Carmilla by J Sheridan Le Fanu

Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu.mp3
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J S Le Fanu was born in Dublin to a family of mixed descent. His father’s line were French Huguenots hence the French surname. Like many horror and ghost story writers his father was actually a clergyman. He studied law as his career at Trinity College Dublin. He didn't actually live in Dublin at the time but you could do a kind of distance learning. He became editor of a literary magazine at this time.

Le Fanu was active in the campaign to try and stir the British government to do something about the Irish famine. It didn’t work.

He wrote in many genres he is most famous for his horror stories. But in general his horror stories are understated and emphasise atmosphere rather than pure horror.

Carmilla is one of Le Fanu’s most famous stories. It is the prototypical Lesbian vampire novel. Possibly because of that it has become famous. This book of course was written at a time when Queen Victoria famously declared the ladies did not do such things. Not that they do in Carmilla either, they just get close,

One of the charms of the story is it setting. It contains many of the romantic elements famous from Gothic fiction. It has the beautiful ancient and partly ruinous schloss in the middle of the Carinthian forest.

I imagine that some of the descriptions of the two girls kissing and hugging was quite risque for its time. But it is perhaps because of this that Camilla has been made into films and adapted into different media across the years since its publication in 1872.

Le Fanu was a master of Gothic description, and in Carmilla his abilities are at their height. 

For me one of the most engaging descriptions is that of the castle in the deep and inaccessible forest in Styria in Austria. It is almost poetic. We also have great descriptions of the graveyard at Castle Karnstein towards the end of the story and the masked ball scene which is related to us by the general also sounds splendid.

The masked ball from Carmilla was borrowed and done very lushly in the movie Van Helsing where Kate Beckinsale, one of my favourite female vampires, looks lush indeed.

Some of the sensuality between Camilla and the protagonist is described in almost erotic detail. I think that Le Fanu was not naive about this and , of course, he had to sell stories to make a living and he did this very well.. 

The stock characters such as the woodsman and the bizarre Baron Vordenburg who acts as a Van Helsing type vampire expert that comes in to solve all the problems towards the end, are both fun.

In terms of the structure of this novella, I feel it could actually have been a novel. The ending to me was a little bit rushed. Camilla disappears and then it's sorted and fixed within minutes it seems. 

As I was reading it my imagination extended it to as throughout Italy and Europe with Camilla visiting the protagonist in her bed and then hunting her much as the gang do in Dracula. That being said, there is a nice structure to the story in that almost the first thing that happens is that the expected female guest is now tragic tragic not coming giving a great disappointment to our Laura the protagonist.

The general in his letter is very disturbed but we are not told why and so kept in suspense until the end when the General neatly appears, closing the circle of the story. I guess we anticipate something like this happening