The Vampire Lestat (The Vampire Chronicles, #2)

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The Vampire Lestat (The Vampire Chronicles #2)

3.98 of 5 stars 3.98 · rating details · 92,807 ratings · 1,988 reviews

Once an aristocrat in the heady days of pre-revolutionary France, now Lestat is a rockstar in the demonic, shimmering 1980s. He rushes through the centuries in search of others like him, seeking answers to the mystery of his terrifying exsitence. His story, the second volume in Anne Rice's best-selling Vampire Chronicles, is mesmerizing, passionate, and thrilling.

Paperback, 560 pages

Published August 31st 2004 by Ballantine Books (first published 1985)

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Sep 13, 2012 Peter rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: gothic

This was the Audible audio book, unabridged, read by Simon Vance. Who gives a really good performance, I love his vampire voice!

Lestat de Lion court rises from his long hibernation in 1980 and decides to become a rockstar. He puts out an album and to accompany this he writes his autobiography - revealing the story of his youth as well as the history of the race of vampires, which started 4000 years ago in Ancient Egypt.

Some gleaned facts: Anne Rice loves the words: 'preternatural' and 'savage ga...more This was the Audible audio book, unabridged, read by Simon Vance. Who gives a really good performance, I love his vampire voice!

Lestat de Lion court rises from his long hibernation in 1980 and decides to become a rockstar. He puts out an album and to accompany this he writes his autobiography - revealing the story of his youth as well as the history of the race of vampires, which started 4000 years ago in Ancient Egypt.

Some gleaned facts: Anne Rice loves the words: 'preternatural' and 'savage garden'. This is the band Savage Garden's favourite book (I imagine).

Although it has a lot of similar themes, I did not enjoy this book nearly as much as "Interview with a Vampire" for a number of reasons. I think because the plot is much more meandering and fragmented. It takes in four narrators - Lestat, Armand, Marius and some other guy in Ancient Egypt - and a lot of different geographic and cultural settings which I don't think Anne Rice captures quite as well as she does New Orleans or Paris.

Some Spoilers...

Rice has softened and rounded Lestat to make him more likeable compared to the evil, mysterious enigma of Interview. As a narrator he is a totally believable character (this is Rice's main strength) though I do not think his obsessions are as interesting as Louis'. He is a bit too confident and self assured. Gabrielle too was similar to Claudia but again not quite as interesting, her concern that she will never change is represented by the fact she can never cut her hair, a brilliant weird sequence, but not nearly as strong as the stories spun around Claudia - the little girl who never grows old. Nicky, the other main character, was an entirely tedious and forgettable cypher.

In terms of the story I loved the opening and the end and a lot of the sequences in Paris, but a lot of the stuff in Ancient Egypt - the history of the vampires etc – I found rather boring. I hated the development that now all the vampires can read minds, it just meant the prose drifted off into even more internal stuff than before. I hated that there was no big deaths - like in Interview. Nicky is the only character who dies and this isn't even 'onscreen' Lestat is informed of it in a letter, this is such a throwaway of good drama I can only assume that it was a lie and done so he can show up again sometime. Also, Lestat and Gabrielle miss the French Revolution because they are basically on holiday in Egypt, talk about throwing away more great dramatic opportunity. Anyway, if Queen of the Damned is set in the modern day I probably will end up reading it as, from the ending of this one, that seemed an interesting premise.

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Jun 20, 2012 Erika rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: horror, supernatural, series-following, adult

Oh Lestat de Lioncourt, how can you be this rebel,
how dare you create such trouble while not giving a single thought on your actions.

This is the second book on The Vampire Chronicles, and it is the time for Lestat to tell his story. It starts in the year 1984 if my mind is not playing tricks on me,

(wow, i just realized that i was reading this book at the same time with the book 1984. Isn't that weird? book set in 1984 while i was reading 1984... no?... but... are you sure?... not even a littl...more

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Dec 09, 2008 Cecilia rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: vampire lovers

Shelves: anne-rice, vampires

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Lestat... ¿qué se puede decir de un personaje tan seguro de si mismo, capaz de crueldades impensables, y a la vez, dueño de una personalidad terca, posesiva, egoista?
La historia de Lestat debería ser triste: un hombre joven, obligado a ser vampiro por un creador macabro y suicida. Pero no, su personalidad hace que acepte su nuevo estado como una forma más de sobrevivir en una París que nos resulta ajena, pero no extraña.
Es un vampiro que no se esconde, y que no acepta su destino de "condenado"...more Lestat... ¿qué se puede decir de un personaje tan seguro de si mismo, capaz de crueldades impensables, y a la vez, dueño de una personalidad terca, posesiva, egoista?
La historia de Lestat debería ser triste: un hombre joven, obligado a ser vampiro por un creador macabro y suicida. Pero no, su personalidad hace que acepte su nuevo estado como una forma más de sobrevivir en una París que nos resulta ajena, pero no extraña.
Es un vampiro que no se esconde, y que no acepta su destino de "condenado" ni siquiera cuando Armand y los suyos se lo hacen ver (particularmente, me encantó la vampira vieja y algo loca que estaba con el grupo).
Un dato curioso es que el cimetière des inocents sí existió en París, lamentablemente, fue uno de los tantos que se removieron en pos del crecimiento de la ciudad, pero algunos de sus nichos se encuentran bajo el suelo de París, en las cloacas. Lo sé por que quedé tan fascinada con Armand y los suyos que decidí rastrear el cementerio y encontré un libro al respecto. Más tarde, vi un documental, creo que del Discovery Channel o del History Channel, ya no recuerdo.
La vida itinerante y solitaria (por momentos) de Lestat no deja de sorprender, desde las noches compartidas con su madre, hasta la búsqueda incansable de Marius, el maestro de Armand, hasta su encuentro con Akasha y Enkil y su precipitada partida hacia "el nuevo mundo".
Sin dudas, la historia es una de las más completas fuera de las crónicas individuales que anne rice publicó luego de "Memnoch, el demonio", y también una de las más interesantes y menos forzadas, ya que la narración fluye con naturalidad.
Para este momento, anne rice me tenía completamente "en sus manos", fua a partir de este punto que comencé a leer sus libros sin parar, tanto así, que sólo leí sus libros durante los siguientes meses.
Las tres primeras crónicas vampíricas siempre estaban a la mano en mi habitación. Lamentablemente, allí quedaron, en mi habitación en Buenos Aires por que al mudarme a México, tuve que ser algo selectiva con los libros que pude traer.(less)

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Jul 12, 2010 Eddie Black rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is one of those books that defined me. I don't mean that I turned goth or vampire or whatever. No... it started me thinking.

I was born and raised in the South. I didn't read anything else other than fantasy novels (like Dragonlance). I joined the Marines in 89 and while watching a movie about a teenage vampire it was mentioned that Dracula is 'good literature'. I went to the base library to check out Dracula and beside it on the shelf was this book. I took this one instead.

The book was grea...more This is one of those books that defined me. I don't mean that I turned goth or vampire or whatever. No... it started me thinking.

I was born and raised in the South. I didn't read anything else other than fantasy novels (like Dragonlance). I joined the Marines in 89 and while watching a movie about a teenage vampire it was mentioned that Dracula is 'good literature'. I went to the base library to check out Dracula and beside it on the shelf was this book. I took this one instead.

The book was great. I loved it. The book engendered a question within me that never found any sunlight growing up a protestant in the Deep South. That queston, can something evil love? The values of the Southern protestant is one of black and white and there is no mixing, no grey, no overlap. By witnessing the drama of Lestat's journey, this manifestation of the Shadow declaring it's evil and it's good... I questioned this myself.

It is a slippery slope to question everything. With no reading, history, or even exposure to any philosophy (Arkansas public school after all) I now asked questions about ethics, the nature of God, what is beauty, morality, and more. I had become a philosopher (though not a good one).

Now, 17 years later I've been around the world many times, am nearing the completion of two degrees (psychology and philosophy) and am a much different, much broader, much more deepened soul. The questions I've asked, the roads I've taken, the experiences I've had, are all a result of my search for my own truth. A lot of that was set afire because of reading this book.

I know that many bemoan Anne's move from the supernatural and to Christian writings. It's her life and I respect that. Yet I am reminded of something Jung said, we do not become enlighted by imagining beings of light, but by making the darkness visible (I'm paraphrasing). Lestat might not be a being of light (that's another topic) but his darkness is illuminating.

This is one of my favorite books ever.(less)

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Mar 18, 2013 Жор rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Абсолютен титан в историите за вампири! Надмина всичките ми очаквания и успя да изпревари "Дракула" в личния ми топ.
http://knizhenjor.com/2012/12/vampira...

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Apr 01, 2013 Misal rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2013, paranormal, favorites

(WHAT THE HELL GOODREADS WHY DID YOU DELETE MY REVIEW???)

As someone who loves vampires, I've had the misfortune of never reading any decent literature concerning them thus far. There was the dreaded Twilight series, and the marginally better Blue Bloods series (well, the first two books, really), and I never even got past the first couple of pages of Dead Until Dark before tossing it aside. None of these were exactly what you'd refer to as gems of vampire literature.

But then one day my friend h...more

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Nov 06, 2010 Kelly rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It is my suggestion that, if you want to sample Anne Rice, and have never read any of her other works, this may be the book you want to read instead of her most famous novel, "Interview with a Vampire." let me explain.
"The Vampire Lestat" is quite a different novel from the first in the series, because we are dealing with an entirely different vampire than the depressed and vulnerable Louis from Rice's first book. Don't get me wrong, Lestat was the antagonist in Interview but towards the end of...more It is my suggestion that, if you want to sample Anne Rice, and have never read any of her other works, this may be the book you want to read instead of her most famous novel, "Interview with a Vampire." let me explain.
"The Vampire Lestat" is quite a different novel from the first in the series, because we are dealing with an entirely different vampire than the depressed and vulnerable Louis from Rice's first book. Don't get me wrong, Lestat was the antagonist in Interview but towards the end of the novel you start to think maybe that's not the case. That single thought pushed me to read his story to find out why Lestat was the way he was.

I LOVED learning about where Lestat came from and also finding out about ALL of the ancient vampires, all the way back to the very FIRST vampire. In Lestat's story, the reader goes throughout the centuries, as he meets other vampire's who tell their tales. This book feels like a world tour that goes back to Ancient Egyptian times, to classical Rome, to pagan Europe, to the times of the French Revolution, to an old, decaying (slightly creepy I might add) Parisian cemetery and back up to the present time. It was FUN to follow Lestats journey to find the truth..the same truth that Louis was always searching for, but never found.

The entire story is fascinating and spans centuries as Lestat grows from a fledgling vampire into the emotional, lonely, angry, and finally carefree vampire he is upon setting foot on a San Francisco stage to perform his first rock concert in front of 15,000 screaming fans. (Yes, Lestat is a Rock star in the 1980's in this book! My first thought to that was, "Whatever!" But then it made sense.)

Lestat now gets a chance to tell his OWN story, and it makes us (the reader) realize that he has suffered even more than Louis and shows that he is not a villain; he is the tragic hero of sorts. He is actually far more aware than Louis, something else that Louis doesn't see either. He is a gentle, innocent, thoughtful young man who has suffered so much in his life, and then he is forced into becoming one of the living dead, who now must kill to survive. It is explained to us why Lestat is the way he is and why he does the things he does which is truly interesting.

When you read "Interview with a Vampire" you don't know then that Lestat is misunderstood by Louis, and therefore misunderstood by the reader, whom is seeing the story through Louis' eyes. The glimpses of Lestat we have in Interview with the Vampire, of his relationship with his father, of the way he acts, of his charm that Louis finds both attractive and repulsive, of his love of bright artificial light and his desire to live luxuriously, of his friendship with a young musician, of his doting upon Claudia and showering her with gifts, of his fear to lose Louis, of him emotionally distraught and pleading with Louis to come back to him in Paris (which I didn't understand at the time), and finally of the frail, broken, and pitiful shadow of a man he has become by the end of Louis's story, where Louis finds him again in New Orleans. All of these things are hints at the depth and complexity of the character of Lestat.

In The Vampire Lestat, you will finally see the entire picture, and see the masterpiece of a character that Lestat is. The depth and the multi-dimensionality, and the humanity of Lestat. If you liked Louis before, you will still like him. But you will like Lestat even more because you will see how completely misunderstood he is and learn the story of the pain and sorrow he kept hidden in his heart, hidden underneath that charming facade that Louis encountered on his plantation in 1791. You will start to understand HOW Lestat could act the way he did towards Louis and Claudia which was the answer to the questions I was seeking in this book so I closed the covers of this book satisfied.
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Jan 25, 2010 Christine (AR) rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: horror, sff, urban_fantasy, vampires

Dear Anne Rice:

NOT WORTHY.

Signed, All Fictional Vampires Who Are Not Lestat

This was a re-read for me, but in all honesty, I don't think I was ready for this book the first time I read it. Or at least, I didn't appreciate it for the sheer masterpiece of storytelling that it is, and it's not just the mood and the world and the mythology and the fast-moving plot -- more than anything, it's the characters.

Lestat, of course, Rice's 'brat prince', arrogant and compassionate and impossible, all at the...more

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May 23, 2008 Bart rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Readers in general

Recommended to Bart by: Todd

A happy surprise indeed. Perhaps it was a result of low expectations or a prior experience with the movie "Interview with the Vampire" that had me so unprepared to enjoy this novel.

The Vampire Lestat is a great read. It may not have all the literary quality of, say, Cormac McCarthy's equally gruesome accounts, but it is more enjoyable on its first reading.

What makes authors great, of course, is how their works hold up on revisits. Knowing the plotting and the conclusion of Anne Rice's novel, I'm...more

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Apr 20, 2009 Helen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy

I started off a bit slow with this one, because of 'vampire literature saturation' and in small part due to that Amazon 'review' Anne Rice did on her books/characters (what an ego!). Still, despite that astonishing view into Anne Rice's mind (assuming that was actually the author) I ended up really, REALLY enjoying this one. I loved Marius' history of himself and Those Who Must Be Kept, as well as the aftermath of Lestat's voluntary exposure to the world. I was being somewhat tongue-in-cheek whe...more

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Sep 07, 2012 Natalia Belardy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I really liked it. The way Lestat tells his story is very catchy and hilarious. I literally couldn't keep the book apart from me for more than a day (and those days were because I had things to do at uni... If i hadn't, I would've finished earlier)

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Apr 09, 2010 Mochacocafan added it · review of another edition

Let me clear one thing up: I haven't read Queen of the Damned yet, but this book definitely increased my love for Lestat.

In Interview With the Vampire, Lestat read to me as the aristocratic, realistic, practical vampire with a lust for blood and opinions grounded in blunt reality. I liked him as a villain, and I love him as a hero. Louis felt to me like a melodramatic teenager with a flair for angsty sololiquies. I don't hate him, but I don't have a passion for his character.

Lestat's history is...more

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Jun 03, 2013 D rated it 5 of 5 stars

All hail the true representation of what a vampire should act like- Lestat de LionCourt!

My appreciation for this character is great and although my love of this series isn't as huge as it once was, I can still say without a doubt that Lestat remains one of my favorite characters. Not only is he a funny character but you actually want to get to know him since Interview with a Vampire depicted him as this awful Prince of Darkness who was almost pure evil in some situations. He's actually not as ev...more

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May 13, 2013 Melissa Van Ostaeyen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Oh, how I love Anne Rice.
I actually started reading these books after I read Twilight. Yes, surprisingly, I went back to vampire fiction after that. Meyer is a good writer, but once you've met Anne's Vampires, you're never going back. Anyhow, this book was great. It still has the good kind of vampires: the ones that sleep in coffins, drink human blood and burn in the sunlight.

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This second book in the series wasn't disappointing, although I feared it might be, after reading the amazing 'Interview...more

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Feb 07, 2013 Al rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Once an aristocrat in the heady days of pre-revolutionary France, now Lestat is a rockstar in the demonic, shimmering 1980s. He rushes through the centuries in search of others like him, seeking answers to the mystery of his terrifying exsitence. His story, the second volume in Anne Rice's best-selling Vampire Chronicles, is mesmerizing, passionate, and thrilling.

From the Paperback edition.

Amazon.com Review

After the spectacular debut of Interview with the Vampire in 1976, Anne Rice put aside

...more

Once an aristocrat in the heady days of pre-revolutionary France, now Lestat is a rockstar in the demonic, shimmering 1980s. He rushes through the centuries in search of others like him, seeking answers to the mystery of his terrifying exsitence. His story, the second volume in Anne Rice's best-selling Vampire Chronicles, is mesmerizing, passionate, and thrilling.

From the Paperback edition.

Amazon.com Review

After the spectacular debut of Interview with the Vampire in 1976, Anne Rice put aside her vampires to explore other literary interests--Italian castrati in Cry to Heaven and the Free People of Color in The Feast of All Saints. But Lestat, the mischievous creator of Louis in Interview, finally emerged to tell his own story in the 1985 sequel, The Vampire Lestat.

As with the first book in the series, the novel begins with a frame narrative. After over a half century underground, Lestat awakens in the 1980s to the cacophony of electronic sounds and images that characterizes the MTV generation. Particularly, he is captivated by a fledgling rock band named Satan's Night Out. Determined both to achieve international fame and end the centuries of self-imposed vampire silence, Lestat takes command of the band (now renamed "The Vampire Lestat") and pens his own autobiography. The remainder of the novel purports to be that autobiography: the vampire traces his mortal youth as the son of a marquis in pre-Revolutionary France, his initiation into vampirism at the hands of Magnus, and his quest for the ultimate origins of his undead species.

While very different from the first novel in the Vampire Chronicles, The Vampire Lestat has proved to be the foundation for a broader range of narratives than is possible from Louis's brooding, passive perspective. The character of Lestat is one of Rice's most complex and popular literary alter egos, and his Faustian strivings have a mythopoeic resonance that links the novel to a grand tradition of spiritual and supernatural fiction. --Patrick O'Kelley

From Library Journal

Rice continues what promises to be a series with this fascinating sequel to her Interview with the Vampire. One of its characters, Lestat, encouraged by the telling of that story, narrates his own history, focusing on his boyhood transformation, subsequent wanderings, and constant attempts to rationalize his newly acquired immortality. Don't expect the usual stake-in-the-heart story; Rice is creating a new vampire mythos, mixing ancient Egyptian legends into her narrative, and weaving a rich and unforgettable tale of dazzling scenes and vivid personalities. This extraordinary book outclasses most contemporary horror fiction and is a novel to be savored. Highly recommended. Literary Guild alternate. Eric W. Johnson, Univ. of New Haven Lib., West Haven
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Dec 14, 2012 Michael Wais marked it as to-read

I did really like "Interview with the Vampire" before I started reading this novel. I liked how easy it was to get lost in the premise of "Interview" and forget that it was almost all a dialogue in flashback. (That's what makes it stand alone as something done in the literary medium, imho.) From that angle I just thought that shifting immediately to the disembodied first-person subjective narrative voice of Lestat was a little bit pretentious. The part that really turned me off was that Lestat l...more

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Jesse Colton Lestat is really a lot more involving than Interview, though told from a different perspective. Lestat asks a lot of the same existential questions, b...more
Feb 01, 2013 12:12am

Michael Wais Jesse wrote: "Lestat is really a lot more involving than Interview, though told from a different perspective. Lestat asks a lot of the same existentia...more Jesse wrote: "Lestat is really a lot more involving than Interview, though told from a different perspective. Lestat asks a lot of the same existential questions, but from a perspective that is not so mournful.
..."

Sweet! I've always been a fan of existentialism. (Since I was a boy, my idea of a feel-good movie was the Ingmar Bergman "wrist-slasher" movie "The Seventh Seal" just because it made me feel validated that the wry worldview I had since I was in elementary school could be considered "normal".)

That's good to know because one of the things that surprised me the most was the point-of-view shift! I grew accustomed to the point-of-view that was like a merging between "first-person peripheral" and "third-person limited". What really did it for me with "Interview" was that there were so many times I forgot I was reading these long, extended monologues through the book. The narrative voice of Louis was so vivid and detailed that I forgot it was mostly dialogue and I think that's the mark of a good novel that "transports" you somewhere in a way that a movie can't.

... Because in a movie you're seeing what the studio, producer, or director are intending you to see by default. When you have 20 or 40 or 50 or 100 page pieces of monologue that almost work like hypnosis in the way that they transport you to anecdotal references of the character, it's almost like how someone can tell you an amusing anecdote for 10 or 15 minutes and your mind fills in all the blanks utilizing your own participatory subjectivity. That narrative technique made me less interested in seeing "Interview" (plus I couldn't see Tom Cruise as Lestat).

Anyway, it was different for me to read the point-of-view shift to first-person and I really had my biggest doubts when Lestat met the band members and it went into "meta-fiction" (novel-within-a-novel) territory in the part where he said, "... And the band members were reading 'Interview with the Vampire'." At that point I was really worried the book might get stupid.

Like I said, though, I've read it when I was much younger so maybe I'll give it another shot. I liked how Lestat was portrayed in the first novel so it would be cool to see what happens to him in later installments of the franchise.

Thanks so much for the recommendation, Jesse! I'll give it another shot once I have some free time! :)(less)
Feb 01, 2013 12:36am

Dec 05, 2012 Katie rated it 3 of 5 stars

The beginning & portions of the end of the book made me cringe. Lestat decides he needs to tell his OWN tale, now that Louis has let the vampiric cat out of the bag, so to speak...and to get the word out, he chooses to become a 'rock star,' of all things. It just seemed a bit silly. And the lyrics of his 'songs' seemed, well, ...lame. The band's name "Satan's Night Out" and the lone girl member's name of "Tough Cookie" just felt uninspired. Perhaps all that seemed cool & edgy in the 80's...more

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Nov 06, 2012 Danielle Tremblay rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantastica, vampire

In The Vampire Lestat, we learn more about Louis's maker and get to enjoy a nice long tale of his life story. We open in the 1980s with Lestat in New Orleans taking an interest in rock music and becoming a vocal celebrity. He has even sought out the book, Interview with the Vampire, to read and has determined much of it to be lies so he needs to set the record straight by writing his own book.

From here, we spend a lot of time with Lestat as a human and get to study the close loving relationship...more

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Oct 17, 2012 Kristi rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: reading-challenge-2012

This book is *so* much better than Interview with the Vampire. Part of that is because Lestat is a much more interesting protagonist than Louis. Part of it is because we finally get some answers to all of those tantalizing questions proposed to us in the first volume. Lestat's story satisfies all of that curiosity and gives us so much more to work with. I loved hearing about Lestat's youth in France, his slaying of the wolves, his doomed friendship with Nicki, his tortured relationship with his...more

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Oct 11, 2012 Laura rated it 3 of 5 stars

Grab a tampon and a hot-water bottle team; you’re in for a bloody ride, and we’re not talking about the horror-fest you anticipated.

Note - I have avoided Anne Rice’s books for several reasons, not all of them truly worth repeating, but it’s safe to say that Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise were certainly contributing factors to my aversion.

The Vampire Lestat swung between gripping interest and complete… boredom.
I’m sorry, I really did like this book in its entirety but there was too much talk about ‘fee...more

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Sep 14, 2012 Michelle rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: reviewed

TL;DR - it's worth reading if you enjoy the franchise, the characters, and are willing to self-edit (that is, skip the repetitive expositions).

Although I read this book when it was first published, and reread it a time or two in the intervening decades, most recently I "read" this book as an audio book, which is an interesting test for a book. The book is in the first person, so listening to it heightens the effect of Lestat telling you his story; however, I hadn't realized how much of the ponti...more TL;DR - it's worth reading if you enjoy the franchise, the characters, and are willing to self-edit (that is, skip the repetitive expositions).

Although I read this book when it was first published, and reread it a time or two in the intervening decades, most recently I "read" this book as an audio book, which is an interesting test for a book. The book is in the first person, so listening to it heightens the effect of Lestat telling you his story; however, I hadn't realized how much of the pontificating I usually skipped over when rereading the book in print. At times during the narration I wanted to stop Lestat and tell him, "I get it--you've made your point. Move along, please." I had forgotten the endless exposition about the nature of good and evil and spirituality, and I had forgotten how much Lestat verges on being a "Mary Sue" (an overly idealized character). His flaws are extensive, some of which even acknowledged in faux-self-deprecation, but somehow everyone loves him despite these flaws, and forgives him the most outrageous transgressions, which always end up benefitting him.

The character of Gabrielle has always been more interesting to me than Lestat. Where his extreme extraversion annoys me, her uncompromising introversion attracts. Where Lestat's transformation to vampire leads him to endless ruminations about the need to love humans and humanity, his dependence on and need of them, the utter lack of meaning in a life without the love of humans, Gabrielle uses her transformation to free her at last from the demands and needs of others. She sticks around for a few transitional decades to try to wean her son into adult independence, but ultimately puts her own selfhood first.

Detaching to look at the structure of the book, the tale within a tale is carried too far, and by the time Lestat meets up with Marius, I was snorting as I counted the layers, as we have Lestat, who tells us the tale of himself listening to Marius, as Marius relates the tale of Marius listening to the tale of the Egyptian priest, who relates the story of Those Who Must Be Kept. There may have been another layer in there, but who can keep track? While the individual embedded stories were interesting, they also felt like a massive info dump, to give us the necessary background to appreciate the amazing specialness of Lestat, when he is the one to whom the Queen (silent and unmoving for centuries) responds.

If you're going to read this book for the first time, make sure you have the next book "Queen of the Damned" ready, as "The Vampire Lestat" ends in a cliffhanger.

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Aug 16, 2012 David rated it 5 of 5 stars

Everyone, undead or otherwise, should own a copy of this book. They should read it, too, preferably more than once. Even the non-vampires. Even those who are not usually fans of the horror genre.

You see, author Anne Rice has written a book about more than murderous bloodsucking monsters, about more than cheap, easy scares. In The Vampire Lestat Rice has purposefully--even willfully--transcended the horror genre by creating a character so vital and compelling that readers are better for knowing h...more

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Jul 14, 2012 Sakura87 rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: autori-nordamericani, gotico, vampiri, novecento, saga-ciclo, urban-fantasy

Vampiri emo a go-go

No, seriamente. Penso che per molto, molto tempo non riuscirò più a leggere la Rice.
Ha uno stile di scrittura sublime, e non c’è dubbio che il suoi libri siano oggettivamente magnifici.
Il problema sta in me. Sono stanca dei vampiri belli, bohemien, affascinanti, ambigui e, soprattutto, complessati. Basta con i sensi di colpa, basta con le attrazioni fatali, basta con i problemi esistenziali.
Lascio le disquisizioni estetiche della Rice a chi sappia apprezzarle, e io me ne torno...more

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Feb 21, 2012 Jao Romero rated it 5 of 5 stars

I've read Anne Rice's "Interview..." and "Lestat" long before I realized I actually liked these romantic blood-suckers. My better-half drew out my interest in them. Like a lot of things I disliked before and now like, vampires for me has become something which I count as how much my wife has changed me.

I still remember how I felt after reading Lestat's story, how that brief glimpse in an immortal's life and psyche made me felt somehow -- connected.

I read "Lestat" long ago, yet it's only now that...more

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Sep 25, 2011 Ruhsora Akbarova rated it 5 of 5 stars

After reading the first book, I hated Lestat. He was conceited, materialistic, clingy, and he controlled Louis immortal life. When I first started reading this book, though, I saw another side of Lestat. How he grew up, his family life. I started to feel sorry for him, he wasn't allowed to pursue his dreams, he had a good friend, and he cared after his mother. He ran away from it all, and I cheered for him all the way. When he was turned into a vampire, I teared up, because he was snatched from...more

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Sep 11, 2011 Bronte rated it 5 of 5 stars

I attempted to read this book in 8th grade but the full depth of the story couldn't have been appreciated back then. I'm in college now and it took me a couple months to finish it. I have to say, I understand now why Anne Rice is considered the queen of the vampires. Everything from the writing style itself to the characters, the plot line, and the possible meanings behind all of it drives me wild to think about. One would think it would be impossible to relate to a vampire but Lestat de Lioncou...more

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Sep 01, 2011 Pamela rated it 4 of 5 stars

'The Vampire Lestat', well, "It is my personal favourite, from the series".
I suppose this becomes the part where I explain why.
I think more so that Lestat is my favourite Vampiric Character so the book seems to resonate more with my personal preference. The way he battles his demons is simply based around the wonderful ability of his creator, Anne Rice.
His mind is a captivating maze of explanations, hardships, dreams, faiths and his character is breathtaking.
The storyline through out is much...more

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Jun 05, 2011 Monika rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: unforgettable, fantasy

I was somewhere between middle and high school, and craved for something dark. I've never read "The Interview", but seen the movie, so when I found a shelf in bookstore with Rice on it, I immediately reached for Lestat as the second in the series.
And it comepletely blowed my mind back then. I remember marvelling on how real and alive the characters felt to me. I couldn't believe that all that was a product of imagination of one person. I loved the richness of Lestat's character, with all its fl...more

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May 26, 2011 Heather rated it 5 of 5 stars

I have to admit that when I started reading this book I got to a line about halfway down the first page or so... that read, "Right now I am what America calls a Rock Superstar."

I laughed hysterically, shut the book, and didn't pick it back up for many months.

I thought this was just something ridiculous they came up with in the movie interpretation of the book.

Later I braved the rest of the book and was pleased to find out that the rest of the book wasn't about THAT. It was a big part of the e...more I have to admit that when I started reading this book I got to a line about halfway down the first page or so... that read, "Right now I am what America calls a Rock Superstar."

I laughed hysterically, shut the book, and didn't pick it back up for many months.

I thought this was just something ridiculous they came up with in the movie interpretation of the book.

Later I braved the rest of the book and was pleased to find out that the rest of the book wasn't about THAT. It was a big part of the end of the book and the lead-in into Queen of the Damned, but it didn't make up the majority of the book.

The meat and potatoes of this book revolved around Lestat's life as a vampire and what happened from just before he was turned until he came to be Lestat! Rock Superstar!!

It was well written and I found that... despite how Lestat was made out to be in Interview with the Vampire, he was quite a passionate and truly FEELING character. The events of his unlife were quite sad to an extent and I felt much sympathy towards him. But again, he was quite passionate about life and I found that to be quite compelling.

Lestat never TRULY goes into the events of Interview with the Vampire in such a way as to retell the events in his point of view... which is both good and bad for me. One because we already know the events and that could be boring -- but to see it from LESTATS point of view would have been interesting.

So just before coming back to Rock Superstardom, we revisit that part of Lestat's life very briefly but not in the way we visited it from Louis's perspective.

There was also the tale of Armand -- short as it was. I loved the character of Armand portrayed in The Vampire Lestat. It was interesting to read of his beginnings.

Even more interesting than Armand, however, was Marius who created Armand. His story was told as well, many years later in Lestat's life, and it was a great story, too... how he came to be a several thousand year-old vampire... how he came to be the keeper of Those Who Must Be Kept... and his own personal morality.

It was fascinating to see behind the minds of these characters. Anne Rice was truly talented to be able to write in the various voices of these characters and maintain their individuality at the same time.

Do I recommend this book? Oh yes. (less)

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May 10, 2011 Joshua rated it 4 of 5 stars

I returned to this book years after I read it. I was a child then, and it let me in. I was both repulsed by and intrigued by the setting and characterization: after all, I was a young man who still listened to nu-metal and was expecting more fighting, more vampiric battles, and the like.

But coming back to it with a more mature perspective, I can't help but appreciate it for all new reasons. Lestat no longer seems as heroic to me, but actually more human; his struggles are really what we all stru...more I returned to this book years after I read it. I was a child then, and it let me in. I was both repulsed by and intrigued by the setting and characterization: after all, I was a young man who still listened to nu-metal and was expecting more fighting, more vampiric battles, and the like.

But coming back to it with a more mature perspective, I can't help but appreciate it for all new reasons. Lestat no longer seems as heroic to me, but actually more human; his struggles are really what we all struggle for, a grasping for some meaning in a life that no one is entirely sure has one. The fact that he becomes immortal and rich only play into the fetishistic way we want to suffer. But even that - the pull between worldly comfort and otherworldly pain and pleasure, is really represented. The way he feels about the important vampires in his life, to his desire to show the world who and what he is -

It's an important book.

I hesitated for a moment about giving it four or five stars; more honestly, I'd have given it four and a half. Interview with the Vampire is a better "novel" by all accounts; it follows a tighter plot, a more poignant message, and the writing, though deliberately anachronistic, is almost eerily poetic. The Vampire Lestat is as much a sequel as it is a solid book, which is both its strength and downfall. Readers of IwtV will delight in reading Lestat's musings on the period they had read about from his point of view, but the real crux of the novel is its new content, telling a slightly less "absurdist" point of view as its predecessor, with a more proactive and animated hero. If Louis is the character that we all can secretly relate to in the depths of our minds late at night, Lestat is how we envision we ought to "embrace" the world.

There's a few minor annoyances. The pacing is more solid than her later fare but still a little off at times. There's a couple of times that the character "retcons" the original content (what happened to "the musician" from Interview? what happened to the final scene from Interview? does growing older make a vampire more susceptible to sunlight or less?) and a few bizarre moments (the reason, Lestat claims, he didn't call for Marius' help throughout the vast majority of the his lifespan is "pride", which is a hand wave, to be sure).

But fans will like this, not despite the mess, but even because of it.

It's definitely not for everyone, but going into the book with an open mind and a lot of empathy, and you can find yourself aligned with the hero rather easily. Higher quality read than most paperback fiction. (less)

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About Anne Rice

Anne Rice (born Howard Allen Frances O'Brien) is a best-selling American author of gothic, supernatural, historical, erotica, and later religious themed books. Best known for The Vampire Chronicles, her prevailing thematical focus is on love, death, immortality, existentialism, and the human condition. She was married to poet Stan Rice for 41 years until his death in 2002. Her books have sold near...more

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Books by Anne Rice

Interview with the Vampire (The Vampire Chronicles, #1)

The Queen of the Damned (The Vampire Chronicles, #3)

The Witching Hour (Lives of the Mayfair Witches, #1)

The Tale of the Body Thief (The Vampire Chronicles, #4)

Memnoch the Devil (The Vampire Chronicles, #5)

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