Week 2 - Interview with the Vampire

Anne Rice's Vampires

For this week I read Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice. I really enjoyed Rice's writing style in this story and how she chose to portray vampires as much more sympathetic and morally ponderous than many other writers choose to. She manages to include a lot of tropes we typically associate with vampires––bloodsucking, wealthy, immortal, superhuman, pale––while not focusing too much on them. Even with these tropes she still makes the novel feel very personal and individualistic to her own vision of what a vampire is. For example, we see how Louis links contemplativeness and elegance to a vampire's worthiness (or lack thereof) of their form; he considers the mental aspect of a vampire more than their physical killing prowess. 

I found the way Rice addressed Louis's thoughts on the moral obligation of being a vampire especially interesting when Louis discusses his contempt for the way Lestat rushes kills instead of savoring them. While most people would find the idea of savoring death horrific, Rice's narration makes me sympathize more with his view and feel that he actually values the life and blood he is taking away. It was very unnatural for me to feel this way, because I would have thought I would sympathize more with the hunter who finds killing a necessity to get over with, not something to love.