Review of Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
I love this movie and have seen this movie well over a dozen times, so when I found this for $.25 at a used bookstore, I had to pick it up!!
(The movie is great and I highly recommended it to anyone who hasn’t seen it!)
In Interview with the Vampire, Louis, a Vampire, recalls his life, from his human days to the present. There are three vampires that play pivotal roles in his story: We have Lestat, Louis’s devious maker. Claudia, a woman trapped forever in a child’s body. And Armand, the leader of a European band of vampires. After spending most of his existence tethered to another, Louis is now alone, aimlessly drifting without purpose or endeavor.
For the most part, I found the book pretty close to the movie adaptation, which does take away from the experience a bit since I knew what was coming.
We of course get more character development with the book. Claudia and Armand especially are explored in greater detail, and I like Claudia a lot more now.
But, as much as I hate to say it, the movie is way better than the book.
This was my first Anne Rice read, so I don’t know if it’s her writing style or if it was strictly the narrator (Louis) that I had a problem with, but for some reason I could not get in to this book.
I had a hard time reading more than 20 or so pages in a sitting, and at one point I had to put it down and read something else all together.
Louis was so full of self-pity and desperate for attention that I was more annoyed with him than anything.
He’s basically just an emo kid crying in a dark room listening to Dashboard Confessional.
(As a former emo kid and Dashboard fan, I say that as lovingly as possible).
And ok, I get it, the life of a vampire is brutal. He has lived through centuries of death and devastation.
But the whole premise of the book is that he is telling some random dude his life story for his own selfish purposes.
It’s such an obvious cry for attention, and that narrative gets old really fast.
The other vampires, Claudia, Armand, and Lestat, are all much more interesting than Louis.
Since the next volume in the series is from Lestat’s perspective, I think I’ll give it a shot. Lestat remains illusive, holding many secrets close, and his story intrigues me.
