Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice

Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice

                A man turned vampire at the age of twenty five, in the year of 1791, Louis wanted this opportunity to tell his story. Over a century old, having traveled the world, he sat with the boy in the room. Louis made sure the tape recorder was ready and that the boy was ready to understand the story that was to be told. The story of Lestat, the vampire who made Louis, and his unpredictable, selfish and cruel manner. The story of Claudia, the young child turned vampire, who became a woman trapped in the shell of a child. The story of the love and pain Louis experienced throughout his relationship with both. And the quest to find others of his kind and the travels that would take place over the years as Louis searched for the answers to his most troubling questions.

                Louis is our narrator throughout Interview with the Vampire. It is through his eyes that we learn of his history and the relationships that were formed and loss throughout his life. We begin at the beginning with the loss that triggered his initial despair and his longing for death. One of the most haunting lines in the novel was “I lived like a man who wanted to die but who had no courage to do it himself…And then one day I was attacked. It might have been anyone- and my invitation was open to sailors, thieves, maniacs, anyone. But it was a vampire.” This line was spoken pages into the novel and it set a finality and a tone that would resonate throughout. What would it have meant to him to die? Not just his human body, as it did when he became a vampire, but to actually die soul alike? It would have meant that he would not have been responsible for death of so many thousands of human beings throughout his immortal life. Louis struggled with his conscience and his need to feed. It was the struggle to understand himself and the pain he experienced throughout his life that was reflected throughout all of his relationships and the pages of the novel.

                Hauntingly beautiful. Romantically disturbing. Honestly scary. Maybe it’s because I was unnaturally obsessed with the movie version of this novel and could completely appreciate it for the remarkable movie that it was, that finally having read this book I can say I am in love with it. I was in love with Louis’ character, infatuated with Claudia and disgusted yet somewhat amused by Lestat when I was child. I don’t remember when I watched this movie for the first time but I believe I was really young, maybe 5 or 6 and I still love it. But now after reading this novel I am somewhat more obsessed with the characters and it is almost painful how much these characters lost throughout their haunted existence. Anne Rice was brilliant in her storytelling. The idea of having the entire novel literally explained by Louis was genius, especially because he is such a poetic and decisive and impassioned storyteller. His desire to tell his story was overwhelming. His honesty and pain was so obvious throughout that I was heartbroken throughout many of the pages. Claudia by far was the most heart wrenching character to me because she was so cruel and so desperate for something she utterly could not have.

                I highly recommend this novel. I give it 5 out of 5 stars. I don’t know if I will ever continue with the other novels in The Vampire Chronicles series but I had to read this one because of how much the movie resonated with me. Interview with the Vampire is a beautiful dark tale that spans time and for me it will always be special.