xans: Lego minifig woman with red hair in black robes with a green lightsaber. It has been stylized to look like it was drawn rather than photographed (Natasha-Working)
[personal profile] xans
"Which one of you did it? Which one of you made me what I am?" -still one of the best lines.

I feel so bad for Claudia. I mean, she never got a choice in being made, and then here she has these two fathers (with a side of creepy father-lover in Louis) that continue to treat her like the child she appears to be for decades. Buying her dolls and dressing her up. Even as they educate her and take her hunting and all that, just... No wonder she gets to be so fucked up, she has no recollection of her humanity, she's stuck in a child body, with a messed up family dynamic.

And then there's Lestat's eventual obsession with the boy musician. Partly I think he knew things were changing or going to change at some point. Louis doesn't know, but don't we find out in later books that it's sort of inevitable that a vampire's children leave their maker because too long together they get sick of each other's idiosyncrasies? That the telepathic block works against them? And the boy being a musician, I can't help feeling Lestat is repeating Nicki all over again, and trying to distract himself from the break-up...

I do understand s bit, in their first four years together, why Lestat may have held info about his human life and his vampire origins close, but, by the time Claudia's questioning things, he really couldn't open up and share that with them? I know, Louis is still a dramatic emo, and Claudia is a weird child-monster, but damn, Lestat, no wonder your kids want to kill you when you still won't open up to them. (I really miss how much we're not really seeing/getting the Brat Prince Lestat in this story. How much is it Louis being an unreliable narrator and how much is it Lestat screwing things up?)

I'd totally forgotten how intense the attempted murder of Lestat was. Like I was reading but sitting on the edge of my seat nearly biting my nails, even though I knew how the scenes would go! And once again Louis transitions from one life to the next by burning down his house.

Did anyone else find themselves reading about his life he built with Lestat and Claudia and going, "but what happened to Babette? You said you saved her physical life, but didn't expand on her tragedy. What was it?!" And finally he gets back to mentioning what happened, but it took a while.
xans: Lego minifig woman with red hair in black robes with a green lightsaber. It has been stylized to look like it was drawn rather than photographed (Shoebox)
[personal profile] xans
It's been a long time since I read this book, but one thing that stuck with me over the years was how much of a struggle it could be to read. The way Louis speaks, how he tries to explain things, I sometimes find myself reading a sentence two or three times because by the end I've forgotten what he said at the start of it. And I don't remember caring, the first time around, but this time, I kind of hate the way Daniel is "the boy" as he interviews Louis. Maybe it's a stilly thing, but I wonder if I'd be less distracted by him being referred to by name or as the interviewer than just "the boy."

Louis isn't really that sympathetic, is he? I wonder if the attraction to him as a teenage girl was because he was so self-involved and constantly putting on airs that it was totally relatable. I'm not like other vampires = I'm not like other girls for emo/goths? :P

For all his protests that he didn't like Lestat, he doesn't really show any attempt to bond with him? Lestat could be a dick, but when did Louis ever ask about how he came to be in New Orleans with a living father? And oh, Lestat is so handsome but soooo annoying I'm totally not into him, boy are you ever lying to yourself Louis.

Lestat seems to have read a whole lot of fanfiction. BedCoffin sharing, anyone? Also, I can't help thinking if Lestat had tried at being a woe-is-me emo about his life, Louis would have fallen in love with him in a trice. Instead he rather bumbled about trying to make Louis happy with pretty shiny things, and then, some "accidental" baby acquisition to try and solve things. (I am way more creeped out this time by Louis describing her turned into a vampire as now having a woman's eyes and a sensual voice, what the fuck. What the fuck.)

As much as I complain about Louis being a whining dramatic emo, this quote stood out to me beyond its context:

"People who cease to believe in God or goodness altogether still believe in the devil. I don't know why. No, I do indeed know why. Evil is always possible. And goodness is eternally difficult."

I thought that was one good descriptor of the struggle with human nature, the struggle to be kind or good is not naturally easy for people.
suttonstrother: (Default)
[personal profile] suttonstrother
It's been interesting to re-read Interview because I'm much more familiar with the events of the movie than the book, having seen it more recently and MANY more times than I've read the book. But one of the most WTF changes in this early part, to me, is the movie making the death of Louis' wife, rather than brother, the source of his grief, because it doesn't seem like there was any good reason for it, I guess?

I've heard people make the argument that giving Louis a dead wife in the movie "de-gayed" him, but they leaned in pretty hard to the homoeroticism in the movie, so I don't think that really explains it.

Maybe it's just an easier trauma for an audience to relate to? I don't know.

I realize this isn't a deep question or anything, LOL, but any thoughts?
delectable_detriment: A picture of AFP, all mussed up (Default)
[personal profile] delectable_detriment
Another thing that really surprised me, getting back into Interview after so many years, is how different the Lestat of this book is to the Lestat that I know now.  He is in no way the Brat Prince that we know and love. 

I can't help but wonder a few things:

1.  How much of it is character growth, and how much of it is Lestat just being a prat and hiding so much of himself from Louis?

2.  How much of it is Louis being too wrapped up in his own head to see more than this vision of Lestat the he despises?

3.  How much of it is my own rose-coloured glasses, the way the decades have softened and blurred the edges of Lestat's flaws so that I remember him much more fondly than he actually was?

I'm really looking forward to getting to know him all over again. 
delectable_detriment: A picture of AFP, all mussed up (Default)
[personal profile] delectable_detriment
It's mentioned in earlier pages that Louis' self-loathing is really the result of egotism, of self-indulgence. This really stuck with me, and it heavily influenced how I interpreted a lot of what comes later. This will probably be (ironically enough), self-indulgently lengthy, so please bear with me.

When Louis first saw Lestat, he described much like seeing God. It was something akin to a religious experience, except that it wrung hollow. He says: "That ego which could not accept the presence of an extraordinary human being in its midst was crushed. [...] I completely forgot myself!"
But then he goes on to speak of how he saw his life, and how he could see his life from that point forward, etc.  He speaks of recognizing his own insignificance, but his language is still totally centered on his own experiences and perceptions.    Usually, experiences such as these are described as acknowledging (and seeing the beauty of) the relative insignificance of the self, the realization that we are but one tiny part of something so much greater than oneself.  He plays at the concept, does lip service to it, but it rings false, at least to me.

Another aspect of Louis' character, which I swooned over as an angst-ridden teen, but look at more critically now, is his seeming devotion to this dark, depressing, tortured aesthetic.  His frequent desire for death, despite his inability to actively seek it out, his prowling dark alleys for rats, insisting that his choice to avoid humans was an "aesthetic" one, and not morally motivated, despite his constant judging of Lestat for his immoral behaviour.  I cackled when Lestat called him out on it: "You, [...] staring for hours at candles [...] and standing in the rain like a zombie until your clothes are drenched [...]."    Even when he tells Lestat that he was leaving him in a grandiose, self-indulgent (I do so love that term for describing Louis, so I am going to unapologetically overuse it) speech, he admits: "I was mainly listening to my own words."   It's like he is constantly putting on airs. 

Nothing about Louis, to me, is genuine.  It's all superficiality.  And what really baffles me is that he has no idea that he's doing this.  He really truly believe that his affectations are an accurate representation of his personality.  Then again, maybe they are.  Maybe he is (or at least was) really that shallow, devoid of a real personality, or any genuine deep-held beliefs.

So...

Feb. 3rd, 2018 06:01 am
crystal: ohgod-will (ohgod)
[personal profile] crystal
 Can we talk about how desperately Lestat wants Louis to be happy with him and how Louis fails completely to meet expectations, but Lestat sort of has already fallen for him anyway and can’t let go?  

And just like...how many times Louis mentions that he and Lestat could have been great together? How it’s ALL LESTAT’S FAULT that they aren’t great together. XD 

TEST

Jan. 30th, 2018 06:23 pm
tirlaeyn: (Default)
[personal profile] tirlaeyn
Interview with the Vampire
Anne Rice
©1976

Reading Sections

Beginning-95 (half of Part One)

96-158 (rest of Part One)

161-200 (all of Part Two)

203-277 (half of Part Three)

278-318 (rest of Part Three)

321-End (all of Part Four)

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vampirechronicles_bc: Tom Cruise as Lestat from IwtV (Default)
The Vampire Chronicles Book Club

June 2018

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