Rosedale the Vampyre by Lev Raphael

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When someone sits down to write fiction, there will be a number of conflicting impulses. There’s the natural desire to create a work of which the author can be proud. Yet that may be in conflict with the dictates of the market. Obviously the content that interests the author may not be in the slightest interesting to the mass of people. Compromises may therefore have to be made unless, of course, the author has the natural capacity to hit the market with what it wants to read. Then there comes the writing style. Something too literary may be off-putting to Joe the Plumber. Something written in English accessible to people with a reading age of twelve may not be capable of conveying the subtleties of meaning the author wishes to communicate. So where are we with Rosedale the Vampyre by Lev Raphael (Amazon: Kindle store)?

Well, as the title suggests, we’re in the land of the vampyre (note the old-school spelling approved by John Polidori). And in the use of the “classical” spelling we come to the first of the authorial decisions for discussion. This is set in the New York of 1907 and written in a style that approximates fiction of that era. Frankly, I’m never sure what purpose is served by writing in anything other than a contemporary style. There seems to be a fashion for science fiction, fantasy and horror to be offered for sale as if written by Jane Austin and other period luminaries. I see no added value in this affectation. This does not deny the possibility of additional entertainment from a frame story in which our hero discovers a long-lost manuscript. The dissonant juxtaposition of modern and period writing styles is often part of the fun. But this novella comes straight out of the starting blocks as if a hundred yard dash written around 1907 by Edith Wharton. There’s no frame and nothing to justify or explain why the story is being presented in mannered English. This is not denying that the writer has been reasonably successful in the craft of recreating an old style, but it’s an odd decision.

Then we come to story itself. Those of you who have an interest in older works of fiction may well recall that Edith Wharton is probably best known for The House of Mirth. It catalogues the social decline of Lily Bart and also comments on the fate of Simon Rosedale, the “little Jew” who’s consigned to the social oubliette without a trial yet contrives to do rather well on Wall Street when the monied class loses out in the crash of conventional stocks. Read today, Wharton’s novel is a particularly overt example of the instinctive antisemitism that has informed the social reaction to Jews over the centuries. This novella produces a potentially ironic racism in which our hero, having been bitten but not consumed, transforms into a vampire that’s superior to the standard Caucasian model. Whereas the weak gentile version succumbs to daylight and can be blighted by crosses and the sprinkling of Holy Water, the Jewish version is unaffected by sunlight and untouched by the use of Christian paraphernalia.

The plot details the process of transformation as humanity is shrugged off in favour of the more powerful vampire model. This is not a moral decline. Rosedale has been frequenting the bordellos of New York in a vain attempt to overcome the grief occasioned by the death of his wife. During the transformation, he continues to service the same prostitute but becomes a better lover. The heightening of his senses enables him to give the woman greater pleasure. It’s rather curious a predator in the making should become more giving in the bedroom. Equally inexplicable is the decision of the other vampyre to preserve Rosedale’s existence when it would have been so easy to allow him to die. Indeed, given the pervasive animosity, you might have imagined Rosedale’s Jewish heritage might have hastened his permanent demise rather than elevated him to the top of the food chain predators.

Taken overall, Rosedale the Vampyre is a clever way of exploring the process of physical transformation alongside the social and commercial choices made as grief is transformed into a more proactive view of the world. Should he continue the story, I would be interested to see where Lev Raphael takes it but, at some point, I’m going to grow tired of the period writing style. I’m not convinced this use of past racism is contributing constructively to the modern discourse on attitudes between different racial groups. That said, this is a mildly erotic and potentially provocative novella describing the elevation of a downtrodden Jewish “millionaire” into a cautiously self-confident bloodsucker. I was intrigued.

A copy of this book was sent to me for review.

The prejudices betrayed by what we say and write

Sometimes, when reading non-related items in the news, the mind can suddenly identify a common denominator. Since it happened today, I’ll celebrate the event with an opinion piece. It seems there’s a self-published book called The Pearls: Defending Eden by Victoria Foyt and Weird Tales, under its new management, has tied itself in a knot over whether it should reproduce the first chapter of this book in its magazine. Also in America, I note that Todd Akin has refused the demands of his political party to withdraw from the election to represent Missouri in the Senate — as an aside, the drunken skinny-dipping episode in the Sea of Galilee may suggest other members of the same party can act in a debauched way. For the record, Akin distinguished between legitimate and other types of rape, asserting the belief that women could control their bodies to ensure they could not become pregnant if unwillingly impregnated. On our side of the pond, George Galloway offered the opinion that Julian Assange was not guilty of rape as he understood the word. Rather it was a case of bad manners or poor social etiquette. This on the day the Augusta National Golf Club ended its eighty-year single-sex membership rule and admitted its first two women members. It seems Darla Moore and Condoleezza Rice are now lining up as many of the male members as possible in friendly competition on the golf course with a view to demonstrating they are better players of the game (the ambiguity is deliberate).

The lives we lead as social beings inevitably involve the use of signs and symbols to transmit meaning to each other. We talk, we write, we draw, and we use body language and facial expressions to package the meaning and send it to others. This means our society must agree what meanings are to be given to combinations of letters or symbols, and to lay down rules for the interpretation of what we see. As you might imagine, this would appear to be an immensely complicated communication system to learn if you saw it all written down. But we assimilate it as part of the socialisation process. Growing up, we listen to authority figures and interact with our peers. When we say and do things meeting with group approval, we’re rewarded. When the group disapproves, we may suffer social penalties or more formal punishments. This stick and carrot approach throughout our formative years teaches us how to conform or, at least, how to appear to conform.

As adults, we’re the sum of all our prejudices and beliefs. Everything we see and hear is filtered through the lens of our personal sensibilities. If input matches our prejudices, we applaud. If input fails to match our prejudices, the reaction can range from simple dismissal to an angry physical retaliation. In my early schooling, we were taught self-reflection, to look with some degree of honesty at what we believe and decide whether those beliefs are “legitimate”. Today, no-one in the schooling system is taught critique whether for self-reflection or the assessment of others. People unthinkingly communicate with the world not realising how they reveal themselves in what they say and do.

So what would happen in a book written by a homophobe? Well, early on, the previously well-regarded A is outed as gay. Suddenly, all his co-workers stop co-operating with him and his employment is terminated because he can no longer perform his job effectively. His reputation follows him so no new employer will offer him a post. He ends up losing his home when he cannot pay the mortgage and, in the final pages, is beaten to death when found begging on a street corner. This would conform to the prejudices of many readers and they would buy the book. What might a gay author write on the same subject? When A is outed and suffers discrimination, he takes his employers to court and gets substantial damages for wrongful dismissal. He uses this money to establish his own business which supplies goods and services first to the gay community, and then more generally. When the opportunity arises, he offers employment to gay and straight people, making no secret of his own sexuality nor of his policy for equal treatment. He becomes a multimillionaire and buys the company that fired him. In a management evaluation exercise, he reallocates all the homophobes who abused him to work under managers who are openly gay.

Both books would be considered parables, expressing different points of view to appeal to niche groups of buyers. In other words, authors don’t suddenly stop being prejudiced when they write. They write about what they believe and express opinions about what they think is right and wrong. Fueling this process, organisations exist to make awards, but their criteria for deciding who deserve the awards represent their own prejudices. So, for example, The Libertarian Futurist Society makes an annual Prometheus Award to the books best demonstrating what it means to be free. The Black Caucus of the American Library Association Literary Awards are given to outstanding works of fiction and nonfiction by African American authors. There’s no overlap between the award winners.

In an election, voters look for candidates holding opinions similar to their own. If they are anti-abortion, they will vote for candidates who deny abortion no matter how the woman became pregnant. If the political tide is turning against overt sexism or racism, people and organisations can trim their sails to move elegantly into line, or they can try to swim against the tide. So Augusta can, with whatever grace it can muster, offer membership to two token women of high status. The blogosphere can turn on Weird Tales for offering support to a book the commentators have labelled as racist. British George Galloway feels free to comment on the Swedish laws as they define rape. All these events mean we live in a society where we value free speech. For better or worse, people can say what they want to get elected to high political office and publish what they think will sell. Looking back this year, I’ve read books that suggest grooming young women to be sex slaves is OK, that killing illegal immigrants is OK although, if you want to be kind, you could intern them and then deport them by sending them out to sea to become someone else’s problem, or that trying to depose a military leader because he’s gay is always justified even if the country’s defence is then put at risk, and so on. There are as many opinionated authors as there are books published. It’s sad so many of them have no idea that what they write can seem [insert word]ist to others not sharing their beliefs. Or perhaps they are aware and actually want to offend those who don’t share their beliefs. Whatever the truth of the matter, it doesn’t really matter because the alternative of censorship is not in the public interest. We should all be allowed to make fools of ourselves or become heroes in the eyes of others for saying what needs to be said. As an elderly, white, male atheist, I’m no exception since I frequently hold opinions at odds with the rest of the world and assert my right to publish them.