#im already reading the vampire lestat and this is still sitting on my dreafts

[occasionalficwriter]

Thoughts on Interview with the Vampire - Book I of The Vampire Chronicles

“First considerations: I watched the tv show and then the movie and now I’m reading the books, i tried not to read the books because I wanted to enjoy the tv show without any expectations but I really couldn’t stop myself, so here I am. A lot of my thoughts are going to be comparisons with the movie and tv show probably.

Warning: This is long.

Part I:

“There was a tragedy...(...) It was my younger brother... He died.” - So the show is more faithful here than the movie and he didn’t have a wife and kid that died?

“Evil is always possible. And goodness is eternally difficult.” - No thoughts i just love this quote.

“You see, he [Lestat] wanted Pointe du Lac, my plantation.” - Interesting that Lestat isn’t rich here.

“From then on I experienced only increasing wonder.” - Episode titile?

“He [Lestat] had human problems, a blind father who did not know his son was a vampire and must not find out.” - Oh so this Lestat is a baby if his father is still alive.

“I had seen my becoming a vampire in two lights:(...) But the other light was my wish for self-destruction. My desire to be thoroughly damned.” - A totally normal character not at all fucked up.

“I refused to look at him [Lestat], to be spellbound by the sheer beauty of his appearance.” - Is he... you know.. *limp wrist gesture*

“He [Lestat] spoke my name to me softly, laughing. As I said, he was determined to have the plantation.” - I’m sure that’s all he wants.

“Yes, that is my name,” - Not me only realizing now Louis hasn’t said his name. We knew Lestat’s name before his, and we only find Louis’ name when Lestat says it 😭. Also I didn’t think this book was going to be an interview the entire time, I kinda expected us to go into Louis’ mind at some point like in Wuthering Heights, for example.

“his [Lestat’s] movement so graceful and so personal that at once it made me think of a lover.(...) he put his right arm around me and pulled me close to his chest.(...) he pressed his right fingers against my lips” - This entire section of Louis’ being turned is so intimate.

“I remember that the movement of his lips raised the hair all over my body, sent a shock of sensation through my body that was not unlike the pleasure of passion...” - Ahem

“I checked myself because I realized that the drum was my heart, and the second drum had been his.” - Oh this is directly from the book, I love this quote.

“Lestat was being a perfect idiot.” - 😭 Lestat’s such a bad teacher.

“You’ll have to bed down with me this morning.(...) The coffin struck such a chord of terror in me I think it absorbed all the capacity for terror I had left.” - This is where he draws the line.

“All my life I’d feared closed places.” - Well, thank you for reminding me I’m claustrophobic really hadn’t thought about the logistics of sleeping in a coffin for some reason.

“I lay face-down on him, utterly confused by my absence of dread and filled with a distaste for being so close to him, handsome and intriguing though he was.” - Yes, I’m sure what you’re feeling is distaste.

“The first thing which became apparent to me,(...) was that I did not like Lestat at all.” - I feel like I watched the movie 10 years ago and not two weeks ago, because I don’t remember anything anymore, did the Louis in the movie dislike Lestat?

“In my own inexperience I still thought of them as childlike savages barely domesticated by slavery.” - Well this worse than the movie which was already bad, I’m so glad the tv show changed things this entire plot line is so uncomfortable and this going to be my last comment on it. Even present Louis’ reflection on the past are not much better, so.

“Lestat bungled it with his characteristic lack of common sense.” “Lestat, had he any native intelligence,” - Damn Louis, drag him 😭

“[Lestat was] As boring as a mortal, as trivial and unhappy as a mortal,” - Fascinating that Louis thinks he’s more in tune with his vampire side than Lestat.

“He [Lestat] must guide me through the necessary lessons, if there were any more real lessons,” - I once again don’t remember he having this curiosity about being a vampire in any of the adaptations, that he wants Lestat teach him everything he knows.

“What I’d felt as a vampire was far too powerful to be wasted(...) It is like love,” - Humm

“Just provide for them [Louis’ mom and sister] and for my [Lestat’s] father,” - It’s so interesting that Lestat in this book has a relationship with his father when in the tv show he criticized Louis for still trying to have a relationship with his family. I mean the Lestat in the show is much older, but still.

“Being a vampire for him [Lestat] meant revenge. Revenge against life itself.” - I don’t have anything to comment, it’s just an interesting observation.

“You [Babette] can rule the plantation and you can save it.” - Louis Feminist King.

“It’s all right, father. You must rest easy. I [Lestat] hold nothing against you,” - I’m sad this didn’t happen in the tv show, and if it does happen Louis won’t be present.

“‘If I held something too close...’ And when the vampire said this his face darkened for an instant. He frowned,(...) ‘If I held something too close for you to ask about it, I would not bring it up in the first place,” - Ok Mr. Unreliable Narrator.

“I was thinking at that moment, wordlessly and rather deeply, how sublime friendship between Lestat and me might have been;(...) Lestat a brilliant pupil, a lover of books that had been burned. I knew only the Lestat who sneered at my library, called it a pile of dust, ridiculed relentlessly my reading, my meditations.” - How SUBLIME. Oh 🥺. This is the most... fondness... no, longing?idk that Louis has shown towards Lestat after calling him stupid in 5 different languages.

“I hated him and wanted to leave him; yet could I leave him?” - I wanna rewatch the movie because i swear I didn’t get this impression at all, Louis in the movie was way more passive for me, even in the tv show he was more passive than the book!Louis, who wants to leave Lestat and wants to know more about being a vampire.

“But I found her [Babette] more alluring than any woman I’d know in mortal life.” - So it’s her that’s alluring, or is it more her humanity? And his lack of? idk

“Yes, die. I wanted to die before. Now I wish to die. I saw it with such sweet clarity, such dead calm.” - 🥺

“‘You’re being morbid!’ Lestat said suddenly.” - Lestat 😭

“Is my very nature that of a devil?” - Episode title spotting! Also, I wonder if when I get to part II I can try guessing possible episode titles for season 2 of the show?

“we [Louis and Lestat] fought as we’d never fought before.(...) I was down on the floor then, and he was standing over me, his eyes cold, though his chest heaved.” - Hm, I remember seeing people that read the books criticizing episode 5 because Lestat would never do that and yet here they are fighting, it might not be as bad as in the tv show but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

“You chase after the phantoms of your former self.” - Episode title spotting!

“And in your romance with mortal life, you’re dead to your vampire nature!” - Ok, so Lestat disagrees with Louis’ perspective that he is more a vampire than Lestat is. Not that I’m surprised. And I agree with Lestat here idk what my man Louis was thinking.

“My vampire nature has been for me the greatest adventure of my life;” - Ok, so when he uses this frase he’s straight up lying 📝

“‘Vampires are killers,’ he [Lestat] said now. ‘Predators, Whose all-seeing eyes were meant to give them detachment.” - Wait, isn’t Louis that says this is the tv show? So he’s repeating Lestat’s words to him?

“and if you find one or more of them [vampires] together it will be for safety only, and one will be the slave of the other, the way you are of me.” - Oh, so this Lestat isn’t even pretending lmao.

“the killing of anything less than a human being brought nothing but a vague longing,(...) I was no vampire.” - So earlier when he said he was more of a vampire than Lestat he was lying to himself, noted.

“He was going to go away. But now he’s not. Because he wants to stay and take care of you [Claudia] and make you happy.” - This entire sequence is very much how i remember from the movie, but it’s interesting that earlier in the book present day Louis says Lestat would have killed him if he tried to leave, but we see that what he actually does is create a daughter so Louis won’t leave him.

“also fierce killer now capable of the ruthless pursuit of blood with all a child’s demanding.” - Episode title spotting!

“He [Lestat] did not have to be loved, but he would not be ignored;” - When was therapy invented? Asking for a friend.

“once he even flew at her, shouting that he would slap her, and I found myself in the wretched position of fighting him as I’d done years before she’d come to us.” - Don’t mind me, just collecting some receipts.

“Then, are you [Lestat] master of us all? You didn’t teach her [Claudia] that. Was she supposed to imbibe it from my quiet subservience?” - So much resentment packed in a small line.

“I felt it for you again, a vile unsupportable hunger for your hammering heart,” - Episode title spotting!

“Something in her [Claudia] was as akin to me as anything in her could have been. That thing in Lestat was the same. We could not bear to live alone! We needed our little company!(...) ‘Locked together in hatred,’” - biting something biting something biting something biting something biting something biting something biting something biting something biting something

“You loved me [Claudia] with your vampire nature.(...) I am your vampire self more than you are.”  - Obsessed with everything about this.

“And I thought of what I always felt when I heard him [Lestat] coming, a vague anxiety, a vague need.” - Need to comb through everything this man says.

“At one point, I wanted to go to her [Claudia] and tell her we must abandon everything,(...) and live as we had before.” - Why Louis, tell me why?

“‘I wish you would play the music’ I said softly, unobtrusively, but as persuasively as possible. Sometimes this worked with Lestat. If I said something just right he found himself doing what I’d said. And now he did just that: with a little snarl, as if to say, ‘You fool’,” - Everything about this imagine is making me want to chew on glass.

“Don’t come, Claudia, I was thinking, feeling; go away from it before we’re all destroyed.” - 🤐

“‘You’re [Lestat] my father,’ she [Claudia] said. ‘I want to make peace with you. I want things to be as they were.’” - Oh I can’t think about them.

“I drew nearer, the table between us.” - Louis is so.......................... I need to shake him.

“Claudia! Don’t do this thing!” - Too late!! I’m shaking him.

“The thing lay still.” - Episode tittle spotting :(

“I went deeper and deeper in with Lestat’s remains, though why, I did not know.” - This man drives me insane.

“The numbness which had protected me since the carriage let the Rue Royale threatened to lift and leave me flayed suddenly, staring, thinking: This is Lestat.(...) I felt a pull suddenly, as if some force were urging me to go down with him, to descend into the dark water and never come back.” - The fact this man spends the entire book only saying bad things about Lestat and now he’s like this???? you drive me insane Louis!!!! He only showed that he cared a bit about Lestat after Claudia was already planning his murder.

“His coffin lay there, heaped with scarves and pieces of tapestry. I had the compulsion to open it. I had the wish to see him there.” - I honestly can’t believe him.

“‘I don’t want you [Claudia] near me. Sleep in that box you bought for yourself. Don’t come near me.’ ‘I told you I was going to do it. I told you...’” - On Claudia’s side here, he changed his mind too late, she even told him he never found Lestat charming and he said nothing, is she supposed to read minds? I mean, is she? I don’t think so, right?

 “I am not mortal, father, but immortal and damned, like angels put in hell by God.” - Episode title spotting. And that’s all of them I think. Also the fact that Louis is the one that brutalizes a priest in the book, and because he’s grieving Lestat.. anyway.

“I should have taught her something to prevail against her desire to kill Lestat. For my own sake, I should have done that.” - Ok, so he does know it’s his fault lmao

Final thoughts: I don’t have many, I’m enjoying it so far.