Anonymouswizard reads Interview with the Vampire

[Anonymouswizard]

Vampires are something that have been at the edge of my perception ever since Twilight came out in my teens. I like them, enough to own multiple games about them and to have read a couple of books, but I don't tend to seek out vampire media. I've read Dracula, I've begun the Masquerade novels, and I want eternally for Christopher Lee to grace the streaming services I pay for, but I realised that there's one big series I've mostly passed by.

So join me, fellow posters, as I dive into the vampire romance of legend, featuring shiny creatures of the night and their insatiable thirst for blood!

I have read part of this book before, but not the majority of it. But that was over a decade ago and I remember little of it. I have also never seen the film, so this is going to be as close to blind as possible

This book does not contain relatively short chapters, so I shall post when I feel the narrative has reached a decent breakpoint. So without further ado!

Spoiler: Part 1, Section 1

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We begin in a room, with a journalist recounting the basic details of how he came to be interviewing this vampire in rather naturalistic conversation, along with some basic introduction to the creepiness of vampires. Notably their skin does not look right. It's pretty basic setup to get into the meat of the novel, the interview and the experiences of an immortal forced into acts of immortality, and in no way outstays it's welcome.

We then get into the interview, and to understand the life of a vampire we must understand the person's previous life. So we get enough details, our vampire is French, came over to Louisiana with his family because his father started a plantation, and supported his brother when the latter only found solace in his faith. However his brother began to develop rather strong views about what the family should do, views he disagreed with, and after a heated argument his brother seemingly accidentally kills himself. His remaining family and the local community consider him responsible for the death and he implies he agrees, and gives an overview of his downward spiral before eventually getting assaulted by a vampire. After being nearly drained to death and admitting his feelings to a priest our narrator lashes out when the priest tries to convince him it's not his fault. This starts him on the road to self reflection and recognition of his own ego, two themes I'm looking forward to this book potentially exploring.

Throughout all this we have little details, from the interviewer asking for clarification on what the vampire means, the relatively casual way he talks about things that might unnerve modern readers, and the fact that Louis doesn't use names for anybody, even his family. It all paints a picture of a person who has lived for two centuries and has it weigh on his thoughts.

There is somebody our narrator very much does call by name. One night the vampire returns, and into the story enters a man who breaks down our narrator's convictions and exposes his basest desires, who pulls our narrator from being a man on his deathbed into being a creature who'll never again see a sunrise.

Into the story walks Lestat.

And here is our second protagonist. While Louis is a man concerned with meaning and his own ego Lestat is presented as a man who takes what he wants. He wants our narrator's plantation, he wants Louis himself, and he turns our narrator into a vampire without any apparent hesitation. While part of the reason he desires the plantation is to make it easier to care for his aging father he does seem to spend more time preparing our narrator for the change than required.

But at the end of the day Lestat is a responsible sire. He attempts to teach our narrator the realities of being a vampire before turning him into one, including the realities of feeding and disposing of evidence. We get an implication that vampire bites are not pleasant when Lestat's victim struggles, and in the middle of preparations our narrator begins angsting and begs Lestat to kill him. This leads to Lestat's first unambiguous moment of emotional manipulation and the reveal of our narrator's name: Louis. Suddenly he is a lot easier to talk about.

Lestat drains Louis to near-death, and the prose becomes purple as he describes his life fading away. But the Lestat bites his wrist and feeds Louis his blood, causing the prose to become even more purple as his senses begin to change and he becomes aware of his heart and then Lestat's. There is some musing on the difficulty of describing this before the interviewer needs to turn over the tape, which seems a good stopping point.

All in all a very strong start, with some clear potential themes already present, and sone strong characterisation for our main character. The writing style fits the story, and I heavily enjoy the use of the interview as a device to allow the character of Louis to elaborate on things that might not be clear.

[Tarmor]

Vampires are something that have been at the edge of my perception ever since Twilight came out in my teens. I like them, enough to own multiple games about them and to have read a couple of books, but I don't tend to seek out vampire media. I've read Dracula, I've begun the Masquerade novels, and I want eternally for Christopher Lee to grace the streaming services I pay for, but I realised that there's one big series I've mostly passed by.

Great start! I'm looking forward to seeing what you think as you continue. I came to this series early, and really enjoyed the first three. I wasn't so happy with the fourth book so stopped following the main series and read a few of the off-shoots. It's been a very long time since I read Anne Rice, and I'm tempted to go back and start again. (Once I finish the couple of books already put aside.)

[factotum]

I liked the way vampires were portrayed in this first book, but felt the message went a bit off in subsequent ones. In particular, I felt Anne Rice was just chasing popularity when she made the later novels mainly about Lestat, who I thought was by far the less interesting of the two main protagonists in the first novel.

[The Glyphstone]

So I'm a little unclear - are there two characters here, or three? Lestat is the elder vampire, and Louis is the younger one. Is Louis also the narrator, or is the person doing the interview also named Louis?

[Anonymouswizard]

So I'm a little unclear - are there two characters here, or three? Lestat is the elder vampire, and Louis is the younger one. Is Louis also the narrator, or is the person doing the interview also named Louis?

Louis is the narrator and primary protagonist, the interviewer has not yet been named, but so far has contributed little to the plot. The interviewer's main purpose so far seems to be to allow Louis to elaborate on bits which may be unclear to the audience without breaking character. At this point he's just 'the boy', in the same way that Louis is 'the vampire'.

So three characters, one interview-only, one story-only, and the one who appears in both.

[Anonymouswizard]

Due to eye issues I might only be posting updates every couple of weeks or so, reading takes a lot out of me. But for now feat your eyes on this continuation!

Spoiler: Part 1, Section 1

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We begin with a piece of detail most vampire media I've encountered forgets, that of the need to get rid of bodily waste after turning, and Lestat suggests doing so outside but in privacy. We also get our first description of what it's like to be a vampire, which seems to be a greater appreciation of the world around you and it's forms and colours, although no real hint as to improved senses yet. A throwaway line maybe, but nothing definitive.

As Louis comes back to the house he finds Lestat going over the plantation's papers, too focused on them to help Louis come to terms with the reality of being a mobile corpse. Here we are introduced to a third potential theme branching off of the consequences of ego and self-reflection, the dividing between the practical and emotional requirements of life. Lestat embodies the former, Louis with his older self's reflections conveys the need for the latter. It suggests that as one gets older they may start becoming overly focused on the practical aspects of living, and may start neglecting their need for emotional stability or fulfilment.

Or maybe I'm reading too much into it. Only more novel shall tell.

And then Lestat asks Louis to sleep with him. I mean, he claims that it's due to a lack of a second coffin, but I have my suspicions. Although assuming these vampires have the sunlight weakness I guess using coffins as beds makes sense.

Lestat also seems to be sliding from being a charming vampire to being cruel and petty, including clashing with his father over being moved to the plantation. I wonder if he ever actually asked his father about it, maybe we'll get answers. Meanwhile Louis's vampiric instincts are developing and he gets distracted by the pretty colours.

Then a flashback to the present, and here we get an elaboration on how Rice's vampires differ. No fear of crosses, although an implication that certain vampires could get distracted by their beauty, no ability to turn into smoke, and staking the heart does nothing. Useful traits to establish for a protagonist bloodsucker, especially if the audience's perception of vampires is as horror movie villains. The interviewer is also nervous, and we get a brief scene of him smoking before we continue. My assumption is that it's meant to establish how unnerving an encounter with humanity's top predator would be.

And we're back to more of Lestat arguing with people and Louis changing as he becomes a vampire, here losing what claustrophobia he had as a mortal. The argument between Lestat and Louis is in overview, it's clearly the less important thing here. Otherwise the most important thing is that it's confirmed that yes, sunlight does kill vampires in this series. And then our vampires sleep together, and fanfic authors throughout the world cry with tears of joy!

Afterwards apparently Louis now despises Lestat and they steal another coffin in order to enrage the fanfic authors. Also we have confirmation that vampires are magically preserved corpses, which mainly seems to remove their ability to feel, particularly pain. Also that vampires, at least once they hit a couple of centuries, can move fast enough that human brains have difficulty processing them. Also enhanced senses, but sadly no hint of the sensory overload that a human would experience.

At this point the headache has grown too much, and I must put the book down for a while. Maybe I'll pick it up again today, maybe it'll be tomorrow or next week. It depends on when I'm next free with no headache.

As to this part of the novel, sadly the established themes have taken a back foot to setup. On the other hand it is enjoyable setup, and will clearly allow for deeper exploration of themes later in the novel. Certainly the best part is the growing characterisation of Lestat and Louis, with their shared selfishness coming to the forefront combined with the large differences in outlook the two men possess.

[Khedrac]

Good start - and unlike other "X reads Y" threads I have read, you are reading a book I haven't which makes it more interesting in some ways - certainly you are promoting the book in a positive way though I don't want to go and find a copy to read myself (yet).

One minor grammar point which caused me some confusion though:

However hids brother began to develop rather strong views about what the family should do, views he disagreed with, and after a heated argument seemingly accidentally kills himself.

"Accidentally kills himself" here has lost its context as to who the "he" in question is - on re-reading it is probably the brother, but the "he" of the rest of the sentence is the as yet unnamed vampire and therefore that is who "accidentally kills himself" attaches to and it implies the pre-vampire kills himself, something that subsequent sentences then show to be incorrect (I think).

This leave the question did you mean "he accidentally kills his brother" or "his brother accidentally kills himself"? I am assuming the latter as the use of "himself" would be wrong for the former (though it's a depressingly common mistake).

[Azuresun]

I reread this book myself recently (after first reading it as a teen), and found it really fascinating in how it redefined vampires in pop culture and started to move them towards being protagonists (seriously, you can see the fingerprints of this book all over Vampire: The Masquerade, and over a big chunk of urban fantasy). Really looking forward to following this!

On a side note, given the themes of male homoeroticism, blood and death, I was quite surprised to learn that this book was published before AIDS was really common knowledge, though it's always possible Rice might have been personally aware of it.

I liked the way vampires were portrayed in this first book, but felt the message went a bit off in subsequent ones. In particular, I felt Anne Rice was just chasing popularity when she made the later novels mainly about Lestat, who I thought was by far the less interesting of the two main protagonists in the first novel.

You can definitely see a big shift between the first and second novels in both how Lestat is characterised and how vampirism is portrayed. I liked it at the time, but not so much in hindsight. But I don't want to get spoilery just yet.

[Anonymouswizard]

Well I was working on a post that got deleted by my phone, so this might be bare bones in places as I try to remember details.

Spoiler: Part 1, Section 3

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We return to the plantation, Louis redirects a police investigation, and we get Louis's first kill which serves mostly as a springboard for the differences in the two men's approach to life. I actually had about three paragraphs on this, but bugger me if I remember more than 'Louis savours, Lestat indulges'.

I should point out that this prose is dense but does not move quickly. Which is fine, it's still vary engaging, but I can find myself wanting to pause to write something two to three times a page. So sorry if progression slows to a crawl, sometimes the ideas are that tightly packed or developed.

So yes, Lestat and Louis have very different values at this point, which puts tremendous strain on their relationship.

There's also confirmation that vampires can survive on animal blood before a quarrel over Lestat's actions. There's also a suggestion that vampires are in general rare and good at hiding, leaving Louis stuck with Lestat if he wants to learn. The argument eventually leads to Louis refusing to rest in the same room as Lestat and he lugs his coffin to his brother's residence.

We also finally get a name for Louis's brother, Paul. I'm honestly wondering if 'only the dead have names' is an intentional element of the story.

Louis abandons his pretence of being mortal, and I discover that this book apparently does have shorter chapters, they're just unmarked. Guess I'm going to break here before I lose my post again.

Not much to say right now beyond that I feel like I was promised more gay vampires. But there's still plenty of book left!

[PontificatusRex]

Not much to say right now beyond that I feel like I was promised more gay vampires. But there's still plenty of book left!

Oh, plenty of homoerotic vampirism to come. Though to the dismay of the fanfic writers, I'm pretty sure that in Rice's universe vampires never have actual sex.

I read this book ages ago and still think it's Anne Rice's strongest work by far. I think that it, along with Bauhaus's song "Bela Lugosi's Dead" and the movie "The Hunger', was one of the foundational inspirations for the Death Rock/Goth subculture.

[Anonymouswizard]

Some charging cable issues have beensorted out, it's time for this thread to rise from the grave!

Next update this evening or next evening UK time.

[Velaryon]

It's been many years since I read this novel (and many more since I watched the movie), but I'm always fascinated by its popularity. I honestly hated this novel, largely due to the prose. While I enjoyed the movie quite a bit, I found Rice's writing hard to get through, and that in turn made it a lot harder for me to feel the sympathy for Louis that I did when he was portrayed by Brad Pitt. I gather that my opinion of Interview with the Vampire is not a commonly-held one, since it seems to be very much beloved by a lot of people who I would have thought would dislike it.

And it's only while writing this post that I realize that how I feel about Anne Rice is very similar to how I feel about Charles Dickens, in that I like the stories themselves and the movie adaptations, but not the way they're written.