Rating: 
Summary: One Of The Greats
Review: Probably the best vampire book ever written, including the original Dracula, Interview is mesmerizing. Treating the undead as angst ridden homosexuals was brilliant. Surprising, thoughtful and amusing, this is a book that I would recommend to anyone; it's way up near the top in the horror genre.
Rating: 
Summary: Stop your whinging Louis!
Review: Firstly, I'll comment on the negative - the angst from Louis. What a moaner, whinger, whiner. Complain and the "oh, woe is me", just got too much. Lestat - couldn't you have picked someone else to spend eternity with?? I just hated that Louis character.Didn't like the writing... blah, blah, blah. I guess since this was my first romantic horror goth type book, I didn't know what to expect. I found it hard yakker getting through this novel, but did it as I was halfway through when the hype hit about a movie being made, based on the story. The positive - Lestat, how a vampire should be. Beautiful and flawed. So selfish, and so he should be. So manipulative, and should be after spending years roaming the world. Conclusion - not in a huge hurry to read another Rice book. If I found one in my bookshelf and I had nothing else to read, I may consider it.
Rating: 
Summary: Like mucking through a swamp
Review: People either love or hate Anne Rice's work. There is no in between, and it amazes me that anyone can actually read this stuff. While her concepts are genuinely interesting, reading her prose is like mucking through a Louisiana swamp. She has good ideas in some cases, but her writing is so bad, it's difficult to pinpoint just what she is trying to say.
Rating:
Summary: An and exotic view of a vampires life
Review: Interview with the Vampire, and the rest of the Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice, have the ability to capture the reader and pull him or her into a dark world of vampires and eroticism. For those people who aren't a big fan of vampires, I would say that this novel is definitely still worth reading. I didn't like vampires much either, but I read the book anyways because I'd heard so many good things about it. I found Anne's take on vampires to be exciting and different. She breathed new life into an old and dying myth. Anne's writing is full of beautiful detail and the descriptions and provoking thoughts of the book's main character, Louis. Be prepared if you do decide to read this book to be taken on a journey, carried away from the world in which you live. Louis' life is filled with passion and haunted with his desire to kill -- to drink the blood of a living being, to feel the beating of their heart and experience their thoughts and feelings and very existance as they are drained of their life source and left empty to die. This experience overtakes Louis and the reader, and is often accompanied with feelings of ecstasy and passion, both erotic and homoerotic. If the small sections of erotic writing in the Vampire books leaves you wanting more, Anne Rice has written an intense collection of books called the Sleeping Beauty Trilogy. I highly recommend them, along with this book and the 5 others in the Vampire Chronicles.
Rating:
Summary: First, there was Louis....
Review: I read this book at 16 when it first came out. It left me dazed- fascinated with black clothes, the deep philosophical mysteries of graveyards and with the cafeteria's red fruit punch. I've since heard INTERVIEW dismissed as trashy pulp, perhaps because it's part of a series but, also, frankly, because of the uneven quality of Rice's later writing. At first, critics seemed unsure of what to make of INTERVIEW. Here was an unknown writer's first novel- a horror novel which not only entertained in an intelligent, deeply evocative way but which also asked to be taken seriously as literature. It's the first person story of Louis, a wealthy, young Louisiana creole who allowed himself to be made a vampire in a weak moment. He then spends 175 years trying to understand what he's become. It involves Lestat, (the vampire who created him and, left him ignorant of the rest of vampiric society), Claudia, (the doll-like 6-year-old Lestat made a vampire- in the book, Louis is very aware of Claudia's adult mind and his romantic attachment to her) and Armand (the powerful vampire from whom Louis seeks answers and with whom he falls in love). It explores questions about evil, freedom and God. (You can play "name the philosopher" with the premises examined.) It visits 19th century New Orleans, Transylvania (a story in itself) and Paris where Armand's subterranean vampire community runs a macabre theater. The book inhabits a dimension beyond any movie in sensual power. Rice hadn't yet discovered overt eroticism (there's only one brief, although powerful, example of that) but you feel you can actually touch the book's nocturnal world as its sinister beauty seeps in. The point, however, is that evil, even when profoundly alluring, is ultimately empty and unsatisfying. In later readings, I was struck by how bleak the conclusion is. Remember, apparently, THERE WAS NO SEQUEL INTENDED. Rice spent about 10 years after this as a historical novelist (FEAST OF ALL SAINTS, CRY TO HEAVEN) and experimenting with pseudonymous erotic fiction (SLEEPING BEAUTY, EXIT TO EDEN) before writing THE VAMPIRE LESTAT. Originally, Louis' tragic situation at the end of this book was it. All great books take risks. You may hate Rice's idiosyncrasies. It's still a great book.
Rating:
Summary: Mystery
Review: It still mystifies me why so many people have so high an opinion of this book. I personally found it unbearable. To call this a vampire novel would be the same as calling Casper a ghost story. Nothing more than pretentious, pseudo intellectual pink novel.
Rating:
Summary: One of those books that is much better than the movie
Review: I fell in love with the writing of Anne Rice bcause of this book. If you have never read any of her works, this is a good one to start out with. Her writing draws you into the story until you feel like you are a third person watching the events happening. It's wonderful.
Rating: 
Summary: the language is so beautiful, but...
Review: The first time I approached _Interview with the vampire_, it was in London, in 1981. I bought it because it was a bargain book and the cover was attractive. But as I began to read this novel, I found it charming and original, expecially because of the language. I cannot forget the description of Louis' smile.
At that time, my English was not adequate and I had to stop the reading. I forgot this book nearly completely. Seme years after, in 1994, I saw rhe movie. I was totally fascinated and a little confused by it. Yes, because my favourite character was Lestat, spite of Brad Pitt's beauty and enchanting smile.
I read the book again. In the meanwhile, I had improved my English and it was a page turner for me. Fascinating, capturing from the beginning to the end. I am a writer, and I became a little envious of Miss Rice's style!
But there is something in the characters which sounds to me not completely convincing. If you see the movie, you very easily find grief and anguish on Tom Cruise's face. But you can also find the same feelings in the book, if your reading is not superficial.
Lestat loves Louis so deeply that he gets to Paris just for bringing him back to New Orleans. He is very angry with Claudia, but in the final reel he cries for her. That's terrible. Lestat is ill and weak, but Louis refuses to help him.
Louis' misunderstandings are unbearable. So, reading _The Vampire Lestat_ was a strong relief for me.And seeing the two heroes reconciliating was a true joy.
Of course, al of this would not have happened to me if Miss Rice's were not a splendid writer, as she definitely is.
Rating: 
Summary: charming, but a partial failure
Review: Why does good seem so dull and boring in this book? Why does evil seem sympathetic?
I think that all of this went beyond Miss Rice's intents. Perhaps she really thought that Louis was the good boy and Lestat the villain.
Have you ever seen a villain weeping for his own kuller? Or desperately crying for his creatures' love?
Louis is an unbearable, unpleasant character. Claudia is a real monster (remember the way she kills the poor vampire-musician). Armand is an hypocrite. So, who can you save...Lestat!
Rating:
Summary: discovery and challenge, but....
Review: _Interview with the vampire_ is a discovery and a challenge. It has very little to do with other vampire stories. Vampires are usually only hypostasies of evil, creatures with no soul or feeling -until some brave man encounters them amd, after a hard fight, destroys vampires and evil together. Even Rodriguez and Tarantino recently followed such old-fashioned cliché! The same old stuff, since Murnau's _Nosferatu_.
Anne Rice's book is different. Vampires are human beings, who try to separate themselves from their human feelings and sufferings. That's absolutely original and charming.
But Miss Rice made a mistake: her favourite character in origin, that is to say Claudia, becomes unexpectedly cruel. And at the same time the cruel Lestat becomes a victim.
When Lestat appears, in the _Theatre of the Vampires_, he claims for Claudia's death. That's cruel, but right He coluld also ask for Louis' death, but he doesn't.
And "after the event, he wept" (Eliot).
Who is the real monster? Lestat or Louis? Or Armand, who kills Claudia only for jealousy?
The movie (very beautiful, I think) is a partial re-invention of the novel. In the final scene, we are allowed to suppose that Lestat will become a rockstar. Just whar happens in the second book of _The Vampire Chronicles_. But this is another story!
|
