Squicky Vampires, cont

 

In the first place, thank you all for the tweets and comments on both the blog forum and Facebook from people who know Con is not handsome.  Let me say . . . whew.  

On Twitter, @TessaGratton said: Con being creepy and spider-like and alien is one of the reasons many of us love that book.

Oh good.  That's the right reaction (especially the 'love that book' part).  If you want Con to be gorgeous and sexy and so on, SUNSHINE is really not your book.  But by all means don't find this out until after you've bought a copy. 

. . . Also the pastries.  

I tweeted back here that I laughed till I nearly broke a rib when I found out that the human heroine of my vampire . . . erm . . . at that point it was still a short story . . . tale, was a baker.  A professional baker.  This was probably the first thing I found out about her—the first thing that made her her and not someone else, not some other vampire slayer [sic].  It's pretty impossible to separate Sunshine from her bakery—or her obsession with food and with feeding people.  The scene at the end, after everything is more or less over with and Con and Sunshine are at Sunshine's flat and Sunshine is trying to figure out if she can bear to live with what she's done . . . and she's just fried herself some eggs:  'I stood there holding a skillet with three beautifully fried eggs in it and said miserably, "I can't even feed you"'—all irony to the fore.  But this was one of the guidepost moments for me (after I found out it was a frelling novel), one of the tiny but crucial places where the story grounds itself, where I-the-insecure-chronicler know what's going on.  '"I feed people for a living.  If I don't do it I'm a failure.  I identify as a feeder of . . ."'  Sunshine has to feed people, and she's (involuntarily) allied herself with someone she can't feed.  Except by dying.  I'm not sure how visible this is going to be to anyone but me, but this is very similar in terms of character tension as part of the structure of a story with the pegasi wanting human hands and the humans wanting pegasi wings.  I'm drawn to unbridgeable gaps, and to what extent you can negotiate with or around or over them, and how you go about living with them when you can't negotiate. 

            And of course I personally love Sunshine's kind of food.  Including that Charlie's is a coffeehouse but it also sells champagne by the glass.  You can see why the Story Council immediately thought of me when this story thumped through their mail slot.  Or possibly they let me have the champagne by the glass detail to make me work harder.

Black Bear tweeted: My thoughts when I read Sunshine: "At last, a writer who knows vampires should be f***ing CREEPY!"

Well, we used to, you know?  I'm not sure what happened.  Stoker's Dracula is creepy, and for all the hysterical Victorian silliness it's still the ultimate vampire novel for me.  Maybe Hollywood's responsible.  I totally got off on the Louis Jourdan Dracula* http://baharna.com/store/CountDraculaJourdan/CountDraculaJourdan.htm although I thought he was as icky as he was attractive—the revelation to me was that he was attractive despite knowing that this is an undead monster who's going to ruin your life.  Shanaqui on Twitter was the first person to suggest that Con is compelling—yes.  The attraction of a vampire is a bit like a sort of fast, compressed version of heroin addiction:  you're gonna die, but you can't help it.  Prospero37 suggested that it's also the attraction of the bad boy (or girl)—yes, but it's that attraction to the wild side taken to its pathological extreme.  You're going to die of wanting to take a few risks, of wanting to feel the adrenaline surge of danger.**

@annathepiper:  Swoonability doesn't necessarily mean basic handsomeness; can also be intense charisma. E.g., Tom Baker as the Doctor.   

This is a line that I would like to tapdance over and back and around a bit, but not tonight.  I don't actually like—or respond to—handsome guys.  George Clooney.  Meh.  I agree about the old Tom Baker Dr Who.  But while vampires may very well have charisma, we're not talking romance—under which category the subheading swoonability usually appears—here.  We're talking death.  This is why swoony vampires get on my nerves.  Sex and death, yes.  Romance and death, no.  Old Bette Davis movies to the contrary notwithstanding.

@spacklegeek I may picture Con like NG's Sandman,*** but that doesn't mean I want to meet either of them in real life. shudders

Yes.  Exactly. 

From the forum: 

Jabenami:  I can see where the mistake came from, I mean, aren't all vampires tall dark and broody? Don't they all look like Angel? (season 1 of Buffy, not season 5 of Angel) 

It's kind of amazing, the little circles we keep going around.  Sex and death, sex and death, sex and death . . . whimper.  Want romance.  So we get romance and . . . I adore Buffy and I totally bought the story line, but you're a teenage girl and you finally go all the way with your boyfriend because you love him and you know he loves you and it's okay and . . . he turns into bloodsucking monster demon from hell.  What was I just saying about Victorian silliness?  Whedon does a much slicker modern take on it, but Stoker would recognise this.  And it still works.  

. . . Sometimes I wonder how many people make the mistake of deciding that the character in question is attractive because they want them to be.

Yes.  Although here we get into the definition of 'attractive' again.  Attractive is not necessarily the same thing as handsome or beautiful—or good.  And the scary end of attractive is compelling.  Compelled doesn't include that you get a choice. 

SShadow:  As soon as I read the bit about Con being handsome, I thought, are we still talking about the same book here? I've always loved the way Con is described; his appearance is vague, but the way Sunshine feels about it is anything but. And I love that he isn't handsome. I'm glad the importance of this point is not just my imagination.

::Beams:: 

rhymeswithcarrot: 

"He's powerful and enigmatic all right, but the kind that makes you want to throw up."



YES. . . . I loved Sunshine the first time through, of course, but after reading more of the modern vampire mythos I came back to Sunshine with a whole new appreciation for how creepy Con is. Vampires are not sexy! If your boyfriend wants to eat you, you probably do not want to be dating him.

I think I may need this on a t-shirt.  If your boyfriend wants to eat you, you probably do not want to be dating him.

Jabenami:  I admit, I was reading the review and blinked in surprise when I got to the moment where Con is called "handsome" and then started snickering to myself as I realized what the rest of the blog post would likely be about.

jmeadows: LOL!  That is exactly what I did too. 

aperry1027:  Me too!

You all know me too well. . . .

[aperry1027 continues:]  I love Sunshine . . . Con scares the living daylights out of me though.

Oh good.  Very sensible of you.

Just cause he formed a friendly alliance with Sunshine does not mean he stopped eating (drinking) other humans…

WELL YES.  THANK YOU FOR GETTING THIS.  Cheez.  Only the lion tamer goes in the cage with the lions and it's not exactly safe for him/her either.

. . . And forgive me but, Rhett Butler was just not an appealing person

I'm not arguing.  (And Clark Gable:  I can't take anyone with those ears seriously.)   But this brings up another tangent:  you can have a major life-destroying case of the hots for someone you know is a total jerk.  Or a serial murderer:  think of all those marriage proposals to guys on death row.  There are a lot of vampire-versions where the vampires don't necessarily kill humans—at least not every time—they have slaves who are addicted to being dinner.  I have more sympathy with Captain America than a lot of Buffy fans, and I thought that particular story line worked very well. 

anne_d:  Con? Handsome? Wait, what??? To quote the Elder Daughter, "What is this I can't even".

An excellent phrase.  And applicable to so many situations in modern life.  Well, my modern life anyway.

Con is compelling. Con might even be described as charismatic, in the scary evil sense, but handsome, no. A world of no. 

Yes.  I referred to this scene last night.  It's from the first part, where they're still chained up in the ballroom.

            Con is speaking:  "If you have the strength of will you can stop me or any vampire. . . . [Magical wards] will . . . prevent inhuman harm to a human.  But they can only do that if the human who bears the warding holds against the will of the one who stands against. . . . Rarely can any hold out against our will . . . looking into a vampire's eyes is any human's doom."

            'In horror I said:  "Then they do ask you to kill them.  They do beg you to . . ."

            "Yes," he said.

            'I whispered:  "Then, is it . . . okay, at the very end?  Do they . . . like it, at the end?"

            'There was a long pause.  "No," he said.'

OKAY.  I AM SERIOUSLY CREEPED OUT.  VAMPIRES ARE CHARISMATIC AND EVIL.  At least in SUNSHINE's world.

Black Bear:  Mr. Rochester OR Colin Firth's Darcy. Two examples of characters not supposed to be handsome who get forced into it on the big screen anyway.

Again, a potential topic for another evening.  The blandification of attractiveness by making it merely handsome. 

Though I never thought Orson Welles was all that attractive, personally. His eyes are kinda weird. 

You mean the way he looks like he's going to go mad with an axe any minute?  Yes.  He could have made a really good vampire. 

greenmother:  Con is not sexy or handsome, but he is compelling. That's probably a useful trait for a predator, no?

Indeed.  Exactly.  It's, uh, why we still have vampires. . . .

Cindy Marks on Facebook:  And yes, I totally got that Con was icky. Still, when she slams into him… I sort of forgot the icky… perhaps thanks to current vamp images

Well, yes and no.  Remember that barring Laurell Hamilton's Anita Blake (and Buffy, of course) SUNSHINE was kind of in front of the wave.  When SUNSHINE first came out vampires were still more standard-issue icky, I think, even when the sex was pretty overt.  But the sexual aspect has always been there (they bite you in the neck!), so one of the things I think SUNSHINE is about—in hindsight;  remember that I'm not consciously making any of this stuff up, and neither of the two NSFW scenes in SUNSHINE had any conscious input from me at all—is just how hard you have to push the two north ends of the magnets together before they'll touch.  Even if they jump away again the minute you let go.

Georgia Beaverson: I read Nancy's review and the first thought in my head was "Con? Handsome? I think not." . . . One of the reasons I have read Sunshine again and again is b/c Rae & Con's attraction is, like Con, "Other."

OTHER.  Yes.  My preoccupation with unbridgeable gaps again. 

Melissa Marr:  Sometimes I adore you, especially when you're just a teeny bit surly.—

SURLY?  MOI?  You wrong me, madam, you wrong me . . . um . . .

On to the Con v Rochester chatter. . . Con isn't handsome, but I guess I always feel like he's attractive–& honestly, more so than I ever thought Rochester was. R is sullied by his actions in ways that make him seem far LESS attractive (I say as a lit-teacher-who-loves-JANE EYRE). Con is more open about who/what he is, & in the knowing is all the more appealing. "Beauty is truth, and truth beauty" yes?

And this is the point in the round-up where I say AAAAAAUGH I have to go to bed, and I definitely have to pursue the handsome/compelling/attractive-is-as-attractive-does in some other blog.  Because yes, I agree, except that I do find Rochester attractive, not least because he is so fatally flawed.  Thank the gods he's not one of these perfect frelling heroes who watches you when you sleep GAAAAAH. . . . 

* * *

* I'm afraid to watch it again now.  I haven't seen it since it first came out—and in those days was shiny and new and amazing—and meanwhile I've grown into a nasty cynical old cow. 

** Prospero37 also says:  Personally, rather have a cookie and read Sunshine.  

*** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sandman_(Vertigo)