For as long as there has been storytelling, there has been a mysterious and often disturbing love affair with the vampire mythos. Many fictional writings attempt to do the frightening legends justice, and many have stood the test of time, such as Bram Stoker's Dracula. Some modern works, such as Anne Rice's Interview With A Vampire, also represent the classic vampire character in an honest and entertaining fashion.

Lately, there has been a hit series of books by Stephanie Meyer, the Twilight saga, and it has surged in popularity among young readers of the fantasy genre. While I acknowledge it is great that a whole generation is reading, I don't hink it's fair to Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling to place the thanks all on Meyer. In fact, Rowling's books were the ones who got that generation reading, Meyer has simply kept them going. While I appreciate the story that Meyer tells, I grapple to see how so many are labelling her works as a "literary masterpiece". Her writing is sloppy, repetitive, unimaginative, and worst of all, she flouts every preconceived notion of what makes a vampire a vampire. The terror inducing monsters don't seem at all as frightening anymore, in fact, at times they seem laughable.

Until I read Twilight, I had never heard of a vampire sparkling in the sunlight. I'm fairly certain every story I ever heard, whether it be legend or a work of complete fiction describe the sun as turning vampires into ashes. I don't know about you, but the imagery of someone with human form turning into ashes as the sun hits them makes me shudder, yet Meyer chooses to take a more friendly approach to vampires. Let's make them sparkle and take as much of the danger and terror element away from these obviously dangerous creatures as we can. In the final pages of Dracula, the vampire was only defeated because the sunlight turned him into a harmless pile of ash, his soul released from it's torment after so many centuries.

Meyer's vampires don't seem to have a problem with their souls. They seem to retain their personalities from their life, unlike Stoker's vampires who all become tainted and inherently evil. Meyer's vampires have a choice and can survive without consuming human blood. Stoker's characters don't even question the morality of their actions, made all the more terrifying by the beauty and resemblance to their former selves, without actually taking on the character traits of the person.

I personally find the vampires in Dracula to be nightmare inducing.

And I find Meyer's vampires to be somewhat like Barney and Friends.

Another key difference between the two books is the descriptions the authors use to explain the looks on the vampires faces. Stoker had his vampires leering, trying to appear seductive, snarling... and he used different phrases to describe them every time. In Meyer's New Moon, however, she describes Edward's smile as "not reaching his eyes" at least 10 times within the space of a chapter. Ok, maybe that was a slight exaggeration, but the fact is, she never once used another phrase to describe how Edward's smile was forced, insincere or fake. See, there's three more ways to say it already!

I have to admit, the love story element of Meyer's books is entertaining, and there is mild action and supernatural themes to spice it up a little, but when I first read Twilight, I confess I was disappointed. I was expecting a thriller, more mystery, more terror, yet all I got was a bunch of friendly vampires protecting a Mary Sue character. I actually spent a lot of my time picking out the grammar and syntax mistakes, and pointing out the general bad writing while reading it. I read Dracula and had nightmares, I was biting my nails while reading, I enjoyed the descriptions, and the attention to detail.

Perhaps that is the problem with authors today - the classics have done the hard yards, so now they can be lazy and just write about a dream they had one night. Very original.

© Skye McCarthy 2009