Interview With A Vampire

Although I have seen the movie version of Interview With A Vampire, I had not read the book before this class. I had read another of Ann Rice's novels, The Mummy, that I did not enjoy and that turned me off to reading any more of her stories. However, I did find myself enjoying what I read of Interview, despite the fact that it was packed exactly with the eroticism and beautiful men that I disliked in The Mummy. After putting some thought into this, I've come to the conclusion that all the sexuality and mega-romantic writing have become associated with the vampire genre as a whole (probably by Rice's influence, in fact), and because I was expecting it when I started reading I was able to enjoy the book.

Interview With A Vampire was not a romance, technically, even though parts of the book and even the movie definitely felt like it. It was an interesting presentation of the conflict between what is right and what is wrong. This was presented through the contrast between the mortal humans and the immortal vampires, and especially through Louis and the interviewer. Killing, for example, was obviously immoral for humans but could be argued as the morally correct choice for the vampires. The narrator Louis was constantly caught in the middle, and viewers too are uncertain whether his attachment to the moral code of his mortal self is the right or wrong choice.

Conflict was also present in the relationships between characters. Although the not-so-subtle homoeroticism of Louis and Lestat's relationship was entertaining, I found myself extremely intrigued by the connection between Louis and Claudia. Throughout the film (I admit, I didn't get far enough in the novel to see much of Claudia) they seemed to waver from close family to something more romantic. Claudia's situation, being a grown woman caught in a child's body, made this all the more interesting, and I enjoyed her interactions with Louis.

All in all, Interview With A Vampire was a relatively good read, even though I didn't finish it, and it lead to some very interesting discussions in class.