Book Review - 'Interview with the Vampire' by Anne Rice

2020 EDIT:

Reread: 'Interview with the Vampire' is a truly sensuous, grim, horrifying, and frustrating book. It definitely is a slow read at just over 300 pages, but you'll be damned if you think it will let you go; that you can resist its claws of complex life and death.

This time I've noticed the deep, subtle parallels between each of the (many, many) different relationships presented in the bloody, gothic novel. It's more clever than I had let on originally - it's not merely an account full of emotion, self-indulgence and existentialism. It is not to be dismissed as yet another vampire story. Like 'Dracula', 'Interview' is a precursor to the lore; to the pop culture mainstream; to the fascination that we have with these terrible, monstrous, lonely creatures of the night.

'Interview' is not an easy read for a heartbeat's worth of reasons. For anyone of any age, it is unnerving, unsettling, and a little exhausting and overproduced; but through it all you'll receive a dark thing of beauty, full of unforgettable characters. Morbidly captivating and enchanting in its sad and ultimately hollow views on mortality and immortality.

A bella donna in the red and black night.

Final Score: 4.5/5





Original Review:



First of all: I fell in love with Anne Rice's writing from the first sentence of this book. And from there I was flown into a touching, sad, strange and bloody experience. A bumpy ride with an ending that made me wish for more, like an everyday human fascinated by the impossible, and always craving satisfaction.

I think I now fully understand the reason why a lot of people, including myself, love vampire fiction - it's the variety; any kind of story can be told about vampires. Any interpretation can be made of them, even individually in the same fictional universe.

'The Vampire Chronicles' = the start of Variety Vampires.

'Interview with the Vampire' is sensual, hypnotic, creative and tragic. Said to be the book that helped to change the image of the vampire lore - in that we get to see a story told entirely from the perspective of the monster, who is sympathetic, and so human it's scary. It's like a mirror-opposite narration of Bram Stoker's 'Dracula': it tells what the lives of the vampires themselves could be like. How do they feel about their existence, as well as about their chosen victims, who they have to hunt every night? Are they damned? If they are, or they think and feel so, how do they deal with it?

Anne Rice's lovely-yet-macabre tale explores what humanity is, and the price paid for immortality. Moreover it brings to consideration whether that price was trustworthy to begin with, but it is too late to turn back after giving up mortality (through force or by other means).

What can living forever mean to someone? When the whole world changes around them, they themselves never change, at least not physically. They realize that all humans are merely growing old and dying slowly, and the vampires might end people's lives quicker because of the need for blood to survive. Whether or not the damned care for their victims is their choice, though giving in to vampire nature and the heartless instinct that comes with it can prevent them from going insane with guilt; and loneliness, even when living among the few of their own kind.

What horrifying damage to the psyche could this produce?

All these themes and more - along with the events that solidify them - are told by Louis, a vampire from New Orleans who is about two-hundred-years old, as he recounts his life story to a human interviewer in a room in America.

'Interview with the Vampire' is an unusual book in many respects. The narrative style is constant speech by Louis relating the past, with occasional interruptions in the form of the scenes between the vampire and the human in the present day. These scenes help to give the reader a human voice to relate to when hearing about the supernatural.

Yes, the novel is a little slow in places, and a few characters and their motivations are confusing, and are in some respects downright unlikable and pathetic. But I didn't mind because:

a) The prose is so beautiful I could read about what a city looks like in a whole chapter (it never goes that far, of course). Louis' "ramblings" are thought-provoking at least, and;

b) The complexities of the characters, especially Lestat and Claudia, make them all the more interesting, and what they are about to do and say next keeps the reader guessing what is going to happen. Another theme 'Interview with the Vampire' presents is the consequences of impulse, and the unending regret afterwards. Loneliness can make us do things that separate us further from others (poor Louis and Claudia).

The novel is very character-driven, with events that don't necessarily make up an overall plot. However it is still really engaging. Despite the majority of the characters being male, the special care through the heart and the mind put into this volume makes it easy to perceive that the author is a female with experience.

'Interview with the Vampire' might be one of the best books I have read that combines and explores both the masculine and feminine aspects of human nature.

So in the end, while far from the perfect novel, I enjoyed 'Interview''s journey into the vampire world. It may just be powerful enough to linger in the subconscious, depending on the reader. "Compelling" and "Gothic" are also words that describe it well.

Anne Rice saw vampires in her own unique way in the seventies. Now we can also see that not all creatures of the night have to be mindless and bloodlusty savages. In fact, they may be very human, which might make them capable of being even more monstrous than your average Nosferatu...

Final Score: 4.5/5