The intimacy and fragility of the love between these two women is beautiful, and something wonderfully and surprisingly queer for the era it was published in. Much of the story and world is left vague, which makes for a simultaneously disappointing and brilliantly enticing open-endedness. The Black woman in the carriage is left unknown. The large cat that appears to Laura is left unexplained. We never find out where Mademoiselle de Lafontaine goes after she leaves Carmilla. But it's almost more exciting to not know. It makes the story read as a bit of a riddle, a puzzle only partially put-together, with stray and missing pieces left behind for the reader to ponder over. The end is a bit anti-climactic, with the two women missing out on what would have been a riveting confrontational scene, and with the last chunk of the story being told through second-hand accounts. The end just felt more distanced and passive rather than mysterious, which was a bit disappointing. But I really enjoyed the story overall, and I am now really interested in engaging with retellings, reimaginings, scholarship, and debate all inspired by this fascinating tale. There's much to marinate on.
Thoughts on this edition:
I started off loving this edition, but am left feeling VERY torn about it. Carmen Maria Machado is one of my favorite authors and I was really looking forward to experiencing this story for the first time with her edits as a guiding hand. The book opens with an introduction from CMM herself, explaining that this story was actually inspired by preexisting letters written by a woman named Veronika Hausle. Machado continues by citing a scholarly publication about the finding of these letters and criticizing Le Fanu's censorship of said letters in his publication of the story. She asks her readership to engage with the story ahead critically, to consider the way Le Fanu insults his own narrator through the limitations he places on her descriptors and experiences. And I've spent the past few days telling friends about this mysterious backstory to Carmilla, insisting that I couldn't possibly judge Carmilla as a story in its current form, as I'm missing so much of its original content and context. And then I went to go look up that source CMM cites in the introduction to learn more about these letters and their author... and reader, can you guess what I discovered? The source doesn't exist. Neither does Viktoria Hausle. The entire introduction was completely fictional and made up. And I have VERY mixed feelings about that.
As a storyteller and a fan of experimental writing, I find this so artistically thrilling. The idea of crafting a fictional backstory to a pre-existing work and presenting it in the format of an introduction to said work in a new publication is smart and fascinating. And this act of fictional expansion spread beyond the introduction and into the footnotes of the main text, where I found it most successful. These footnotes added entirely fictional anecdotes, Carmen Maria Machado sprinkling in additional world-building through her own silly little writings. And that worked SO well. There was no citation or real grounded-ness to these footnotes, so it was pretty clear that these were purely made-up additions. What a fun way to edit a book, by adding your own imaginative headcanons between the lines of the original text! I really appreciated the creative initiative and gall to craft an entirely new story and pitch it to your audience as fact. It was immersive and ground-breaking and so very Carmen Maria Machado.
But I also found it incredibly frustrating and somewhat morally irresponsible. See, the blurred line of fact and fiction amidst Carmen's additions to this work is cool in concept but inconsistent and unreliable in practice. I have three main issues with this introduction, so let me break it down:
1. "Censorship."
The entire Point of CMM's introduction is to ask the audience to question this story's author via some made-up story of queer historical censorship. To craft an absence, a false negative space, around the text. And though, again, I artistically am obsessed with this choice to paint in the space untouched by a preexisting text, I found this a bit distracting. There are very true stories out in the world about queer censorship. It's a very real thing that happened. There are many authors who took the words of women around them and then painted those women as monsters (look no further than F. Scott Fitzgerald), and this introduction feels like it's looking to garner that misplaced sympathy. I would've found it more interesting and appropriate if CMM wrote an introduction about the history of censorship, or even maybe wrote an entire novel that creates this fictional backstory about Le Fanu in order to ask these questions about censorship on a larger stage (and one that would be more obviously fictional). But placing this story as the introduction to the actual text itself is just distracting and frankly, shadows the beauty of the fact that Carmilla IS a queer story that did survive historical censorship, misogyny, and lesbophobia.
2. A Betrayal of Trust.
Now, one might disagree with me, but I find the editor of a text, especially the editor of a classic text, to be morally responsible in taking on the role of a sort of Virgil to the reader's Dante. Many readers, especially ones without prior experience with Carmilla (such as myself), will be looking to Carmen Maria Machado as a North Star to guide them through this unknown journey. I read classic literature fairly often, especially Shakespeare, and the editorial hand heavily shapes the reading experience. The introduction acts as a sort of guide, giving the reader a little spark of knowledge to help them take their first steps through the text's doorway with confidence. The reader is armed with the knowledge of metaphor or historical reception or scholarly debate or several of the many other gifts that are often granted via a work's introduction, then led along a path carved by footnotes that offer the reader stepping stones and road signs of translations or alternate meanings. So to me, it feels manipulative and academically dishonest to assert a misleading narrative onto your audience, who might be dipping their toes into this water for the first time, that will heavily affect their perspective on this text. I feel a bit like Red Riding Hood, tempted off the path by false promises. It felt almost predatory and malicious to use the introduction, which traditionally exists to serve the reader, as a way to toy with the reader instead. It caused me (and others, who I know had the same experience) to feel manipulated, humiliated, and honestly a little bit used. Now, I did say that I thought the footnotes were mostly successful and I do stand by that. But whereas the footnotes were clearly fictional (again, VERY anecdotal and without citation), the introduction was quite scholarly and contained (fake) sources. Even a reader with strong critical thinking skills would very easily fall for this trap until/unless they actually did the work of looking into these sources provided. Though again, this experiment of Machado's is wildly inconsistent, because there's an article referenced in one of the footnotes later on in the story that IS real. Why would readers expect a combination of true and false sources in a text? I think this inconsistency only heightens the manipulation.
3. A Lack Of.
Like I mentioned earlier in this review, I really love Carmen Maria Machado. And I was really excited to read this story through her eyes. And just as disappointed as I am that I was misled, I'm also disappointed I never actually got the experience I was promised. CMM is clearly incredibly smart, incredibly well-researched, and is frankly an important figure in modern queer literature. I think her scholarly takes on Carmilla would have been profound and interesting on their own, without this warped narrative. The end result of this cool storytelling experiment is just a lack of. A lack of knowledge from CMM, a lack of certainty, a lack of understanding, and most importantly: a lack of a helpful introduction. And with this experience being my first with Carmilla, I'm feeling a bit disoriented, and am having a hard time separating the story itself from all the smoke and mirrors.
Overall, I'd call this edition a really cool artistic experiment but a cruel literary prank. I kind of loved it, and kind of hated it. I do recommend it, but with a heavy emphasis on the fact that Carmen's words are not to be trusted, and with a strong suggestion to read the original text elsewhere first. And of course the illustrations were an absolute joy. So sapphic. So gothic. Every time I read a book with interior illustrations I am reminded how much I wish every book had interior illustrations. It's certainly a pretty edition, even if its roses have hidden thorns.
CW: racism (the text itself), illness, death, blood, hallucinations, death of child, decapitation, car accident, death of mother (past), suicide (mention)