“I think our group should read World War Z next,” my zombie-obsessed son suggested at our last book discussion. I admit that, although I indulge my children in any number of ways, I wasn’t too sure about this one. Did I want to read about zombies? Was it going to be a treatise in gore-dwelling prose that turned me off of my breakfast? Mind you, I’ve seen my share of slasher flicks and horror movies and lived to tell about them, but I prefer suspense to outright horror, especially in books, so I just wasn’t sure what we were in for.
World War Z is an oral history of the zombie wars that affected all of humanity in the recent past. Author Max Brooks, having already demonstrated his bona fides with the Zombie Survival Guide, compiled his history by interviewing survivors from all walks of life. And I do mean ALL. I quickly found myself engrossed (as opposed to grossed out) by the variety of perspectives Brooks provides through his accounts.
Consider the Japanese teenager who lived primarily in the virtual world until that world went silent, and he was forced to look around and notice that his mother hadn’t brought him any food lately. His mad, very-last-minute escape from the zombies propelled him into the real world in no uncertain terms.
Consider the beautiful young woman who lives in an institution because she is one of the feral children who were left to fend for themselves after their parents were killed. Her emotional development was stunted, so she is perpetually a four-year-old whose zombie imitations must be suppressed because the noise is so realistic that it scares everyone within earshot.
Consider the astronauts in the International Space Station observing the carnage on Earth and being powerless to do anything about it.
Consider the soldier who fought in every major campaign in the United States. His accounts showed the war’s trajectory, its impact, and its ultimate cost. How close the human race came to losing to the zombies because they were slow to recognize the true horror of what they faced and what needed to be done to defeat this new enemy became chillingly clear through his words.
Consider reading the book to get the many other perspectives Brooks provides the reader.
********
As we gathered for our discussion, everyone said that they “enjoyed” the book (Is enjoy the right word here—can you really enjoy a book about such devastation?). I had a similar conversation with my son—“Can you have a ‘lively’ conversation about the undead?” I asked. He considered it carefully and conceded that you can in fact.
My son said he chose the book to discuss because he thought it was thought provoking. By providing so many different perspectives, Brooks allowed readers to see themselves in the story or who they thought they would most be like under those circumstances.
My daughter said that she really wasn’t looking forward to reading it, but she really got into it as she went along. She liked the story of the woman whose helicopter crashes—she is in a heavily infested area, injured, and alone. She makes radio contact with a woman who talks her through to safety—who was that woman? We all found that story particularly fascinating.
My husband believes that the slow reaction to the real dangers they faced were very realistic, but that once the war was over and the enemy defeated, nations would revert to their squabbles with one another.
Chris’s fiancé thinks that, following such a devastating world-wide event, the survivors would maintain the bond they shared in defeating such an enemy for at least a generation or two.
Chris liked Brooks’ approach of presenting this as an oral history to help people remember what happened. It added to the author’s efforts to make it all seem so real.
I remember talking to Paul Bibeau at the Virginia Festival of the Book about his obsession with Dracula. I explained that my son’s obsession was with zombies. I asked Paul when he decided his obsession was a good thing. He said when he realized that he could make a buck at it. Then he said, “If your son is into zombies, he must have read Max Brooks.” I assured him that he had. He replied, “I hate that guy—he’s SO good at what he does!”
I concur—taking a fictional event, such as a world-wide infestation of zombies that lead to a fight for the very survival of the human race and presenting it as if it really did happen takes talent. I look forward to seeing where Max Brooks takes us next.
We will be suspending our group discussions until after Chris and David tie the knot in June. We’re kicking around the idea of revisiting a classic, such as Moby Dick or Robinson Crusoe, but we haven’t decided yet.
Showing posts with label Paul Bibeau. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Paul Bibeau. Show all posts
3/29/08
Virginia Festival of the Book — Dracula vs. Frankenstein: A Monster Mash of Fact and Fiction
Do you have a collection? An interest? An obsession? If you are, you are very much like two of the presenters at the Virginia Festival of the Book: Susan Tyler Hitchcock, a Frankenstein expert (among many things), and Paul Bibeau, a fan of vampires.
Bibeau was literally scared into his obsession, with a tormenting older sister who knew her brother’s Achilles heel and popped out of dresser drawers and from behind doors wearing glow-in-the-dark fangs. Years later, his new wife would find herself spending her honeymoon in Romania looking for Vlad the Impaler’s castle (which Bibeau knew was not in Transylvania). His obsession led to his book Sundays with Vlad: From Pennsylvania to Transylvania, One Man's Quest to Live in the World of the Undead.
Hitchcock was a fan of Mary Shelley’s creation since her youth. Not only did she collect all things Frankenstein, she became the expert who could teach “Technology in Literature” to engineering majors and knew from research the 1818 novel by the then-teenager was the first novel that featured machinery and technology. Among her books is Frankenstein: A Cultural History.
The two authors were pitted “against” each other in the discussion “Dracula vs. Frankenstein,” which was rollicking good fun and a treat for the mind as well as the funny bone. These two very knowledgeable and passionate authors discussed the origins and paths of their very famous subjects.
These two legends present vastly different characters: one recognized as evil and one ambiguous in his intentions. Mary Shelley never villainized her creature, nor did subsequent tellings of the tale, plays and stories based on this unfortunate creation. In fact, Hitchcock agreed with Carole that the created human being was more a creature to be pitied. It was instead his creator, Victor Frankenstein, who rejected his creation at the moment of his birth, that caused the creature feel disconnected and unloved, and to lash out in response.
While we loosely use the word “monster” to describe him, Hitchcock noted that he was not an evil creature. Unlike Dracula, whom even Bram Stoker identified with the Devil, Frankenstein “allows us the hope of goodness. He was not made bad.” In fact, she said Sara Karloff, daughter of the man whose performance in the first movie defined the character for generations to come, noted that her father never called hima “monster,” just “the creature.”
“To know [Frankenstein] is to know ourselves,” Hitchcock noted.
Bibeau, in contrast, noted the “deep-down” evil in the myth of Dracula. Whether Stoker was familiar with the legend of Vlad the Impaler is up to debate or just used the name as his inspiration, Americans have made him their own. “Americans are always looking for the legend beneath the story,” Bibeau noted. “Why couldn’t the Romanians take the legend of Vlad the Impaler and make money on it? Because he belongs to us.”
Interestingly enough, the two creatures, though created nearly a century apart, have been almost inseparable from the beginning. At the time Shelley wrote her “ghost story,” a fellow storyteller conceived The Vampire. In the mid- and late 19th century theater, these two stores were paired in performances.
Stoker’s Dracula was a novel very much based in the fears of the time, Bibeau noted, and was very much a treatise on immigration. At the turn of the 20th century, it was said “the sun never set on the British Empire.” While this put English culture in every country, it also allowed for other cultures to affect England.
“In 1897, when Stoker’s book came out, it was the story of immigration and the slipperiness of culture, and fears if tainting Anglo culture.” Think about it, he noted: the foreigner Dracula had a library full of English books and was planning to purchase land in the middle of London. Though he respected and valued this culture, his presence and ownership diluted the “purity” of Anglicanism.
Stoker equated Dracula with the Christian Devil, Bibeau noted. "In his notes, he wrote 'Dracula 'equals' Devil," he said, and an author can't really get more specific than that.
What fear did Frankenstein stoke? “The fear of possible negative consequences of doing something beyond our [capabilities],” Hitchcock noted. The fear remains in a world where sometimes science gets ahead of humanity; choose your poison.
Myself, I love “scary” stories with inexplicable creatures that incite fear. I have loved and feared both of these characters since my childhood and I was thrilled to hear these two authors discussing them in such an enlightened and joyful manner. It was one of my favorite events and I look forward to reading their books.
My friend Collin has an obsession with zombies, and I can’t wait to see how far he will take it. In fact, Carole, didn't he mention Max Brooks?
Bibeau was literally scared into his obsession, with a tormenting older sister who knew her brother’s Achilles heel and popped out of dresser drawers and from behind doors wearing glow-in-the-dark fangs. Years later, his new wife would find herself spending her honeymoon in Romania looking for Vlad the Impaler’s castle (which Bibeau knew was not in Transylvania). His obsession led to his book Sundays with Vlad: From Pennsylvania to Transylvania, One Man's Quest to Live in the World of the Undead.
Hitchcock was a fan of Mary Shelley’s creation since her youth. Not only did she collect all things Frankenstein, she became the expert who could teach “Technology in Literature” to engineering majors and knew from research the 1818 novel by the then-teenager was the first novel that featured machinery and technology. Among her books is Frankenstein: A Cultural History.
The two authors were pitted “against” each other in the discussion “Dracula vs. Frankenstein,” which was rollicking good fun and a treat for the mind as well as the funny bone. These two very knowledgeable and passionate authors discussed the origins and paths of their very famous subjects.
These two legends present vastly different characters: one recognized as evil and one ambiguous in his intentions. Mary Shelley never villainized her creature, nor did subsequent tellings of the tale, plays and stories based on this unfortunate creation. In fact, Hitchcock agreed with Carole that the created human being was more a creature to be pitied. It was instead his creator, Victor Frankenstein, who rejected his creation at the moment of his birth, that caused the creature feel disconnected and unloved, and to lash out in response.
While we loosely use the word “monster” to describe him, Hitchcock noted that he was not an evil creature. Unlike Dracula, whom even Bram Stoker identified with the Devil, Frankenstein “allows us the hope of goodness. He was not made bad.” In fact, she said Sara Karloff, daughter of the man whose performance in the first movie defined the character for generations to come, noted that her father never called hima “monster,” just “the creature.”
“To know [Frankenstein] is to know ourselves,” Hitchcock noted.
Bibeau, in contrast, noted the “deep-down” evil in the myth of Dracula. Whether Stoker was familiar with the legend of Vlad the Impaler is up to debate or just used the name as his inspiration, Americans have made him their own. “Americans are always looking for the legend beneath the story,” Bibeau noted. “Why couldn’t the Romanians take the legend of Vlad the Impaler and make money on it? Because he belongs to us.”
Interestingly enough, the two creatures, though created nearly a century apart, have been almost inseparable from the beginning. At the time Shelley wrote her “ghost story,” a fellow storyteller conceived The Vampire. In the mid- and late 19th century theater, these two stores were paired in performances.
Stoker’s Dracula was a novel very much based in the fears of the time, Bibeau noted, and was very much a treatise on immigration. At the turn of the 20th century, it was said “the sun never set on the British Empire.” While this put English culture in every country, it also allowed for other cultures to affect England.
“In 1897, when Stoker’s book came out, it was the story of immigration and the slipperiness of culture, and fears if tainting Anglo culture.” Think about it, he noted: the foreigner Dracula had a library full of English books and was planning to purchase land in the middle of London. Though he respected and valued this culture, his presence and ownership diluted the “purity” of Anglicanism.
Stoker equated Dracula with the Christian Devil, Bibeau noted. "In his notes, he wrote 'Dracula 'equals' Devil," he said, and an author can't really get more specific than that.
What fear did Frankenstein stoke? “The fear of possible negative consequences of doing something beyond our [capabilities],” Hitchcock noted. The fear remains in a world where sometimes science gets ahead of humanity; choose your poison.
Myself, I love “scary” stories with inexplicable creatures that incite fear. I have loved and feared both of these characters since my childhood and I was thrilled to hear these two authors discussing them in such an enlightened and joyful manner. It was one of my favorite events and I look forward to reading their books.
My friend Collin has an obsession with zombies, and I can’t wait to see how far he will take it. In fact, Carole, didn't he mention Max Brooks?
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