...how did people defend themselves before the Church? Vampires just shy away from garlic (leaves a strange taste in their mouths for days!), seems difficult to incapacitate them enough with garlic to then stake them and decapitate them. Christ seems to be a pivotal point in the war against vampires.
I find it interesting that we have all agreed that Christ is the weapon that destroys vampires. However, I must acknowledge that there is a growing trend in the literature that this is not the case, i.e. Ture Blood/Sookie Stackhouse, Twilight, etc. But at the time this book was published, 1975, I think it was generally acknowledge that all vampires were Catholic.
Kudos to King, though, he begins to throw this idea on its head! From the first encounter with the vampires in this book, I began to struggle with this idea of Vampires being Catholic. Like a man after my heart, King addresses this when Father Callahan's cross stops working as his faith fails him. He even acknowledges, through the characters, that it is the belief in the symbol which repels, not the object itself. So it is conceivable that any object could repel a vampire if one placed enough faith in said object.
My bigger question is how do people so readily abandon their beliefs, or disbeliefs as the case may be? Does the existence of a vampire mean the existence of God? This is not a knock against 'Salems Lot, just a curiosity that arose while reading this book. I guess it has always been at the back of my mind. In my nighttime notes, I mused that perhaps one needs to witness something so evil to finally believe in the existence of God. Thoughts?
Up next, The Shining
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