Vampires Are En Vogue

If you peruse a book store this week you will find vampire novels among the best sellers. Just a cursory look noted seven new titles in the vampire genre and not one featured Count Dracula. Dracula is old school stuff in today’s Yeah, my boyfriend’s a vampire world. Dracula’s very-AARP, although I understand vampires don’t actually retire. In Dracula’s time it took a stake through the heart or a healthy does of holy water to do in a vampire. I haven’t read any of the new novels nor seen the movies but I’m guessing they’re harder to stop these days. This is confusing if one considers all of the modern safety protocols for interacting with blood. Dentists wear gloves, masks and plastic shields to stay safe; vampires drink blood like it’s going out of style. Hello, communicable diseases…Swine Flu…tainted blood.

I’m going on record as simply not getting it. Why the sudden fascination with vampires. They drink blood to stay alive and cannot take direct sunlight. They’re allergic to crosses and if properly fed can live forever. Is this a fad or is it the immortality angle that makes them popular? America is faddish to a fault so it’s likely that in six months vampires will give way to something else. Remember the Da Vinci Code? There were at least twenty- five similar novels that came out after Dan Brown went platinum and how many can you name? We do fads well. As to immortality, that too is a topic that resonates with people. Every major religion has a doctrine of the life to come, although major differences exist as to how that life will play out. None, however, features endless existence as a blood sucking vampire. So let’s accept vampire novels as mind candy that could make for a good read but shouldn’t be taken so seriously that the meaning of life is altered. Vampires don’t exist, nor do wizards and dragons, and much to my dismay, neither did Camelot or Excalibur. Fiction novels are one thing and life is another, so if we don’t mix the two together to an inordinate level all will be well.

MM