Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
In a darkened room a young man sits telling the macabre and eerie story of his life... the story of a vampire gifted with eternal life, cursed with an exquisite craving for human blood.
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In which Louis whines a lot.
The above was said to me by a friend on twitter when I announced I was reading Interview with the Vampire. Now after finishing it, I can only agree.
Rice/Louis spends a lot of time philosophising about the nature of evil, death and God. Created by Lestat, "father" of the vampire Claudia, Louis is a mess psychologically, full of love, hate, fear and angst.
Claudia,a girl of barely 5 years when turned, is fully dependent on Louis and Lestat. Her body is not strong enough, and she is an adult woman forever trapped in the body of a small child. She has next to no human nature and is a ruthless hateful creature of the dark. She is in my opinion by far the most interesting character. Louis on the other hand clings to his human emotions, hating himself for what he is and what he has done and does every single night when he feeds on innocents. Lestat is, in short, a nutcase and quite delightful.
Though it was interesting finally reading Anne Rice's version of what vampires are supposed to be like, the story never truly appealed to me and it was far too easy to just put the book down and do other things. The long winding paragraphs of dream-like state bored me and though I can easily understand the story's appeal to others and why Rice became the Queen of Vampires at a time when she was the first to go there, the book does very little for me.
368 pages, published in 1976
Review by Iben Jakobsen, BoB, 2011
Review by Iben Jakobsen, BoB, 2011
i love, love, love this book and the next in the series, but agree with you in the sense that anne rice's vampires are different than their Turn of the 21st-Century off-spring.
SvarSletAt univeristy I was quite enamoured with Anne Rice. I enjoyed Interview because it was dark and brooding - much like I was at the time. But as I continued reading in the series, I began to hate the characters (they all whine endlessly) and stopped reading halfway through Merrick.
SvarSletI think Rice's best book was The Witching Hour. Alas, the other Mayfair Witches books are dreadful.