5 stars

Paul Féval. Trans. Brian Stableford

Vampire City

Sarob Press

1999

ISBN 1-902309-07-3

It's not often a century-old work gets a new lease on life, but few works lend themselves as Paul Féval's Vampire City. Although Féval's La ville-vampire was written decades before the publication of Dracula, this limited edition (250 copies) is the first translation into English of this delightful, if dated, piece of humor. In his introduction, translator Brian Stableford comments that the current "overworked state" of vampire fiction "only renders it all the more ripe for cavalier parody." Setting up wheels within wheels, Féval begins his work on a metafictional level as an author stealing from the English as they have stolen from the French. It's none of this petty theft of plots and devices, either: Féval "steals" an actual English best-selling novelist -- deliberately misspelling her name and getting a few others wrong in best plagiaristic fashion ("Oh, dear me, I wasn't writing about that person....") -- for use as the protagonist in a "vividly excessive caricature of the formula she laid down." On the level of the novel itself, he relates a true, never-before-told episode in the life of "Anne" Radcliffe. Vampire City reveals in gloriously gothic detail how this pioneer of the genre came to write the gloomy gothic novels for which she was famous in Féval's time and is still remembered today. A sense of history is helpful, as are Stableford's notes, but neither is necessary to appreciate the wonderful absurdity of this horror-comedy-parody of the gothic genre.

Vampire City is full of such well-worn devices as multiple suitors competing for the hand of an heiress; the evil man who whisks her away so he can possess her fortune; a spunky heroine with an idiosyncratic manservant; numerous opportune, impossible rescues by coincidence; and the having-it-both-ways ending -- but I mustn't give that away. Making it distinctive, however, are Féval's vampires, or if you prefer, Féval's vampire; for, although a number of vampire characters appear, they are all facets of a single fantastic, powerful, and amazingly evil creature who goes by the deceptively prosaic name of Monsieur Goetzi. His distinctive vampire powers have enabled him to accrete to himself a Jew turned parrot and a woman become a dog, as well as a bald woman and a small boy who rolls a hoop. He can also stave off loneliness by creating a simulacrum of himself so he can talk to himself across a hearthrug if it strikes his fancy. Monsieur Goetzi's boundless evildoings give us glimpses of his other weird traits and powers: the green glow and red lips that characterize vampires; his peculiar fashion of crossing water; his pleasure in only the blood of young ladies; and his bizarre ability to uproot the hair from one woman's head and transplant it to that of another. Monsieur Goetzi's weaknesses, however, are by the standards of twentieth-century vampire fiction equally idiosyncratic. A captured vampire, or portion of a vampire, belongs to the captor entirely. Thus when the little band of heroes spearhead by Miss Radcliffe herself make a prisoner of Polly Bird, a young woman the vampire has incorporated during his predations, she readily reveals to them that vampires have a peculiarly mechanical nature: when injured, they must retire to the vampire city, Selene, to be "rewound." Pursuing another of their foe's aspects to this place, our heroes discover another vampire weakness: their vulnerability to the ashes of a vampire. This substance has an effect even more violent and spectacular than that of holy water in the latter-day anti-vampire canon.

A chase across Europe and back, a vampire-infested inn and a trap-filled castle, a vengeful ghost, and of course plenty of connivery among various bad guys (and gals): although Vampire City is short, it is filled with colorful incident. Despite its not-to-be-taken seriously tone and the deliberately clichéd (sometimes tongue in cheek) devices that support it, Féval's book is a lively read if taken on its own terms. Readers accustomed to the bare style of most twentieth-century fiction may find Féval's handling of his universe too Baroque in its deliberate self-consciousness. But those whose sense of adventure extends to exploring works of a more leisurely time will find Vampire City a fascinating read not only for its plot (however thin and clichéd) but for its revelations about pre-Dracula vampire fiction in the richness and novelty of its devices. And for those hesitating because they fear boredom in this quieter world: Things do go boom from time to time. There are also several nifty illustrations by Tim Denton that show a fine balance between nineteenth-century sensibility and twentieth-century simplicity.

Catherine B. Krusberg