Louisiana is for Vampires

I bought Twilight in May 2009 when I went on a field trip to the Book People bookstore in Austin with the class of the two grade 5 kids I tutored. Each kid got to choose a book at the store, and a lot of the girls were choosing later books in the Twilight saga. Having had Twilight recommended to me on a multiple occasions, I bought it. I then read the whole thing on a plane a few weeks later. I did thoroughly enjoy it, and I went on to read the rest of the saga (I love how it's called that...) that summer. But I have to admit I sort of wish my introduction to vampires had not come from Twilight. Sure, those books were mostly fun and entertaining to read, but there were a lot of annoying things too. More importantly, all the other vampire things I've read or watched since are so much better.

L. also read (and really liked!) Twilight, and she then recommended Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse novels (also called Southern Vampire mysteries because they are set in the fictional town of Bon Temps, Louisiana. Side note: I have a magnet on my fridge that says Louisiana is for Vampires which I love.) which I have now read all of (except the most recent one which is still in hardcover) and which I love a lot. I don't think the Twilight books even come close to the Sookie books. A part of that stems from the reality that the majority of the Twilight books take place in high school and I find life/people/pretty much everything way more interesting once people are out of high school, and are living more adult lives. I also find it really interesting that the vampires in the Sookie books are 'out of the coffin' (the Japanese invented a synthetic blood called 'True blood' which sustains vampires, thus stopping them from having to drink humans' blood to stay alive and allowing them to be open about their true natures), because it brings up a lot of interesting issues surrounding vampires' acceptance (or lack thereof at times) in mainstream society. (So much of the Twilight saga seemed devoted to Bella discovering Edward was a vampire, and then having to keep that fact a secret from her parents/everyone else in the world.) Hands down the biggest reason why I love the Sookie books is because I love Sookie. All the books are first person Sookie and she is a wonderful person/narrative! She's really funny, smart, pretty, practical, brave, loyal, caring, understanding, and she loves reading. I like a lot of the other book characters too - particularly Eric, Pam, Amelia, and Claudine; all in all, they are very enjoyable and addictive reads.

The books and the TV show based on them, True Blood, are pretty different, and I actually like it better that way. The show only loosely follows the books (I think season 1 definitely followed the closest) in that it has multiple characters that either weren't in the books at all, or weren't developed in the books. So I now have a lot of characters that I really like from the show (namely Jessica!) that I have no book opinion about at all. It's also fun to be surprised so I like that the show has really differed from the books. True Blood has also done a lot of cool things with making current day comparisons between vampire rights and minority rights. The two main things I dislike about True Blood are how short its seasons are (12 episodes, only lasting from the end of June to the second week of September is not long enough!), and how thoroughly different (and worse) show Sookie is from book Sookie. Hardly any of the qualities that I listed above as loving about book Sookie exist in show Sookie. I find show Sookie impatient, selfish, self-absorbed, and way too concerned with whatever vampire she is currently dating to the neglect of her friends/family. Not liking Sookie puts a damper on the show. Fortunately though, unlike with the books in which Sookie, as the narrator, is the star, the show's many main characters and (perhaps too) many story lines means Sookie is not in every scene.

I think the prevalence of the internet has increased the popularity and ubiquity of tv shows. Back in the early to mid 1990s when I was obsessed with Beverly Hills 90210, I only ever really discussed it with friends. The internet didn't exist (or at least not for regular people) and the idea of going online to talk or read about a TV show would have been so totally foreign to me. Now, however, whenever I see a movie or watch a show that interests me, I love googling it and reading what other people have to say about it online. (I sometimes do that with books too, but usually I talk about books in person more.)

True Blood is the first show I've ever watched where I've gotten really into the analysis, and where I religiously follow vlogs or podcasts about the show. At the end of the third season, I found out about this blog talk radio program where two black women had a weekly show analyzing True Blood from a racial and feminist perspective called Talking True Blood at Merlotte's. I only listened to their episode for season 3's finale but I loved their analysis. They articulated a lot of what I thought about certain characters on the show, and it was fascinating to me to hear people engage with and be critical of a lot of the social aspects of the show. This past June when season 4 started, I discovered they had started up a regular website called Fangs for the Fantasy where the two women - now joined by one gay man - analyze lots of fantasy books and shows from a social justice perspective. I subscribed to their weekly podcast and absolutely loved listening to their assessment of the episode each week. I share all of their dislike of Sookie, and enjoyed both being made aware of other small things from each episode I had sometimes missed, and reflecting on the way the show sometimes does perpetuate negative stereotypes about minorities.

The one thing I can't get fully behind the Fangs for the Fantasy bloggers/podcasters is their negative opinion of Charlaine Harris. They really really don't like her, even though they keep reading the Sookie books, and have read some of her other books too. I like Charlaine Harris because I think the Sookie books are really great, fun, smart and interesting reads; and I also admire her after watching this interview she gave once in which she explained that writing the Sookie books was a conscious career move. She was getting a bit bored with writing mysteries and wanted to expand her readership, so decided to go into fantasy. I liked how she took control of her career, and has been so successful. I've read the first book of two of Charlaine Harris' other series: the Aurora Teagarden mysteries and the Lily Bard mysteries, and I've really liked both. But at the same time I've felt a bit guilty for doing so, particularly liking Aurora Teagarden, because the Fangs for the Fantasy people are so critical of it. In fairness, they particularly don't like the later books because they say there are very few minorities, and the ones that are present are often pretty obvious stereotypes. I haven't read enough of the books to know if I agree with everything they say, but I do think it enriches my own reading experience if I am aware of things like that. I am eager to read some vampire books by L.A. Banks who was a black writer and I am sure writes from a different perspective than Charlaine Harris.

The other True Blood commentary I made sure to watch each week was this vlog at a website called Camp Blood. M. told me about it at the beginning of season 3, and I've been watching the two men who make it ever since. Their vlog is a funny contrast from Fangs for the Fantasy as they are way way less critical of the show. Their vlog is funny, very silly, and doesn't take
the show - or themselves - very seriously at all.

The first time I lived alone, that September in my Hilgard apt, I remember joking with a friend that I needed to leave some garlic out to keep the vampires away. Vampires were something I knew nothing about (and was somewhat surprised when I discovered just how far back vampire fascination and vampire culture goes) and probably never imagined I'd ever know about. But I am very glad to have gotten into vampires over the last few years. I am excited that I now read another genre of books - fantasy - which I rarely touched before. There are so many fantasy books about vampires out there - next on my list are the Anita Blake vampire novels, the LA Banks ones, and finishing up the Blood books series by Tanya Huff (which takes place in Toronto in the early 1990s.) Fantasy has, actually and cheesily, through all its vampires, werevolves, telepaths, and shape shifters made me think about what it means to be human, and how humans, and what we do, appear odd/different to creatures like vampires. I may have many months to wait for True Blood to start up again but in the meantime I have many more vampire books to read.