The Gothic Project - Olalla - discussion

[Gem , Moderator]

Olalla - discussion


1) What was your impression of our nameless soldier/narrator?

2) What/how does Felipe contribute to the story?

3) When did you begin to suspect that things were not as they appear?

4) I laughed out loud when the mother bit his arm. Did you see that coming?

5) Love at first sight? Is that believable in the context of this story?

6) How do you compare this story to other vampire stories you have read?

[Lori, Moderator]

I wanted more information. We never found out exactly what the family was, how they came to be that way, why Olalla is not as affected, etc. But I guess our experience reflects the narrator's - he is frustrated because no one will give him that info either.

Yeah, I thought if anyone bit him it would be Olalla, not the mother.

[Gem , Moderator]

Lori wrote: "I wanted more information. We never found out exactly what the family was, how they came to be that way, why Olalla is not as affected, etc. But I guess our experience reflects the narrator's - he ..."

I laughed so hard when she bit him.

I agree this story could have been fleshed out a lot more.

[Rafael]

This is the first christian vampire (I am supposing that Olalla is a vampire) that I had ever known.

The story was amusing, but yeah. It lacks information. I don't know if it's us - modern audience - that became used to get more information from the stories or it that lacks it.

[Rosemarie, Moderator]

I read this in the collection The Supernatural Short Stories of Robert Louis Stevenson and this was the weakest story in the book. The others were all four star reads.

[Nancy]

I thought RLS's prose in this section was beautiful, but I agree with the other readers that there was simply not enough information given to understand what had happened. This had the makings of a great story, but in the end it fell flat.