Interview with the Vampire

Overall, I really enjoyed reading this novel by Ann Rice. It had everything a good novel should have: dynamic troubled characters, mystery, suspense, revenge, death, sex. What else is there that matters? The main ideas represented in this novel to me were life and death, mortal and immortal and love and sex. The story begins with death. When Louis loses his brother he starts to lose the meaning the life. He craves death. But once death finally answers, in the form of the vampire Lestat, Louis takes it, not knowing what would be in store for him. Who else knows the pain of an immortal life but another immortal. As a vampire, Louis still clings onto all that is human about him: love, life, beauty. He refuses to take the lives of humans so he feasts on animals instead. In the vampire world this is very strange because feasting on humans is the vampires version of "getting off." So, Loius feasting on animals is very strange.

Being the heartfelt vampire Louis is, he craves for the meaning of their existence. He is convinced that they are Satan's children. As explained later on, they are actually God's children, because without God there would be no Satan. Lots to think about there, but I wont go into that. Im not a real big religion buff so I cant really expand on that, but it does make sense if you think about it. Maybe vampires were made by God as a form of population control? It's possible. Life and death to a vampire has a very different meaning than to humans. A vampire considers becoming a vampire as a new form of life, an immortal life where death and sickness cant touch you. To humans, we live and then we die. Not very complicated. Lestat believes that feasting on humans gives him life and that making a vampire creates life. Louis would never want to give someone the "gift" of immortality because a mortal can never understand the pain he endures.

In fear of losing Louis, Lestat creates Claudia, a little five year old girl Lestat caught Louis feeding on. Claudia in a way gave life to Louis in the form of a daughter for him (a very devilish demonic daughter), someone for him to care for and look after. It gives meaning to his existence. The relationship between Claudia and Louis really creeped me out a little. Claudia is forever stuck in a little girls body, but her mind is that of a woman. When Louis describes her soft lips and skin it really gets weird. They talk of how much they love each other and need each other but not in a way a father and daughter love each other, its a way that lovers love each other. It was just kinda creepy for me. I didn't really care for Claudia so I was kinda relieved when she was killed by the sunlight for trying to murder Lestat.

Eventually, Louis meets up with another vampire, Armand, who is very attracted to Louis because he still retains all of his human qualities. Armand learns that by killing Claudia, Louis has lost all meaning in his existence so he sort of becomes this zombie vampire who just goes through the motions and survives. He becomes a dud sort of. All in all, Louis believes he is being punished by God and doesnt understand why God would create vampires. He never seems like he will be able to come to term with this fact. He pretty much hates his life as a vampire, which mortals just cant seem to understand.

Very good book. My favorite from this class so far. Highly recommend it. The movie does not do it justice so do not rely on that to give you the story. Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise as vampires just didn't work for me. Kirsten Dunst was a very good Claudia though. Creepy. I plan on continuing to read the rest of the series.