Carmilla

I read Carmilla between october and november, on gloomy mornings and spooky nights. Only about a hundred pages long, it's the perfect book if you're a. in a reading slump, b. going through a gay awakening, or c. wanting to read Dracula but are too much of a feminist.

In fact Carmilla, published in 1872, probably inspired Stoker's Dracula, published almost thirty years later.

I could stay here and tell you all about the story, but you probably already understood it's all about vampires. All I really wat to talk about this short little breathtaking masterpiece is love. Love, love, love, love. Laura and Carmilla are in love and we get it from the moment they meet. It is a pure love, a young love, the kind of love that makes your heart shiver, or, as many say, gives you butterfly. Every touch, every synchronized breath is sacred, it is their legacy and their love's testimony.

I could be - I probably am - projecting this thought on the novella because it is completely filling my brain since I made acquaintance with it, but could this love be related to the idea of cannibalism as a form of love? Vampires are not cannibals, but in a certain form they are: they consume the other person, as cannibals do. So, did Carmilla "attack" Laura just to sustain herself, or did she go to her because of her love? At one point in the story Carmilla herself says "Love will have its sacrifices. No sacrifice without blood". These words have been rolling in my head since I read them.

My copy of this book is now completely annotated and loved. I will cherish this blood-drenched love story until the end of my days, and summon its words every time life seems too nice.