Interview with a Vampire

This week I read Ann Rice's Interview with a Vampire. Vampires are a subject I find, well, "okay". The nature of their being is interesting, but I usually find myself not all that interested in stories about them for whatever reason. My reaction to it now is just kind of like "Oh, vampires, don't even get me started". I think the appeal is supposed to be that they're sensitive beings who got thrust into being villains, so they're simply misunderstood. They have to watch the world change around them while they don't, and woe is them because they're also dead. They're not "human". I think this is what I have always disliked about vampires -they mull over and whine about how "not human" they are, yet they act, behave, and think in very human ways. They apparently have feelings and can care about others. Sure, they have to drink blood to survive, can't go out in the sun, etc. but on the inside, their minds are still human. So what's to whine about? They don't even have to kill the person - or people to begin with in most cases - to survive, and on the bright side at least they can consider themselves keeping the population in check. The fact they live forever unchanging is really far more disturbing than their killing ways, which they always do with a bit of remorse.

That said, what I did like about Interview with a Vampire was that not all of them where that way. Louis pretty much followed that to the letter, which left me not all that engaged, but once Claudia entered the picture I got more interested in the story. Claudia is forever trapt in the child's body - her mind ages and becomes very much adult, but her body never does. This bothers her. Also since she was so young, she is without knowledge of what it is to be human, unlike the others. The vampire life is all she's known or can remember; she is a much more collected and cool killer than Louis could ever be, despite his teachings. She knows the emotions as they do, but do not seem to hold the same meaning. She can hate and love to get what she wants. But although she has a very much adult mind, she still in some ways is still a child. She always wants someone with her, to love her - though at the same time it can be debated its only because she needs them to survive.

At the same time, as human as Louis acts, it seems clear he isn't and is just latching to the memory of what it is to be human - how he should feel, should act. He can say he loves someone such as Armand without much thought, and yet even when he eventually leaves, its more of "Oh, he's gone". But then, that is after he has finally chosen to leave behind his humanity side after Claudia and Madeline's death. It almost makes Armand, who seemed more of the calm, cool vampire, seem still more human than Louis in the end. Louis' struggle - the struggle to accept he's not human and then whether he continues to act human or not - is a very real one for him through the story. But even so he hasn't forgotten it completely - he can recall it all and relay it with as much detail and passion as if it had just happened. Its more the time continually going by which dulls what this means, and as he's lost all he cared for, its easier to maintain a colder exterior.

I found the boy listening to the tale's response to the story a bit ironic. Louis has told him of his anguish, and of all his loss, and even after learning from Armand has not made him feel any different about his curse...and how they agonize over their deadness. And then the boy wants to become a vampire - so that he "may truly live"! Yet, he's the one whose alive and who should appreciate his living state. The vampires continue to pain over what they can no longer feel or do, or that they cannot even die, and yet the boy longs for it! He thinks it sounds wondrous; he cannot understand as Louis does that he is the one whose better off. He is the one who can live, without guilt over having to sin to live, and can appreciate what comes in life because of the finality of death. To the immortal ones who understand their immortality, all else seems to hold little to no meaning because it doesn't last like them. They can't appreciate it like they could when they were alive. They simply observe things happen and continue living as they do. For those who can't handle the changes in the world, they fall further into despair until they decide they can't take it any longer and end their lives. At the same time you wonder how they aren't human (again, they act in human ways), but also how that makes them any more alive than the humans?

Overall I suppose I'd say I did enjoy it and it was without a doubt and interesting read, and one of the better vampire stories I've read (although I found Lestat's feeding on the little boy in a very sexual way really disturbing). I found the perspective on them to be engaging and somehow different, and especially the character of Claudia to be particularly interesting. Some parts I found dull, and Louis and his continual, constant struggling got annoying, but overall it wasn't a bad book at all.