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Show -, $& A touch of vampires or rJ sS a taste of murder... - to O j By CHERIE HUBER What better way to spend a quiet Halloween evening than handing out candy to neighborhood neighbor-hood children and reading a book. One that certainly fits the season is "A Clutch of Vampires" by Raymond T. McNally which was published in 1974 by the New York Graphic Society. The author says that these selections of vampirana were put together in one volume so that readers could find some of the best vampire tales and commentary from both history and literature. The book is also well illustrated with drawings collected from many old books about vampires. "Some minds, of course, may question whether serious study of the subject of vampires is worthwhilewhether worth-whilewhether it would in fact result re-sult in much ado about nothing more than a character from a nineteenth-century novel and the films that it has inspired. However, Howev-er, long before 1897, when Bram Stoker published'DracuIa," other men were preoccupied with vampires," the author states. The term 'vampire' itself is fair- ly new, having come into common usage during the eighteenth century. cen-tury. However, the concept of vampires shows up in Chinese literature li-terature of the seventh century B.C., in Babylonian carvings, in Greek mythology and European folklore. Indeed, the United States has had its share of tales of vampires. For example, in 1854 the Norwich Courier of Norwich, Connecticut, carried a story of an incident in which the townspeople exhumed the bodies of two brothers believed be-lieved to be feeding on the living. In recent years, more than 100 vampire films have been made and certainly many more will be made. There is, it seems, a part of us that wishes to believe the impossible impossi-ble is possible. Daily life becomes so measured and routine that some people actually enjoy being scared by frightening tales and films about ab-out the dead returning to life. In the eighteenth century the Marquise du Deffand said, "I do not believe in ghosts but I am afraid of them." Isn t that what the stories of Dracula, ghosts and vampires are all about? Filmmakers Filmmak-ers take full advantage of the fact that one does not have to believe to be frightened. There are those of us who find day to day life scary enough. We don't want to be scared. If you're looking for lighter entertainment, try "The Crossword Legacy" by Herbert Resnicow. A wealthy man is anxious that the bulk of his estate pass to the relative who thinks most like he did. Fifty years after his death, the relatives meet for a reading of the second part of his will. They are to solve three crossword puzzles which in turn hold the key to a message which only the descendant most like the man will supposedly recognize and decipher. At stake is a $18 million fortune and murder soon complicates the competition. Herbert Resnicow has also written writ-ten three other murder mysteries which are solved with crossword CRITIC AT LARGE puzzles including "Murder Across and Down." It's not necessary to take time to complete the puzzles to enjoy the story, which is a night's reading of light entertainment. True crossword buffs, of course, will enjoy taking a little longer to complete the four crossword puzzles that hide all the secret messages of the book. |