EVERYONE Has Read This but Me - The Catch-Up Book Club discussion
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Interview with the Vampire - *SPOILERS*
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Victoria mentioned how she loved how Louis was a deep thinker. One of my favorite things about this book was how it raised some really interesting and sometimes philosophical view points. Things like Claudia always appearing as a child and how eventually she resents Louis and Lestat for turning her while she was so young. It made me think about how obsessed people can get about aging and trying to appear younger, and is that really a good thing? At the same time it made me think of kids always wanting to be older than they are. As much as I sometimes miss childhood, being stuck inside a child's body while my mind ages sounds torturous.
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Do you think you would enjoy living forever or would the endlessness feel daunting to you?
Victoria wrote: "I think I may be the first person to post on here, but I finished this book a couple of weeks ago. It was my first introduction to Anne Rice, and I wasn't disappointed. It was a very dark, gothic, ..."I think that Louis has a very hard road ahead of him, but it is an interesting one. I think he doesn't really forgive, himself, Lest and even Claudia until the novel Merrick. :/
Tori wrote: "Another thing the book focused on was whether being immortal was a wonderful experience or somewhat of a curse. I thought both sides of this were represented very thoroughly.
Do you think you woul..."
For me the whole book spoke about loneliness. Lestat was alone and saw in Louis something that he desired, that romantic tortured feeling that really epitomized his century. He wanted to connect with someone and feel reconnected to the world and in giving him a choice he felt he was bringing someone over in a better way than he was made. You get a better sense of him in Lestat... But back to Lois, his whole bitterness comes from loneliness, so I guess my answer to Tori's question would be: If I could bring my husband, I wouldn't think twice about immortality. I'd jump into that boat asap. If I had to do it alone, well, I can understand their despair perfectly imagining a world on my own without that perfect someone to share everything with.
I liked these characters very much, but after several re-reads through the decades, I have decided Louis would become very tiresome after three or so centuries. Lestat grew on me to the point he is my current favorite. Anne Rice supposedly wrote this book because her real-life toddler daughter died. She was suffering great grief. Immortality seemed very appealing to her at the time.
For myself, I would LOVE immortality, as long as I was strong and young! I live in a senior park - so, being an immortal decrepit old person is not so appealing. At all. Soylent Green seems less and less gross to me as I age...at least the part about volunteering to die after everything has worn out!
: )
Unlike the Dylan Thomas poem, I want to go gently into that good night, unless I somehow can turn back the clock, say, about forty years. Tick tock.
I loved the book, the atmosphere and description of all kind of emotions. This was my first book From Anne Rice. I must confess Louis wasn't my favorite character, I found him too weak, always sad, nothing really mattered to him, really no anger, easily manipulated by Claudia. Lestat seems a more interesting character. And two questions raise in my head: Did they really kill Dracula?🤔 They describe the vampires in East Europe as zombie-vampires, like they found themselves better than them.
The ending almost made me scream : would anyone want to become a vampire after hearing such a story? I doubt that really.
aPriL does feral sometimes wrote: "I liked these characters very much, but after several re-reads through the decades, I have decided Louis would become very tiresome after three or so centuries. Lestat grew on me to the point he is..."Oh yes, Lestat is my favourite too! Haven't read the last ones though, the Atlantis one, it really scares me that they will damage my view of him lol
Tori wrote: "I just finished today and I really loved the writing style. I enjoyed the story a lot too! It didn't have the creepy atmosphere I was expecting, but the horror elements it does have were still a gr..."I agree with a lot of your points. I think there's something here about how dangerous a culture we have had (and one I hope we're trying to break away from) where looking unnaturally young is deemed beautiful. I do think it's dangerous on the psyche to chase youth to that extent and what it does to Claudia to always be childlike is chilling. The juxtaposition of having her be probably one of the most vicious of them all was interesting as well, despite her childlike features.
I strangely didn't have a character I particularly gravitated to, which was probably why it rated a bit poorly for me. I've read Rice's stuff before, and somehow her characters are the least appealing aspect for me. I never can quite like any of them particularly well. Louis brooded and was too apathetic, Lestat was too mystifying and had too many unanswered questions (like with his father, the school, et cetera all that confused me), and Claudia seemed too alien and oftentimes full of manipulative wrath. I enjoyed the atmosphere, as I enjoy a good gothic, I find them rather fun in a way as I was raised on horror novels. Haha...
This is my first time reading this book and reading Anne Rice. The narration seems uneventful but I'm loving it so far at 26 %. I expected a lot of spookiness and horror vibe , a bit disappointed at this. Lestat is mysterious and amazing , Louis seems so cliche'd. I'm looking forward to meeting the love interest mentioned in the summary !
This is the first time that I have read this book. I am aware of the film but have never watched it and so didn't really know what to expect. Surprisingly, I enjoyed reading the book. I wasn't expecting to like it as I wouldn't normally choose to read this genre. The way that the story was told had me hooked and I really managed to feel empathy towards vampires - something that I was not expecting in the slightest!I think that I would be happy to read this again and maybe some others that Rice has written.
Tori wrote: "Another thing the book focused on was whether being immortal was a wonderful experience or somewhat of a curse. I thought both sides of this were represented very thoroughly.
Do you think you woul..."
Personally, I don't think I would enjoy living forever. The idea of it always sounds good but to watch everyone you care about fade away and have to constantly adapt to an ever changing world sounds exhausting! Having to live through world wars and see the same awful things happening from history over and over again would be too much to bear for me!
I love the way supernatural themes generally bring up important discussions around mortality. Vampires can be such a great analogy for the pessimism/optimism binary battle. The way Louis sees such despair in the taking of life, and yet just because there is suffering doesn't mean it's evil. It's all really interesting. Tori's comment about our obsession with youth definitely gave me a whole other angle to the story. And as Nico pointed out, Claudia's childlikeness gave an extra eerie quality to her actions. It was brilliant on Rice's part.
Which leads onto April's uncovering of one of Anne Rice's inspirations for the novel: the pain of losing a child. The book could also be seen as her reaction to seeing death around her, as Louis does, and the fleeting preciousness of life.
I definitely would not want to live forever. Or at least, I would have to live completely differently, as the purpose of life would be completely different. That is tough.
I thought i had read this book years ago, around the time the movie came out. I finished this yesterday, i never read it before 😱. I loved this book. I loved the attention to detail, i loved the love story of Louis, i felt he was just looking for someone to love, who could accept him for who he was. I was fascinated with Claudia and her continuing maturity even though she was trapped forever in a child's body. I loved how different and distinct all the characters were. I loved how erotic the feeding was and the Theatre des Vampires act was enthralling.
What i didn't love about this book was that it dragged in places. Sometimes Louis's descriptions went on too long for me. But overall i loved it. Now i am trying to decide if i want to read more of the Vampire Chronicles.
I read this back in 1987, when I had just started high school. I loved it, got my mom and sister to read it and we all became huge Anne Rice fans, at least of the first three books. I liked the movie and was happily surprised at how well Tom Cruise played Lestat (I didn't expect him to do well), and I loved Brad Pitt and Kirsten Dunst as Louis and Claudia. I watched the film with my son recently and had forgotten how disturbing it was. The movie, like the book, really examines and embraces the vampires need to kill.It was interesting reading it again. The descriptive, visceral kill scenes disturbed me a lot more this time around, I actually got physically nauseous during some of them. Maybe it's because I'm a mom and the eating children and teenagers bothered me more? It's funny to me that some people consider Louis boring, when he seems very relatable to me. If I'd been coerced into being a vampire, the kind that has to kill to survive, I'd be wondering whether I was damned and pondering the nature of good and evil too. I agree that he goes on a bit too much though. Some of his depressed philosophizing could have been cut where it slows down the book.
I hadn't read Portrait of Dorian Gray when I first read this, but I'd read it when this group chose it as a classic read, so I noticed the parallels others have pointed out with this reread.
I loved the descriptive writing, the world building and the thoughtful examination of good, evil, life, death and humanity. I plan on eventually re-reading the next two books, though I'm not sure about the whole series. I've heard the Atlantis book does some retconning fans are unhappy with.
Second read here, still don’t understand the point of the vampire bringing that baby to Lestat toward the end...Enjoyed reading it again though :)
Finished, here's my review: 4 of 5 starsVictoria wrote: "I really loved how deep of a thinker Louis was, and was very disappointed when he went so cold and apathetic at the end. It is understandable, he was certainly jaded, but I was still disappointed- especially when he abandoned Lestat."
I actually wasn't sold on Louis actually being so cold and apathetic. To me it felt more like he just acted that way to make things easier. Why would he go looking for Lestat if he didn't care one way or the other? Why would he even care about telling his story? If he really didn't care, he would just have eaten 'the boy'...
Tori wrote: "...how it raised some really interesting and sometimes philosophical view points. Things like Claudia always appearing as a child and how eventually she resents Louis and Lestat for turning her while she was so young. It made me think about how obsessed people can get about aging and trying to appear younger, and is that really a good thing? "
Nico wrote “I do think it's dangerous on the psyche to chase youth to that extent and what it does to Claudia to always be childlike is chilling. The juxtaposition of having her be probably one of the most vicious of them all was interesting as well, despite her childlike features.”
Claudia is by far the most interesting character in the novel. Not only the aspect of the adult or even ancient mind stuck in a child's body, but also someone who is raised as a vampire instead of as a mortal child, so she gets a totally different world view and set of values. At the moment of her turning she would hardly have had any notion of her own mortality, or of good and evil. I think that combined with her frustrations at being trapped in a 5 year old body accounts for how vicious she is.
Tori wrote: "Do you think you would enjoy living forever or would the endlessness feel daunting to you?"
I think the books describes possible reasons for not wanting to live forever very well. Loneliness, boredom or getting out of touch with an ever changing society all sound very plausible. Then again, it would be nice to have the luxury of being in control of your mortality like vampires are: hardly any fears, no health issues, no age-related problems, and the possibility of calling it quits whenever you feel like you've really had it.
Martina wrote: "And two questions raise in my head: Did they really kill Dracula?🤔 They describe the vampires in East Europe as zombie-vampires, like they found themselves better than them." I was intrigued by those old vampires from Eastern Europe as well: are they a different kind of vampire, or did something happen to them? Maybe there is such a thing as vampire ageing after all? I was disappointed to not get any answers. Does anyone know whether this is revisited later in the series maybe?
In the end I agree with most people here that Louis was actually the least interesting character. Claudia was fascinating (and creepy) and Lestat quite mysterious. I’d love to learn more about him so I’ve put the next book of the series on my TBR.
I fell in love with Anne Rice after reading this book, so much so that I went on to read 9 of the vampire chronicles only stopping because I didn’t get around to buying the rest.I totally love Louis and his emotional struggles through this book, I connected with him a lot because of this. I love Lestat because of how cold and vicious he was portrayed yet once you read more of the books he quickly became one of my favourite characters.
I went through a stage in my teens due to reading the vampire chronicles of wishing I could become one, the thought of living forever, witnessing new things, fashions, technology, the rise and fall of new religions fascinated me and I would embrace it and learn from it all, soak it all up like a sponge.
I wanted to be a vampire when I was younger, too. Wow, right? : D
Betsy wrote: "And do you still want to be a vamp?"I find myself lately wanting to flee to Canada (I am an American) more and more lately, as I listen to NPR and read the New York Times, so maybe that means I want to be a Canadian now?
Betsy wrote: "A Canadian Vampire :)": D
I just pulled the plug on this. I really don’t like vampires so found this very tedious. I DNF’d.
I really respect this Joanna. There is no point in sticking with a book you're not enjoying or thriving from because there are plenty of others out there you could be reading.
Not sure if this is spoliers so much as background maybe what da goils usta call da dish.What it is I know more or less to be true about Anne Rice:
She is a native of New Orleans where she grew up in what is called Up Town. I think in the general area of the Garden District. She has also lived and written in Texas and San Fransisco. As a local writer she was much feted in New Orleans but she also dabbled on the edges of politics and she earned something of a reputation as a character.
Shortly after the first of the Vampire books she also published the 2 or 3 books of erotica under the nome de plume A.N. Roquelaure.
The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty by Anne Rice Lesson Plans
She grew up Catholic, became an atheist and I think is back to be Catholic again. As I had heard the story part of her fascination with the dead/undead grew from the depression she suffered after losing a child. What follows is from Wiki, and was not previously known to me:
Rice returned to the Catholic Church in 1998 after decades of atheism. On December 14, 1998, she fell into a coma, later determined to be caused by diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA), and nearly died. She was later diagnosed with Diabetes mellitus type 1, and is now insulin-dependent. In 2003, following the recommendation of her husband and shortly after his death, Rice underwent gastric bypass surgery and shed 103 pounds.
In 2004, Rice nearly died again from an intestinal blockage or bowel obstruction, a common complication of gastric bypass surgery. In 2005, Newsweek reported, "[Rice] came close to death last year, when she had surgery for an intestinal blockage, and also back in 1998, when she went into a sudden diabetic coma; that same year she returned to the Roman Catholic Church, which she'd left at 18." Her return did not come with a full embrace of the Church's stances on social issues; Rice remained a vocal supporter of equality for gay men and lesbians (including marriage rights), as well as abortion rights and birth control,[57] writing extensively on such issues. In October 2005, while promoting her book, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, she announced in Newsweek that she would now use her life and talent of writing to glorify her belief in God, but did not renounce her earlier works.
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In New Orleans we used to attend her book signing, but we seemed to miss the more funs ones, like when she was brought in in a coffin. She tended to like the dramatic and the gothic, at least then. She also bought up a number of properties intending to do some major renovations and more. I think she pretty much delivered on the renovations but left NO with a vague sense that she had promised more. Along the way she picked something of a comedic public spat with a local developer/restaurant man (the man behind Popeye’s Fried Chicken and named for himself Copeland’s among many others). It never came to much but those other people who liked gossip ate it up.
For those of you who remember the discussion threads in Amazon she was a frequent visitor there. (Top Reviewers area in partic) She had very strong opinions about what reviewer’s should and should not be allowed to write. She was associated with a few efforts to stifle Amazon reviewers. I was in threads with her- sometimes with her sometimes not, but it was kinda fun to share space with a known writer.
It has been years since the Wife and I followed her or read her books, but there are a lot of them. Some novels some non-fiction; some have become moves and graphic novels. So a lot of ways to let Ms Rice keep you entertained
Phrodrick, thank you for your detailed write up. I found it enjoyable and entertaining, what an interesting but seemingly complex character .
I really loved how deep of a thinker Louis was, and was very disappointed when he went so cold and apathetic at the end. It is understandable, he was certainly jaded, but I was still disappointed- especially when he abandoned Lestat.