Book Review: Interview with the Vampire

The Vampire Chronicles: Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice.

Anne Rice's novel merged together a medley of elements that are now associated with vampires. Set in the tradition of the Southern Gothic, the novel portrayed a mixture of a very lush romantic view of the old South and of historical Europe as a decadent, bloody place filled with a bittersweet sadness. The novel grabs at a predominant teenage sensibility which  perseveres and remains in the genre of vampire fiction today.

Interview with the Vampire, expresses the transgressive alternative or uncertain sexuality, uncomfortable ragged emotions of a teenager and transforms it into a sinister grown up form of the vampire.

The compelling antagonist Lestat is technically dead but he possesses a significant vitality, an enthusiasm for life or 'joie de vivre' that is a metaphor for the vampire's need for blood. People die around him but Lestat bears it.

The glamour of the Gothic is everywhere in the novel, the vampire itself, the dark atmosphere, the velvet, the times when Gothic was beginning to be fashionable and sexy. Readers can't get enough of the night world thrill and Rice's novels take the readers back in time.

The novel contains the brooding antihero of Louis who opens up and confesses and opens up to the readers and a charismatic villain. What is more appealing is the psychological aspect. The male protagonist of classic Gothic fiction is sinister, aloof and troubled, just like a Byronic hero. Louis, despite his sexuality and moody behaviour is the tormented male lead: charismatic, fascinatingly dangerous and in need of redemption perhaps. Lestat possesses similar traits but is more vicious and sadistic.

Lestat represents the 'sexy bad predator' side of a vampire, who kills without thinking and relishes in it, he unlike Louis does not whine and seek answers to questions about the existence of vampire kind. The novel becomes quite philosophical at times when Louis enters an existential state of mind, trying to understand where vampires come from, and if there are others out there.

Like a good meal, this novel is delicious and filled with all sorts of spicyness. It's got interesting characters, superb descriptions, gore and tragedy. This is the first novel in a saga of mesmerizing vampire tales, philosophy and history.