Hello all you internet surfers. If you’re reading this then you’ve made your way to my book review blog. I’m Creative Karma and for fun I’ve decided to jump out there and review books I’ve been reading lately. Any books I choose to review could be mainstream or off the beaten path. They might have been made into movies that broke the box office records or completely flopped. Beware, this blog and future ones will have spoilers for the books themselves. So, if you want to read them yourselves just jump to the end of the blog for the final summary.
For this first installment, I’m dragging along an old friend of mine Pop Rocks, Roxie for short. She’ll chime in every now and then and add her thoughts in on this grand opening review. Say hi Roxie.
What up guys and dolls, I'm Pop Rocks. Please call me Roxie since we're all friends here. I'm a pop culture junkie so I study everything from music to movies to fashion. I'm also Karma's stalker, so I sleep in her closet. So kind of her to let me out tonight.
Be nice Roxie. Don’t make me close you back in. Anyway folks, tonight we are gonna start off following the current trend in movies. That’s right, the vampire genre. Many people are familiar with the current Twilight craze working its way across the world. However, that book review is for another time. Tonight, we are starting with the book that some people consider being the starting point for what’s called the modern or romantic vampire, Interview with a Vampire.
Yeah, don't get started on Twilight. People have to tie me to chairs when we talk about that. Interview with a Vampire came out in the late 1970s, back before Twilight was even in its embryonic stage. It's one of my favorites because it doesn't try to make the vampire seem glamorous. Instead, it's a realistic account told by our protagonist, Louis. Oh Louis...I have a literary crush on him.
Louis is a character you can actually understand and feel for as a person. This is mostly because of the way he sees life. The book starts of with Louie in the apartment of an unnamed writer and interviewer. In the book, this character is only ever referred to as boy or the boy. Well, this boy is about to have the interview of a life with the vampire Louis. The interview itself starts off with the usual question about how long Louis has been a vampire. This is where we discover that Louis was turned when he was 25 in the year 1791 on a Louisiana
You have to admit Karma, Southern vampires just have a charm that others don't they? Louis, in the film, is played by Brad Pitt. He is oh so yummy in the movie. Louis is a man struck with grief and he's suffering from some bad depression. He's suicidal and when things seem their worst, Lestat magically appears. Lestat turns him into an immortal. They become companions, though things aren’t exactly happy between them. Louis has human compassion, finding it damn near impossible to kill another person for blood. Sounds familiar, don't it?
Oh, I do agree Roxie and I do believe that sounds very familiar. Though, I will save our audience by not going there for now. But as you mentioned, Louie does spend all of his eternal days hunting and feeding on rats and the like having trouble adjusting to the feeding upon humans as well as having a disdain for Lestat. He tries to distance himself from Lestat despite his need for him. It is through this series of events that leads to the introduction of the next important character. In Louie’s wanderings, he ends up feeding on a human despite his issues. A young girl named Claudia.
Lestat turns Claudia in order to save her and to keep Louis close. I know, I know, Lestat is a manipulative guy. Well, keep in mind she's only about five years old. In the movie, they made her eight because...it's less creepy? But yes, they "raise" Claudia together and she becomes unhappy, stuck as an immortal child. She realizes she'll never mature, never become a woman and this somehow leads to one conclusion: Murder Lestat
Actually, I believe there is a good reason for this conclusion in Claudia’s mind. She may have the mind of an adult but that doesn’t mean it’s a balanced one. It’s hard to think that any child that was taken as a vampire as young as Claudia was would be able to keep from going crazy in some form if it’s not kept in check. However, having Lestat being the one as the vampire tutor wouldn’t keep her from that. Also, as a child she could never really comprehend what had happened to her and so now that she has the ability to think it through it’s reasonable for her to be angry.
I'd be pissed too honestly. You know...this situation sounds even more familiar now. Claudia becomes a vicious and cruel child, tricking Lestat into drinking poison and slitting his throat. However, Lestat apparently can't die and attacks them only to be set on fire. With all that out of the way, Louis and Claudia head to Europe to seek out other's of their kind. This is the time they meet Armand. By the way, Antonio Banderas, you failed as Armand.
While Antonio may have failed as Armand in the movie, it is Armand that plays the key role in Louie’s life to set him on the right course to leading his own life. Through their discussions, Louis comes to terms with his own existence. Although, we get a moment of Claudia’s own selfishness. In a way, she is like Lestat and is able to manipulate Louis to get the things she wants. Claudia finds a woman named Madeleine and has Louie turn her into a vampire. I guess in a way to be a surrogate mother to Claudia. A way to have a complete family.
Too bad Madeline doesn't last long. As punishment to Louis, Armand has him locked in a coffin while Claudia and Madeline are kept in what looks like a well. They have no safety from the elements, which sadly leads to fried vampire.
That is the movie version. I checked with the book and the movie changed this part of the story. In the book it is Lestat that wanted this. He wanted them to bring him Claudia. His ultimate goal being to force Louie back with him. It was Lestat that told the other vampires that Claudia was the one that had tried to kill him which is against vampire law according to them. Then, it becomes Armand who rescues Louie from the coffin that had been bricked up into an alcove.
I'm a bit rusty on my literature, so pardon my inaccuracies. Talk to me about movies and I'm an expert. It's still a heart wrenching scene. Louie does love Claudia in their own twisted little way. He isn't able to save her, which kills him. If you think about it, Louie has lost almost everything he's cared about. First his brother, now his unofficial daughter. He's a sympathetic character. At this point, I wanted to give him a hug and a sandwich...well, blood.
I completely agree. Louie is a character that you will always feel for in some way. He’s not the romantic vampire like in Twilight or Vampire Dairies. He doesn’t look to be more human but as you get to know him you feel compassion for him. You see him as something other than an evil creature that’s only out to kill and feed. In a way, the characters in Interview with a Vampire embody the transition from evil creatures of the night to possible boyfriend material. Lestat would represent the classic vampire that lives as the monster and revels in it. However, Louie is more compassionate towards humanity. He doesn’t want to make anymore vampires and he loathes having to feed off of them.
You have to admit, Lestat always seems like he's having fun with what he's doing. Everything he does is calculated and planned. Even when things go wrong, he still has a whimsical charm to him. Keep in mind he's also sort of batshit crazy.
Oh, I agree. Lestat loves being the monster. He “lives” for being what he believes vampires to be. He may be crazy and manipulative but he’s also very calculated. To me, a vampire is always calculated about their actions in one way or another. This is really showing that not all vampires are alike. That becoming a vampire doesn’t make you any more evil or good. It’s the way that that vampire was brought up and if that changes the way they feel, think, or act as an undead being.
Time to hurry this along a bit. After finding the roasted vampires, he has the heart to heart with Armand after burning the place they lived down and killing the vampires inside, he left with Armand and traveled about various parts of the world, Armand tells him Lestat didn't die in the fire, and then they both headed to New Orleans. Louie finds Lestat with other vampires that have been helping him. After telling Armand about that and Armand finding out that Louie doesn't need him anymore he leave Louie. After all that, the "boy" he was telling the story to gets angry about the way the story ended. He wants to know more and he wants that life. Louie gets angry at him and tells him that there is only one way to show what it's really like and he feeds on the boy but doesn't turn. He wakes the next morning to find Louie is gone. So he goes to his tape recorder and uses in info there to find where to look for Lestat and leaves to find him.
Don't worry about "boy". He shows up again in a later book. Fun fact: His name is Daniel and in the film adaptation is played by Christian Slater.
Thanks for that Roxie. That’s the only thing that bothered me a bit about the book. In the book, he is never named. There is never even a hint at this guy’s name or even his age. They say “boy” which makes me think he’s much younger than the movie suggests.
I'm not sure of his age, but remember, back in the day of Louie and Lestat, boy was a derogatory term deemed for servants. Servants didn't have names, they were just called "boy" or "girl" in order to prove who was superior. Remember kids, if you said it loud and with authority, that makes it true.
In any case, that’s Interview with a Vampire. Now, the story itself is full of tons of rich detail and ideas that weren’t touched on here. If we had, this blog would have you sitting there for hours. However, the story itself is definitely a turning point for what makes a vampire a vampire. There will always be those movies of the vampire that would rather kill you than feel sorry for you but Interview with a Vampire gave the literary world a new way to look at vampires. This book is one of those books that I feel everyone should read at one point or another. Though it made it possible for the Twilight series to exist it doesn’t dumb itself down for the readers. It is definitely a book for a more mature audience.
And as we all know, different authors will interpret the vampire story in different ways. Some are tragic creatures while others are feral things hellbent on killing for the sake of killing. Lately, they all seem to be emo kids, who experience vast emotional problems. They all have some huge inner turmoil about love, which for me, detracts from the idea of a vampire. Ah, but what do I know? It's late, I'm getting sleepy and rambly.
Yes, it’s time to say goodnight to everyone. Once again, give this book a chance. It’s definitely worth the read. Say goodnight Roxie and then you can head off to bed.
I'm Roxie and I'm totally in disguise right now...as far as you know.
And I’m Karma, Creative Karma and the next time you see me I might be reviewing your favorite book.
No comments:
Post a Comment