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If you missed my last book review on The Law, a Dresden Files novella, you can find it here.
So, I reviewed Interview With A Vampire, the show, the movie, and now, the book. I can confidently say the show and the film got some things right, and others were wrong, but in different spots. One thing I am grateful they got wrong was Claudia’s age. Don’t worry, I will explain in a minute.
Let me give you the rundown if you haven’t heard of the book, movie, or show. Louis, a plantation owner, had experienced the loss of his brother and the distancing of the rest of his family and had lost the will to live. (In the movie, it was his wife.) In his desire to die, he agrees to be made a vampire by Lestat.
Louis is a sensitive mortal, and it translates into being a vampire. He kept his humanity after being turned and maybe became even more sensitive. This pissed off Lestat. Where Lestat revealed in the kill, Louis despised it. So much so that he fed on animals for a while. Louis and Lestat had a contentious relationship, but Lestat wouldn’t let Louis go. Some of it was practical on Lestat’s part. He sucked at making money with regularity, but Louis had incomes and managed money so well they continued to be what I would call rich, and Lestat could throw money about and have all his creature comforts taken care of too. More than that, living with Louis, he had someone to care for his dying father. That is something that was not in the movie or the show. Another reason Lestat kept Louis is his narcissism. No one could leave him unless he wished it, and even then, Lestat would probably be problematic.
When Louis was low and wanting to leave Lestat once and for all, they got into a fight, and Louis almost killed a little girl who was in the middle of the area of town that was thick with the plague that her mother was sitting dead from. In Louis’s dispare, Louis drank from her. When he realized what he had done, he told Lestat what he had done. Lestat was overjoyed that Louis finally killed a human and saw an opportunity to keep him. So, Lestat turned the child, Claudia, into an immortal child, a vampire. It had the effect that he intended; Louis stayed, and together they were a family of sorts. Unfortunately for Lestat, Claudia grew up in a fashion. Her mind grew in most ways, but she could still have a stellar temper tantrum and be quite petulant in her 60s and 80s, which were childlike, not childish adult-like. She grew up in a child’s body and started wanting a woman’s body of her own that would never come. It was the beginning of the end of the family.
Both Claudia and Louis want to know about others of their kind, and Lestat keeps any information close to his vest. He knows they want to leave them, and while Lestat can’t seem to stand Louis and Claudia just as much as they can’t stand him, he still fights to control them. Dangling that he knows stuff they don’t keeps them there longer than is pretty. Giving up on getting information from Lestat, Claudia executes a plan to free them. It doesn’t exactly go to plan, almost, but… They make their way to Europe, and it just goes to hell from there.
In my research for the differences in the movie, show, and book (aside from reading and watching), I learned that while it is a cult classic, many said the writing was not good. I have to say that I agree. This was a challenging read. Anne Rice writes pages and pages just for a small scene that does nothing to add any meat to it. It was also lauded as a lbgtqia book because of the love of two men. I mean, if they are talking about a gay couple (or any kind of couple for that matter) in a loveless marriage of convenience who despise each other, then sure. If they are talking about Louis and Armand, then maybe, but there wasn’t even a kiss between them, and Louis ended up being pretty ambivalent to him.
I did not like that Claudia is five years old in the book. At some point, the word lover starts being used in reference to Claudia and Louis. Que a queasy stomach. I am grateful Claudia was eleven and fourteen in the movie and show, respectively. (The actress Bailey Bass, who played Claudia in the series, was in her late teens when she was shooting it.)
I like that I got more details and that I have now read the source material. My sister-in-law and I were going to read the whole series because, in the research I mentioned earlier, it is my understanding that the movie Queen of the Damned is a mash-up of three books, and I wanted to see it for myself. Nope. Not happening. Neither of us wants to after reading Interview With A Vampire.
I know my opinion is probably not popular, but I am sticking to it. Do you have a different opinion? Have you read the books? Let’s chat about it. Let me know in the comments. Until next time, have fun storming the castle!
