Interview with the Vampire

You can't underestimate the influence of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, and Interview with the Vampire, the first of the trio of novels, kicked it all off in the mid-70s. Its vampire spawn include, perhaps, the Broadway play Dracula, and later, countless teen vampire shows on television, not to mention other monstrous offspring cousins like Zombies. Before Rice the vampire was a caricature of a monster: evil, bloodthirsty, scary, demonic, the centerpiece of a typical horror movie. Rice flipped the formula and created a much more complex, dare I say human, protagonist. Sure Louis, the main character, and his companions Lestat, Claudia, and later Armand, are blood-thirsty and murderous. And most of Louis's fellow vampires are much less show more conflicted than he is. But they all, to one extent or another, retain some vestige of their former humanity, even if it a purely aesthetic attachment. Louis, on the other hand, is truly tortured by questions of morality, good, and evil. Beyond the philosophizing, the book has a lot of entertainment value. Rice was a native of New Orleans and has a good feel for bringing an earlier century alive in Gothic overtones. Most of the time her prose is pretty straight forward but every now and then it is woozy and poetic, as if she has ingested some opium and let her mind and pen wander freely taking the reader along for the ride. It's fun fiction, but has its serious side. While I will take a break for a while, I am sure Chronicle Two, The Vampire Lestat, awaits me soon. show less

A vampire tells a young reporter the story of his life.

I remember the first time I read this book. I was fifteen. I'd been very sick the day before, and had chosen to take a day off of school to recover. I'd finished my last book and was looking for something I wouldn't have to devote much time to. I'd purchased Interview With the Vampire a few weeks previous, at a friend's urging. I didn't really want to read it, but I figured I'd give it fifty pages or so just so I could tell her I tried.

So I went down to the ol' TBR stack, got the book, and hobbled back upstairs with it. I lay back down. I started reading. The next thing I knew, I was thirty pages in and utterly in love with the bloody thing.

It was completely unlike anything I had show more ever read before. Rice's prose was lush and evocative; I found myself transported straight to antebellum New Orleans. I could smell the flowers, feel the humidity, see the glittering lamps lining the city's muddy streets. She wove a tapestry with words, describing everything in such rich detail that I was completely won over.

But the setting was really just the surface. The novel's true power lay in its characterization. Louis instantly won me over. Rice's descriptions and dialogue showed me exactly who he was. I found him easy to relate to and even easier to feel for. I was swept up in his story not because of what was happening but because I cared about him. I wanted him to be happy. I wanted him to find something that would make his life worthwhile. I read through the book at breakneck speed, desperate to see how he'd end up. He broke my heart a thousand times over before the end, and I loved every second of it.

That's it, really: I loved it. And, because I expected to hate it, it jolted me into considering certain aspects of my life in a more active way. I started thinking about other things I expected to dislike, other things I'd been unwilling to try. I can't say I instantly began giving everything an equal chance, but I definitely became more open to trying new things. The book changed my life, in that respect. It opened me up to new possibilities and convinced me that there's a lot of stuff out there that's worth a shot. I couldn't expect to know what I'd like or dislike before I gave it a fair chance.

But that's me. Why should you read this book?

Intellectually, this is quite an important book. Prior to Interview With the Vampire, most monster stories focused on how the evil creature must be vanquished. (Think Dracula, 'Salem's Lot, etc). There were few books or movies that treated the monster as anything other than a terrible, horrible creature that should be killed as quickly as possible. Interview was the first mainstream, widely read novel that actually told the monster's story, that treated him as a person with his own perspective on the world. It didn't try to apologize for him; it never said that his actions were justified or excusable. It simply told a familiar story from an entirely different perspective, using the vampire as a metaphor and a platform for discussing a number of all too human concerns.

From the pleasure reader's standpoint, it's just plain engrossing. I've already described how Rice hooked me in from the word go. Her style definitely isn't for everyone, but I believe it deserves a fair chance. You may expect to hate her work, but how are you going to know unless you give it a try?

I highly recommend this. I've read it eight times now, and confess that it's lost some of its shine now that I know the story so well. It reread very well for many, many years, though, and I truly believe that it's worth your time. Again: how will you know how you feel about it unless you try it? show less

This was a re-read. I think I first read it sometime in the 90's and enjoyed it then. On the re-read, the first thing that jumped out at me was the wonderful turns of phrase that Rice uses. Some of them are absolutely beautiful - almost poetic.

Prior to the re-read, I read an interview with Rice where she discussed which characters she liked in the book and which she didn't. I never cared much for Lestat the first time around and that hasn't changed. I will be reading Lestat, the second book, sometime in the near future and maybe my opinion will change.

I like Louis and I like Armand. It is Louis' story after all and I think it is well told. I love the setting of late 1700's New Orleans and Paris. I love Louis' tortured soul and his path show more of discovery and ultimately disappointment of what it means to be an immortal vampire. I also enjoyed the impossible and improbably love story that exists between he and Claudia, the child he and Lestat convert to vampirism.

I am not much a horror genre read and what I like about the Rice books is that like Shelley's "Frankenstein", the Vampire Chronicles are less about horror and more about the "big questions" concerning life, death, love and immortality.

If you haven't read these books (yes, another series...agggggghhhhhh!) I highly recommend them. They are descriptively lush and very evocative of time and place. They move along too - I read this book over two days. Treat yourself to a little bit of literary horror. show less

Interview with the Vampire strikes a fascinating balance in its main character. At times sympathetic and at others monstrous, I both dreaded his next atrocity and hoped for his redemption. I liked him enough to continue reading, while also disliking him enough to experience the horror of the deaths he caused. I wanted him to die. I wanted him to live. Truly, I found there was no simple way to feel about him, just as there seemed to be no simple answers to the questions he explored throughout.

The strength of the book is in this rich complexity, and also in its beautiful use of language. Take, for example, this first description of Louis, which appears shortly after the opening sentences I quoted above:

"The vampire was utterly white and show more smooth, as if he were sculpted from bleached bone, and his face was as seemingly inanimate as a statue, except for two brilliant green eyes that looked down at the boy intently like flames in a skull. But then the vampire smiled almost wistfully, and the smooth white substance of his face moved with the infinitely flexible but minimal lines of a cartoon."

There are whole passages I savored every bit of, sentences that carried emotion so powerfully that I was left in awe. Truly, this is great writing.

For a book originally published in the seventies, it also does a great job with its female characters and deals respectfully with minor characters of color. Louis, who grew up in antebellum Louisiana, does not quite admit to the full horrors of slavery, but the discerning reader chalks this up as yet another aspect of his villainy. For the purpose of the narrative, Louis does depict them as fully human and doesn't shy away from describing their intelligence and heroism when it comes into play. In the later part of the book, there are also characters who appear to be gay. It's a bit unclear whether they were intended to be seen as "good", but it's easy for a modern reader to judge them only according to their involvement with the whole vampire thing. There's never anything explicitly held against them as a result of their orientation.

Content warnings, however, should be observed for a small amount of sexual content and what could be considered incredibly disturbing death scenes. The author definitely wants the reader to be disturbed and horrified by these events, and it's best to be prepared.

All in all, I found this book to be emotional and thought-provoking. I wouldn't say it's for the faint of heart, but if you want to dive into the mind of a supernatural killer and explore the implications of immortality, you'll definitely find something to love here. I'm incredibly impressed by its quality from beginning to end. If this is the type of book for you, I can't recommend it more highly. show less

Being a vampire for him meant revenge. Revenge against life itself. Every time he took a life it was revenge. It was no wonder, then, that he appreciated nothing. The nuances of vampire existence weren’t even available to him because he was focused with a maniacal vengeance upon the mortal life he’d left. Consumed with hatred, he looked back. Consumed with envy, nothing pleased him unless he could take it from others; and once having it, he grew cold and dissatisfied, not loving the thing for itself; and so he went after something else.

I’ll be fully honest here and say I read this after watching the AMC series. I know they changed a lot of things, so I don’t think I can judge this book in any way.

Things I loved about the series show more were Louis struggling with humanity, race and queerness was integral to the story. The tragedy of Claudia as the black woman who is brought into the world to be part of her parents'/men's story. The insanity of unreliable narrators that is slowly unwound because Louis is the one telling the story. The interviewer as old man who calls bullshit on everything being said. The monstrousness of vampirism and Armand's history as victim of colonialism.
None of these things hit as hard in book form, where Louis is a plantation owner who kills his slaves with no remorse.

However, another thing I liked about the series was Louis, Lestat and Claudia’s family dynamic. And those were definitely favourite parts of the book.
The author created an extremely dysfunctional family and I love them both in print and on screen. Louis, Lestat, Claudia and Armand are terrible together in any formation, but being apart is even worse. It's a toxic codependency that was very entertaining.

Over all I guess I’m too 2022 to fully love this book from the 70s, but I definitely see why this is such an iconic piece of fiction. show less

It’s probably been almost 20 years since I last read Interview with the Vampire (ca. early high school), but it was pretty fun delving back into this series after so long. One thing hasn’t changed though: I still can’t stand how whiny Louis is! His character is an interesting exploration of the vampire narrative, though, since unlike most vampires who revel in their supernatural life Louis is conflicted about having to hurt people (he doesn’t seem to quite understand not killing to feed), is unable to reconcile not being human anymore (even though he wasn’t a particularly happy human), and has challenges forming lasting relationships with people. Some of this is directly related to the human condition, of which Louis seems to show more think he has none but which is readily apparent to everyone else that he has in abundance, and it is simply the length of his existence which makes these themes come to the forefront. What made me most intrigued throughout the story this time around was the historicity of the narrative; we cover Louis’ story for almost 200 years, bringing him from the 1700s to the relatively modern era, and we see the world change around him. Unlike Lestat, who is revealed to be a lot less adaptive in some of the final passages in the book, Louis has been able to accept modern technology, and while he may not revel in it he has still sought out a journalist to tell his story to in a sort of psych-appointment interview. We’re left with a rather strange ending, with Louis ending his story abruptly and without a lot of insight into his own character (except what the reader takes away), but as the journalist rewinds the tape to recall the run-down New Orleans house where Lestat is hiding out from the modern world we know that the story of these vampires has not reached a real conclusion. show less

Neli aastat ei olnud ma inimverd maitsnud, neli aastat ei olnud ma inimest tõeliselt tundnud, ning kuulsin, kuidas tema süda peksis sellises hirmsas rütmis, ja milline süda – mitte täiskasvanud mehe või looma oma, vaid kiire, visa lapsesüda, mis peksis üha kiiremini ja kõvemini, keeldudes suremast, peksis nagu väike rusikas, mis peksab vastu ust, kisendades:
«Ma ei sure, ma ei sure, ma ei või surra, ma ei või surra...»
Tõusin jalule, hambad vist ikka tema kaelas kinni, tema süda kiirendamas minu südamelööke, ilma et lakanuks löömast; rammus veri voolas minu jaoks liiga kiiresti, tuba pöörles...