Thursday, May 15, 2014

Book 49: Vlad by Carlos Fuentes

In this retelling of Dracula, lawyer Yves Navarro is assigned to handle his employer's old friend's move from Romania to Mexico City. Yves is perfectly content with his middle-class life; he loves his wife and daughter, but he worries that his wife may be dissatisfied and still resents him for the death of their son.

Vlad is a short little novel, only around a hundred pages, but it really packs a punch. The descriptions of Vlad himself are chilling (this vamp is more Nosferatu than Legosi), though Fuentes retains a sense of humor through the horror, and the historical crimes of Vlad Tepes are also explored (if perhaps a bit embellished). Fuentes has distilled the vampire novel down to its purest essence, and Vlad is a macabre look at how the everyday fears and willful blindnesses of middle-class life can leave one vulnerable to unspeakable horrors.

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