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Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
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Interview with the Vampire (edition 1991)

by Anne Rice (Author)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingConversations / Mentions
22,806332162 (3.83)1 / 477
Fantasy. Fiction. Horror. Thriller. HTML:40th ANNIVERSARY EDITION ? From the #1 New York Times bestselling author, "a magnificent, compulsively readable thriller...Rice begins where Bram Stoker and the Hollywood versions leave off and penetrates directly to the true fascination of the myth??the education of the vampire? (Chicago Tribune). ? The inspiration for the hit television series

The time is now.
We are in a small room with the vampire, face to face, as he speaks??as he pours out the hypnotic, shocking, moving, and erotically charged confessions of his first two hundred years as one of the living dead. . .
He speaks quietly, plainly, even gently . . . carrying us back to the night when he departed human existence as heir??young, romantic, cultivated??to a great Louisiana plantation, and was inducted by the radiant and sinister Lestat into the other, the "endless," life . . . learning first to sustain himself on the blood of cocks and rats caught in the raffish streets of New Orleans, then on the blood of human beings . . . to the years when, moving away from his final human ties under the tutelage of the hated yet necessary Lestat, he gradually embraces the habits, hungers, feelings of vampirism: the detachment, the hardened will, the "superior" sensual pleasures.
He carries us back to the crucial moment in a dark New Orleans street when he finds the exquisite lost young child Claudia, wanting not to hurt but to comfort her, struggling against the last residue of human feeling within him . . .
We see how Claudia in turn is made a vampire??all her passion and intelligence trapped forever in the body of a small child??and how they arrive at their passionate and dangerous alliance, their French Quarter life of opulence: delicate Grecian statues, Chinese vases, crystal chandeliers, a butler, a maid, a stone nymph in the hidden garden court . . . night curving into night with their vampire senses heightened to the beauty of the world, thirsting for the beauty of death??a constant stream of vulnerable strangers awaiting them below . . .
We see them joined against the envious, dangerous Lestat, embarking on a perilous search across Europe for others like themselves, desperate to discover the world they belong to, the ways of survival, to know what they are and why, where they came from, what their future can be . . .
We follow them across Austria and Transylvania, encountering their kind in forms beyond their wildest imagining . . . to Paris, where footsteps behind them, in exact rhythm with their own, steer them to the doors of the Théâtre des Vampires??the beautiful, lewd, and febrile mime theatre whose posters of penny-dreadful vampires at once mask and reveal the horror within . . . to their meeting with the eerily magnetic Armand, who brings them, at last, into intimacy with a whole brilliant and decadent society of vampires, an intimacy that becomes sudden terror when they are compelled to confront what they have feared and fled . . .
In its unceasing flow of spellbinding storytelling, of danger and flight, of loyalty and treachery, Interview with the Vampire bears witness of a lit
… (more)
Member:AQuilling
Title:Interview with the Vampire
Authors:Anne Rice (Author)
Info:Ballantine Books (1991), Edition: Reissue, 368 pages
Collections:Read but unowned
Rating:
Tags:vampire

Work Information

Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice

  1. 164
    Dracula by Bram Stoker (becca58203, Morteana)
  2. 10
    The Passion by Donna Ball (VictoriaPL)
  3. 10
    Sunglasses After Dark by Nancy A. Collins (VictoriaPL)
  4. 10
    Agyar by Steven Brust (VictoriaPL)
    VictoriaPL: The diary of a vampire. A bit more modern than Rice's tale.
  5. 00
    The Thief of Time by John Boyne (Booksloth)
  6. 11
    The Silver Kiss by Annette Curtis Klause (kaledrina)
  7. 00
    Papillon: A Gothic Romance Novella by Sonia Palermo (Anonymous user)
  8. 14
    Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris (letsdisco2373)
  9. 05
    Not Safe for Vampires by William Frost (LostVampire)
    LostVampire: Thomas Watson becomes a vampire during the Civil War. The YA fantasy fiction novel NOT SAFE FOR VAMPIRES is a good read. It is only 128 pages, but it is not light reading, You really have to follow the beginning - once you understand the style of writing (there are flashback scenes) you will really enjoy the journey. The story is filled with history. For example, Africatown and the Clotilde ship are a real part of history (I googled it). Also, the character Captain Thomas Watson was really a soldier for the Union Army. I believe you will enjoy this book and add it to your library as well.… (more)
1970s (60)
Kayla (11)
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» See also 477 mentions

English (319)  Spanish (5)  Swedish (2)  Portuguese (Brazil) (1)  French (1)  Dutch (1)  Danish (1)  All languages (330)
Showing 1-5 of 319 (next | show all)
Ik had veel te hoge verwachtingen van dit boek. Het wordt geacht een van de grote fantasy-klassiekers te zijn, en toonaangevend voor de manier waarop vampiers worden beschreven in boeken, kortom: een boek dat ik, na het lezen van Bram Stoker's Dracula, hoog op mijn prioriteitenlijstje had staan.

Boy, was I wrong.

Het verhaal begint met een slepende traagheid die kenmerkend is voor het hele boek; er worden karakters voorgesteld die er totaal niet toedoen. Het boek is trouwens ook, wat de titel al zegt, een INTERVIEW. Dat betekent dat het hele verhaal verteld wordt in de 'ik-vorm' (dus worden alle lezers tot Blijde Deelgenoot van al Louis verwarde gevoelens; Hoera!), en dat de lezer ook nog eens constant onderbroken wordt door een fictieve luisteraar, die van de schrijver ook een zeldzaam talent heeft meegekegen voor het maken van domme opmerkingen en het stellen van nutteloze vragen.

Een ander iets dat me bijzonder heeft gestoord tijdens het lezen van dit boek, is dat alle characters in principe zo plat als een dubbeltje zijn. Anne Rice wekt de indruk dat ze allemaal, en dan met name Louis, de hoofdpersoon, verteerd worden door Diepe Gedachten en Levensveranderende Trauma's en al die andere tropes die in de loop der jaren (en dan vooral in het fantasygenre) zo heerlijk cliche zijn geworden, maar de bittere waarheid is dat er slechts gezeurd wordt. Van het kleinste figurantje tot de Zielige, Onbegrepen Hoofdpersoon (denk even na: waarom is dit boek zo populair geweest onder de goth-populatie) aan toe: ze zijn allemaal aan het miemelen. Louis gebruikt uiteraard wat bloemrijkere bewoordingen dan eigenlijk nodig zou zijn, maar ook daar weet Anne Rice weer een pluspunt te scoren bij de goths.

Voor degenen die de film hebben gezien: Ik dacht eerst dat de film (zoals de meeste boekverfilmingen) prut was en zich voor geen meter aan het boek hield. Ook daar zat ik fout. De film geeft precies weer wat het boek eigenlijk probeert te verbergen: de karakters zijn overdreven karikaturen en het verhaal (dat in boekvorm ongeveer 300 pagina's telt) past precies in een lowbudget pulpfilm (met de verplichte incidentele spannende momenten). ( )
  jd7h | Feb 18, 2024 |
This was such a sad story. Poor Louie. Was he the exception? If only for a minute?
What happens when you give the human condition powers and immortality…. Chaos and suffering. ( )
  cmpeters | Feb 2, 2024 |
Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice is a story about a vampire who’s searching of a meaning of his immortality and the life he has in eternality, romanticizing the ideas that being an immortal is powerful, a gift from God, and the immortals are the children of God, while the sad truth behind it is that being an immortal is a lonely journey and full of despair and nothing could release the immortal from the desperate despair unless killing the mortal one.

I felt sad after reading this but mostly tired because this is not a story of only one or two years but it's like an era. Such an enchanting and enthralling experience to read Anne Rice's work. ( )
  awwarma | Jan 24, 2024 |
My first vampire book and it was compelling. I wonder if this genre is generally as romantic as this (obviously in a less Lolita / Nabakov way), but hopefully it is just as suicidal. Rice's writing is strong, poetic prose and every page is a pleasure. The story is good, adventurous, though the final part of the ending does "suck".
As for the larger implications of between character narrative stories, I think they are entirely worthless. It does not detract from this story, but does not seem capable of ending well or conclusively.
Will definitely move on to the sequel... ( )
  MXMLLN | Jan 12, 2024 |
Maybe I just don't get it, but this novel didn't do anything for me. The story line was fairly interesting, but not superb. The characters were well-developed: overdeveloped, even, in that Rice repeated their flaws. Reading, I felt as if I was being continuously bludgeoned with heavy-handed grandiose drippings of love and eternity and loneliness. This context was set tens of times throughout the novel, rather than - as I would have found preferential - set once, with the plot/story line to develop off of it. ( )
  b00kdarling87 | Jan 7, 2024 |
Showing 1-5 of 319 (next | show all)
The author's seriousness is honest, I think, but misplaced; perhaps a bit more Grand Guignol elegance was called for father than incessant philosophizing. Immersed in the book's fetid, morbid atmosphere - like being in a hothouse full of decaying funeral lilies - one longs to get out in the garden.
added by Shortride | editThe New York Times, Richard F. Lingeman (pay site) (Apr 30, 1976)
 

» Add other authors (55 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Anne Riceprimary authorall editionscalculated
Bignardi, MargheritaTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Covián, MarceloTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Deas, MichaelCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Mancius, W. vanTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Muller, FrankNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Murail, TristanTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Niffenegger, AudreyPrefacesecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Scudellari, R. D.Cover designersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Spagnol, Luigisecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Tan, VirginiaDesignersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Vance, SimonNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed

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Epigraph
Dedication
For Stan Rice, Carole Malkin,
and Alice O'Brien Borchardt
First words
"I see..." said the vampire thoughtfully, and slowly he walked across the room towards the window.
Quotations
I never knew what life was until it ran in a red gush over my lips, my hands!
Last words
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
Disambiguation notice
This is for the book by Anne Rice.  Do not combine with graphic novels.
Publisher's editors
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Canonical DDC/MDS
Canonical LCC

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English (3)

Fantasy. Fiction. Horror. Thriller. HTML:40th ANNIVERSARY EDITION ? From the #1 New York Times bestselling author, "a magnificent, compulsively readable thriller...Rice begins where Bram Stoker and the Hollywood versions leave off and penetrates directly to the true fascination of the myth??the education of the vampire? (Chicago Tribune). ? The inspiration for the hit television series

The time is now.
We are in a small room with the vampire, face to face, as he speaks??as he pours out the hypnotic, shocking, moving, and erotically charged confessions of his first two hundred years as one of the living dead. . .
He speaks quietly, plainly, even gently . . . carrying us back to the night when he departed human existence as heir??young, romantic, cultivated??to a great Louisiana plantation, and was inducted by the radiant and sinister Lestat into the other, the "endless," life . . . learning first to sustain himself on the blood of cocks and rats caught in the raffish streets of New Orleans, then on the blood of human beings . . . to the years when, moving away from his final human ties under the tutelage of the hated yet necessary Lestat, he gradually embraces the habits, hungers, feelings of vampirism: the detachment, the hardened will, the "superior" sensual pleasures.
He carries us back to the crucial moment in a dark New Orleans street when he finds the exquisite lost young child Claudia, wanting not to hurt but to comfort her, struggling against the last residue of human feeling within him . . .
We see how Claudia in turn is made a vampire??all her passion and intelligence trapped forever in the body of a small child??and how they arrive at their passionate and dangerous alliance, their French Quarter life of opulence: delicate Grecian statues, Chinese vases, crystal chandeliers, a butler, a maid, a stone nymph in the hidden garden court . . . night curving into night with their vampire senses heightened to the beauty of the world, thirsting for the beauty of death??a constant stream of vulnerable strangers awaiting them below . . .
We see them joined against the envious, dangerous Lestat, embarking on a perilous search across Europe for others like themselves, desperate to discover the world they belong to, the ways of survival, to know what they are and why, where they came from, what their future can be . . .
We follow them across Austria and Transylvania, encountering their kind in forms beyond their wildest imagining . . . to Paris, where footsteps behind them, in exact rhythm with their own, steer them to the doors of the Théâtre des Vampires??the beautiful, lewd, and febrile mime theatre whose posters of penny-dreadful vampires at once mask and reveal the horror within . . . to their meeting with the eerily magnetic Armand, who brings them, at last, into intimacy with a whole brilliant and decadent society of vampires, an intimacy that becomes sudden terror when they are compelled to confront what they have feared and fled . . .
In its unceasing flow of spellbinding storytelling, of danger and flight, of loyalty and treachery, Interview with the Vampire bears witness of a lit

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Book description
The hypnotic, deeply seductive novels of Anne Rice have captivated millions of fans around the world. It all began a quarter of a century ago with Interview with the Vampire. Now, in one chilling volume, here are the first three classic novels of The Vampire Chronicles.

INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE
Witness the confessions of a vampire. A novel of mesmerizing beauty and astonishing force, it is a story of danger and flight, love and loss, suspense and resolution, and the extraordinary power of the senses.

THE VAMPIRE LESTAT
Once an aristocrat from pre-revolutionary France, now a rock star in the decadent 1980s, Lestat rushes through the centuries seeking to fathom the mystery of his existence. His is a mesmerizing story–passionate and thrilling.

QUEEN OF THE DAMNED
Akasha, the queen of the damned, has risen from a six-thousand-year sleep to let loose the powers of the night. She has a marvellously devious plan to "save" mankind - in this vivid novel of the erotic, electrifying world of the undead.

See also the Wikipedia article, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intervie...
Haiku summary
Vampires sit and mope.
Like popular Twilight books.
But with denser prose.

(Carnophile)

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Average: (3.83)
0.5 11
1 119
1.5 24
2 398
2.5 71
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4 2301
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