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Title: The House of the Vampire
Author: George Sylvester Viereck
Narrator: Alice Johnson
Format: Unabridged
Length: 2 hrs and 49 mins
Language: English
Release date: 07-03-17
Publisher: Audioliterature
Genres: Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Fantasy: Paranormal
Publisher's Summary:
"The House of the Vampire" is one of the first psychic vampire stories ever - where the vampire feeds off of more than just blood.
The story was written by German-American poet and writer George Sylvester Viereck (1884-1962).
©2017 Audioliterature (P)2017 Audioliterature
Members Reviews:
A Vampire Novel written by a Nazi
The archaic and flowery style of this book would be considered hopelessly overwritten today. But after awhile I cane to enjoy it, seeing this book as a fascinating look into the formal, stilted world of upper-class 1907. Some have argued that this is "gay" fiction. Well? There is no actual gay sex, but there is a lot of affection, adoration and love for one male towards another.
It also took awhile for the storyline to develop, but once it became obvious what was happening, I was drawn right in. I actually read this a second time, whereupon I better appreciated the hints that were dropped early on, and the skill with which Viereck portrayed the mind-raping Reginald.
I re-read it because I was so interested in the psychology of the author. G.S. Viereck seemed to be a collector of great men. He befriended Nikola Tesla, went around interviewing other notables including Freud, Einstein and Hitler. In fact Viereck admired Hitler and called him a "genius". And finally he was jailed for spreading Nazi propaganda.
Knowing this about the author made me want to re-read this book, to see just how much of 'Reginald Clarke' was autobiographical, at least as "wishful thinking" on Viereck's part.
Judging by the ending, I am tempted to say "it is a definite possibility".
Psychic Vampirism
The House of the Vampire, 1907 (George Sylvester Viereck, 1884-1962). This fascinating book reads quickly. An hour or so.
Social psychology is, as indicated by its experts and practitioners, a relatively new discipline. They began to talk about it at the beginning of 1900; the first texts were written in the 30s and it was only till the 70s when the discipline experiment a rapid growth. One research topic in social psychology is how people influence one another. And I remember that during the 90s one of the fads in social psychology was what they called psychic vampires. People who have the ability to either completely discourage others into thinking their successes or persuade them that they are nothing. Some self-help books just describe psychic vampire as people who suck other people's energy.
Having done this preamble, let's return to The House of the Vampire. The author works wonderfully this issue of psychic vampirism using terms and words that now are common places in social psychology. I'm impressed by the range of resources employed in this book to describe how this kind of vampire hunts his prey, sucks their talents and throws them away afterwards. I find three central characters in the novel: Reginald Clarke, a mature man, possibly in his fifties or near them, the psychic vampire, Ernest, his current victim, a talented young man in his twenties, and Ethel Brandenburger, Reginal's former victim, that happened to have been his wife. These two latter characters are interesting: a woman, a wife, systematically abused by a man, her husband, whose creativity, -her soul- has gone for good, even though that she seems to have somehow gotten over her past marital experience by the time that her character is introduced to the reader.