Book Review: Interview with the Vampire - Anne Rice: Legendary & Aspirational

It has been a very long time since I've read or listened to a book as captivating and incapsulating as Interview with the Vampire. As I write this intro, I'm only barely halfway through my first read, listening intentively on Audible. Anne Rice was most definitely in her bag. 

The day she passed I had a handful of credits available, but it had been so long since I'd listened to (or physically read) something as enrapturing--to be completely honest I don't even remember the movie adaptation of Queen of the Damned being this good (I am not one of the people who outright hated it, I actually loved it, terrible CGI aside)--but in her honor, as I'd heard she was quite a talented author, I decided to give it a shot. I'm so glad I did. 

For this book to have been Anne Rice's first novel that took her only five weeks to write, it is a magical experience you will wish you could relive for the first time again and again. Now that I have finally finished it for the third time since I started this review, I am absolutely convinced that it doesn't matter how many times I read, listen or reread it, it is an entirely new experience over and over again. I can only aspire to be so great at writing literature. 

As I was reading I kept wondering when or if things I remembered from the movie would pop up in the story. I was very glad there was nothing. Having now seen both movies as well as finishing the first three books in the series, I must say the movies pale in comparison to the books' storytelling. As you are probably aware I have already published my first preview of Queen of the Damned, simply because I could not contain myself or wait any longer to admit to the world I made it that far.

Interview with the Vampire is a beautiful, poetic expression of love, loss, misunderstanding and desire. Almost musical in nature, the novel is full of highs and lows, emotions and longing. Louis, the protagonist narrator, is tragically complex. A deeply contemplative character who remains anonymous for a small portion of the story, he is almost childlike in his naivete and demand for answers he could very well resolve himself. Although he is supposed to be the protagonist, and quite convincing in the expressed perceptions of his lover and maker, Lestat, Louis is honestly secondary, maybe even tertiary on the list of my favorite characters. At times his obsession with mortality and addiction to self-deprecation and longing become annoying, but he maintains a good share of my empathy with his sensibility and indignation. When Louis is convinced he is right, there is no one who can change his mind--which can be a reason for the mistakes he makes but doesn't think through quite as thoroughly as he may have intended. 

On the other hand, Lestat, allegedly the antagonist of this story, is exhilarating--a breath of fresh air and arrogant presumptuousness who captured my attention almost immediately. For most of the book, I found myself agreeing with him and his opinions on Louis' whining and anticlimactic commiserating. The first time I read through it, I thought he was pretty mean. I don't know that I would call him evil, but I will say he is short-tempered, demanding, bossy and haughty as hell. On the other hand, Lestat is hilarious, charming, beautiful, and self-assured. His impatience and overall boredom with Louis is understandable. I'm sure he thought they would conquer the world together, but Louis is intent on getting in his own way, which then triggers Lestat to react in unimaginable ways. Honestly, I think if gay relationships weren't as taboo as they were in the '80s and into the '90s, Rice could have taken so many liberties and expressed so much more than what we are given, but it's quite obvious there are homosexual undertones to the story, and the fact these men love each other so much, but can't get their issues together in the ways they navigate it is heartbreaking. 

Claudia--the 70-something-year-old in a five-year-old's body--is the gorgeously dangerous yet innocent-looking vampire daughter of Lestat & Louis. A tantalizing character with so much depth and child-like tenacity she is, when I'm thinking of her, my favorite character of the story. Her tragic flaw is that she is so impulsive--even when she is plotting and planning. Her intelligence is unmatched, but unfortunately for her, she had to educate herself because Lestat never taught Louis anything, and so in turn, he nor Louis ever taught her anything. The reverberating tragedy is cyclical. One character makes a decision that affects another, who makes another tragic decision in reactionary response that then affects everyone and now everything is falling apart to the point of no return. One might think someone who has the ability to live forever would get their shit together at some point, but forasmuch as vampires like to view themselves as anti-human, or lacking humanity altogether, they're not that much more different than we are. 

If you have ever read my now-suspended Twitter account thread on Bram Stoker's Dracula, you will be made quite aware I do not feel vampires get the best depictions in literature. The whole, "Oh my god, woe is me. I want to die already!" story trope does nothing for me. I also do not see them as "monsters" per se. And at one point, Armand says it perfectly, "...if you believe God made Satan, you must realize that all Satan's power comes from God and that Satan is simply God's child, and that we are God's children also. There are no children of Satan really." 

The way I screamed, "Yes!" when I read that out loud. I repeated it over and over again. I took notes on the lines on my iPad. I highlighted the words in the e-book. The feeling of overall vindication, satisfaction and fulfillment instilled in me a triumphant sense of indignation. Humans and vampires are not really all that different. The only exception is that one species is mortal, and the other is harder to vanquish. If you believe people can't be as horrific, grotesque or unrelenting, you either haven't lived long enough or been outside as much to see it. Vampires merely drink human blood to survive. Parasitic as they may be, I've never believed they were inherently evil. They just exist differently than mortal human beings. My overall perception of vampires has been solidified by this brilliant masterpiece, and even though I did watch the movie adaptations of both Interview and Queen of the Damned now that I have read Interview, The Vampire Lestat, and Queen of the Damned, I believe I am 1000% correct in my interpretations and beliefs. 

Interview with the Vampire reminds me of the times as a child I used to go outside at night and silently wish a vampire was lurking in the trees ready to pounce. It wasn't because I wanted to die, it was actually the opposite--I wanted to live forever. Maybe I am just as bad as the boy interviewing Louis in that regard.  

I honestly have no idea what inspired Rice to create this masterful work of art, but I am ecstatic there are eight more works of fiction in this vampiric universe for me to discover and explore. I am so inspired and excited by this story. Thank you for reading if you made it this far. <3