Interview With a Vampire

After my beloved "Zombie Week" (which I hope will revive itself sometime in the future) we moved on to our next themed reading- Vampires. It is interesting to note that vampires aren't that far off from zombies, other than their approach. They are both undead and spread their scourge through bites. It's interesting to note that the 'I am Legend' novel written in 1954 which featured a form of vampire actually helped influence zombie as as we know them today. Normally, vampire stories don't feature such a grand scale of transformation and even now it still didn't catch on but in the zombie world such an apocalyptic event is common. There are a lot of things different between these worlds, however. One way that I just recently mentioned, the manner of which they are portrayed, helps to direct people down the path of which they'd be more interested in. The vampire is often as important as the hero and sometimes the vampire is the main character! Now, I realize that almost everyone reading this though should have some idea of what a vampire is and how the stories are told so reiterating common knowledge is nothing more than redundant. Let us redirect these words to where I went when I put my vampire shoes on.

Almost synonymous with vampire fiction and lore, I read Anne Rice's 'Interview with a Vampire'. By read, I mean listen to via audiotape. I mention this minor information because I must say that the reading was done quite well. It felt quick and the mood never got boring and the characters were represented rather well, albeit hearing an old man portray a little girl's voice is nothing more than unsettling, it still was an overall good experience. Me being the mythology loving little devil myself, I have my idea on what a vampire is already. Because I understand that all possibly fictitious subjects are likely to differ from one interpretation to another, I was never caught off guard by the many different types of vampires that I've encountered. Apparently however, Anne Rice's stories have evolved into a sort of guideline for all modern vampires. You can tell this has happened when you have people that quote Anne Rice's books like a bible when discussing trivial matters revolving around vampires like lifespan, sex, physical appearance and weaknesses. Anne Rice's view on vampirism was interesting and much different than my preferred image of the blood sucking assassin but nonetheless it was an entertaining perspective. The story was told in an interview format starting off with a young adult inquiring an elder vampire, Louis, of what he is exactly. The story focused on Louis, a man turned vampire in the 18th century and Lestat, the vampire that turned him. Throughout the interview, the focus rested on Louis and how his morals were changing due to his bodily transformation. I saw all of this as an entertaining concept! A vampire that doesn't want to be a vampire or at least can't accept what he is intended to do. In films and other works of literature you always see the person changing into a vampire and somehow losing all sense of their former self, unless they are trying to trick someone into trusting them. I always saw the grip on their past personality and self as a major division between them and the undead or even golem. It's weird to witness someone who possibly resented the creatures do a 180 and start lunging for their friend's throat. 'Interview With a Vampire' started its multi-book series showing the progression, or regression, of a human being to the blood sucking creature of the night both in body and mind. Louis, as we all know, mostly tried to stick to killing small creatures rather than human beings but in time he did grow a little more accepting with the actions him and his kin indulged in; even though it could have just been for the nourishment and the pleasure they feel when drinking.

Outside of the vampire world, the story itself was set up rather nicely. The transitioning of events and the little amount of time the author decided to wait to jump to the point of the book really aided in drawing me further into the story. Throughout the book I found myself questioning issues that most people would cringe at or ignore and actually enjoying the diverse set of characters that kept crossing Louis' path in life. Situations like Claudia living longer than normal adult women and yet still being in the form of a child and the nature of relationships within Armand's covenent kept raising more questions, most of which are probably unanswerable, and kept me interested when the main story line dulled down a little.

I suppose if anything, this book really had momentum. It did not seem to bother let itself get bogged down in viscous details and filler moments but this is only the first book and all around base start for several. Many authors always seem to not understand just how to pair their ideas so that they stream into each other perfectly without missing a beat but Anne Rice, to me at least, seems to understand this almost completely. Personally, I still think Underworld and Hellsing are my favorite vampire themed stories, though they probably aren't written quite as well. I guess it's just because of that charm and sense of wisdom and strength that gets lost in these modern vampire stories, normally featuring people with the underdeveloped minds of the age they seem to be stuck in (e.g. leather jacket toting bad boys). Interview with a vampire started heading in the right direction in the end, showing the grief that comes with immortality, but the dramatization of it and concept of 'vampire' were too underplayed to let me really love it for a vampire story rather than just a story. They were immortals that sucked blood, simple and fitting for a normal world, but not defined well enough to make Anne Rice's vampires anything more than what we'd see them as in our society, "sexy men and women with fangs that aren't afraid to say no to society", which I honestly believe wouldn't be too hard to find now a days.