Interview with the Vampire ~ an almost daily diary

I picked Interview with the Vampire, and have decided to share my thoughts and reflections as I read it in this thread. I first read this book a month or so after the film came out; I saw the film first, and a boy who fancied me in Forbidden Planet gave me the book. The film had already changed my life - I couldn't pinpoint it how, but I knew somehow that it had - and the book was to ignite a passion for Anne Rice that woudl last years and still exists today; the only difference is that in the wake of any decent new material from AR it sort of simmers, rather than burns brightly.

My favorite parts of this book are the scenes left out! Like the dumb zombieesque vamps Claudia and Louis discover in Romania I think it was, and the unforgivable movie edit of Lestat being present after the burning of Claudia

I've only read the first ten pages so far - as far as memory serves this may be only the second time I've read Interview, but it could be the third; I certainly haven't read it for over a decade. The style is so different from her later books it's almost as though the later ones are by a different person

I was the same, saw the film and the characters stayed with me, they kept entering my head and I would daydream about what they were doing now. When I found there were sequels I bought them and read them all really quickly.

when I was first reading Interview i used to sit in the Books Etc on Charing Cross Road and leaf through their copy of The Vampire Companion. I used to tease myself by reading snippets of entries of characters I'd never heard of, until I was positively aching to read the next books!

I read it the year it came out....36 years ago!

My best friend Tamme gave it to me to read because we were bot into vampires. I can still see exactly where I was when I started reading it. Miss Winfords art class at Darby Junior High. By the way, Tamme and I are still best friends and are still very much into vampires.

Wow Dan!

I also read it before the movie. Maybe half a year or year before. I was suprised how much more fun the movie was. I mean the book was very slow and moany, thanks to Louis, and then they bring out this rocking movie.

One thing has always bugged me.. who were the vampires that were with Lestat in the end? Did he make them or did he just "bunk" with them.

does anyone always visualise the movie actors when they read? for me Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt and Kirsten Dunst will always be the characters, and have been when I read ever since I first picked up Interview. The only one who I deviate from is Armand, because although it's a good performance Antonio Banderas is so physically different from the character...

The same.

I seem to recall that in TVL Lestat disputes Louis account of events at the end of interview. After Claudia's death and his encounter with Armand on the tower he goes to ground until when TVL begins.

Me too.

Funny how with Armand its like there are 2 versions of him in my mind. The old seductive movie vampire and then the auburn haired imp from the books. For example in QOTD I always imagine the movie Armand but when I read Armand, I get the imp one

I remember when the movie came out. But none of my friends were interested in going with me and I was only 14. I wasn't even familiar with AR and I already knew that thse vamps were going to be way different than anything I'd seen before. Seeing Brad pitt and Tom cruise in the trailer was also quite enticing:P. But, I ended up not going and got the book, instead. It was actually the first book I read in english. i found it tough going in the beginning. But I was soon drawn into it. What shocked me was that it was sooo heavy. And that being a vampire kind of sucks but, you still have to keep going. That really resonated with me. One of my favorite parts is Louis relationship with Babette.

I had'nt seen the "Banderas"-Armand when I read the book. I imagined him to be sleeker and taller and slightly younger. But it was really TVL when I visualized him as a teenager. It was the bit where Lestat knocked the shit out of him and Armand was lying there and then Lestat describes how much it reminded him of a lost child. So; he became smaller and a bit more robust in my minds' eye. can't get over the auburn hair, tho. It has always been black/brown, for me:P

My "book" claudia is a lot smaller than Kirsten Dunst was.I think Dunst was about 10 when she played Claudia. "My Claudia" was about 6 and she doesn't have curls, just long waves.

My Louis isn't as dashing as Brad Pitt. thankfully his looks did'nt destract from his acting. a more broody-look and not as "american", sharper angles in the face and all that.

Tom Cruise was as close to "my"Lestat as you can get. Had a lot to do with his performance. But the make-up dpt. really did a good job at making Tom Cruise look very "french" I think it's his nose. A big but not, unpleasant one. Very continental :P

when did you see the film then?

I'm reading on, forgot because I've seen the film so much and read the book definitely just the once, maybe twice, that Louis had a brother and Lestat was looking after his father at the outset. The way Anne writes Lestat, from Louis's priggish point of view, really makes me laugh

Louis is getting on my nerves, esp. his dismissal of Lestat - I have to try and pull back from what I know of Lestat from the later novels

I felt the same way, although some of it is Louis' naivety, thinking Lestat only wanted him for his money and home, not because he was hopelessly attracted to him.

Nicky Mayfair wrote:

I picked Interview with the Vampire, and have decided to share my thoughts and reflections as I read it in this thread. I first read this book a month or so after the film came out; I saw the film first, and a boy who fancied me in Forbidden Planet gave me the book. The film had already changed my life - I couldn't pinpoint it how, but I knew somehow that it had - and the book was to ignite a passion for Anne Rice that woudl last years and still exists today; the only difference is that in the wake of any decent new material from AR it sort of simmers, rather than burns brightly.

exactly the same for me! I saw the movie first and was so enraptured by the movie that I instantly became an AR junkie and got high on almost all her books ( a few of her books I read but couldn't get into that much) until more recent years.

Nicky Mayfair wrote:

does anyone always visualise the movie actors when they read? for me Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt and Kirsten Dunst will always be the characters, and have been when I read ever since I first picked up Interview. The only one who I deviate from is Armand, because although it's a good performance Antonio Banderas is so physically different from the character...

yes, the actors are always the characters for me in my head, even including antonio banderas. No matter how armand is described in the books, I cant picture him any other way except as antonio

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when did you see the film then?

About 2 yrs. later

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I felt the same way, although some of it is Louis' naivety, thinking Lestat only wanted him for his money and home, not because he was hopelessly attracted to him.

Lestat did have a funny way of showing it. No wonder Louis never thought Lestat "liked" him. Although, I think he did know on some level and certainly after TVL.

Louis' perception of Lestat in IWV was Lestat's own fault! I don't fault Louis for what he was led to believe from Lestat. Lestat really was a shitty maker/mentor when it came to Louis. Of course I still love how Lestat "corrects" Louis' perspective in TVL. That is when Anne really let her characters transform themselves from must being characters in a book into being we could actually visualize and imagine real because of how they had certain voices and perspectives in subsequent books that really didn't match what other vampires in the series thought.

Too bad Anne didn't capitalize on that as much as she could have. She's left such interesting characters behind..Gabrielle for one, I've always wanted Santino's story.

Maybe Lestat's experience with Nicholas, or rather his failure there, led him to be much more guarded and reserved when it came to Louis.

We don't always seem in others eyes as we would like to be seen. Lestat is both, a bastard and a darling.

I'm not enjoying the re-read as much as I hoped; maybe it's because Interview is so different from the subsequent Vampire Chronicles, or Louis is such a whiner...I don't know

It is definately the most "gloomy" of all the VC's. Maybe it had something to do with Rice's frame of mind at that time. Mourning the loss of her daughter and all. She certainly made the vamps more "glammy" since TVL.And eventhough it was still dark; it always ended on a positive note somehow.

Btw. saw an old pic of Stan Rice when he was young...he SO is Lestat!

I'm on the bit with Babette

I don't remember Babette!

Perhaps you DO need to be doing a reread with Nicky then.

She lived more or less next door to the plantation and hid Louis and Lestat in her cellar after the plantation house burned down.