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81 of 84 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The exquisite classic that rejuvenated the vampire genre, July 24, 2003
With
Interview With the Vampire, Anne Rice completely rejuvenated the genre
which I feel to be horror's most important, primal, and soul-stirring,
the legend of the vampire. I have described Richard Matheson's classic
I Am Legend as the second greatest vampire novel, but I must retract
that statement now. Only with a second reading have I recognized the
unparalleled power, beauty, eroticism, and grace of Anne Rice's
contribution to the subject. Unlike Matheson, Rice luxuriates in the
Victorian appeal of Stoker's masterpiece, while taking the subject to
planes far beyond those Stoker could have envisioned for his Count
Dracula. The modern writer does not have to hide the vampire's erotic
appeal behind convention, nor does she need to classify her subject as
an evil in and of itself. The vampire nature of Rice's creation is a
complex, unfathomable subject that transcends good and evil.This
first novel in The Vampire Chronicles centers around four very
different yet almost equally fascinating vampires. The story is that of
Louis, a wealthy eighteenth century Louisiana plantation owner who
became a vampire in the depths of his despair over his brother's
suicide. Lestat, the inscrutable force that hovers above every page of
the tale, made Louis a vampire for basically economic reasons; he
wanted the wealth that Louis possessed, but he also wanted a companion.
Narcissistic and vain, the dapper Lestat does not teach his creation
what it means to be a vampire, does not share the secrets he claims to
know, does not even help Louis through the soul-shattering change that
comes about when the body dies so that it may live eternally. Louis
stays with Lestat only because, so far as he knows, there are no other
vampires to whom he can turn for help and instruction. His distaste for
Lestat grows over the years, however, and in order to keep Louis by his
side, Lestat takes a young girl whom Louis had fed upon during a period
of emotional turbulence and makes of her a vampire, knowing that Louis
could never abandon the child. It is the story of Claudia, doomed to a
most tragic life of immortality trapped inside the body of a little
girl, that makes this book so powerful in my eyes. Lestat is of course
fascinating, Louis is the epitome of tragedy and a fountain of
knowledge by way of his questioning, eternally sad nature, but
Claudia's story is an unbearably exquisite one. She accepts her vampire
nature with some ease, being too young to really ever remember her
human childhood, but the growth of Claudia the vampire woman inside the
body of Claudia the child is a beautifully painful thing to watch. When
she manages to separate Louis and herself from Lestat to go searching
for other vampires in Central Europe and eventually Paris, giving
dramatic voice to both her love for and hatred of Louis, the door to
the dungeons of utter tragedy are thrown asunder. The introduction of
the four hundred year old vampire Armand in the second half of the book
gives us yet another unique vampire soul to ponder, but Armand at his
most vivid pales in comparison to Claudia at her most unprepossessing. In
the end, we are left with Louis and his story, which is full of
unanswerable questions. Even the meaning and lesson he tries to express
about his miserable existence utterly fail in their influence it has
upon the boy chosen to hear his extraordinary story. Literature really
provides no better character study of the emotional meaning of
vampirism than Louis, however. He became a creature of the night only
out of despair, and his development as a new creature on earth
proceeded without any instruction whatsoever from the cold Lestat.
Thus, he questions everything about his new nature, desperately longing
for a mentor. He does not relish the taking of human life, and the
thought of creating another creature like himself is anathema to him.
He sees vampirism as a curse, eternally wondering if he is indeed a
child of Satan doomed to an immortal yet cursed life. The source of his
moral suffering is his inability to really give up his human nature,
and this causes him a long, long life of torment and pain. Never before
had the moral, spiritual, and philosophical nature of the vampire been
explored in such depth as that found in this exquisitely beautiful
novel, and that is one of the primary reasons why it rivals Stoker in
terms of its beauty and resonates with an emotionally hypnotic power
that is unmatched in the long tradition of vampire literature.
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