Now this is a novel gets nowhere near enough credit. It was like a brand-new horror revolution. The Gothic was reborn alongside this book and with it came these terrifying Byronic Heroes. So let's first talk about the sheer volume of information that is in this novel; I think it's absolutely amazing what this book can teach us about describing the afterlife and really putting vampiric tendencies into more personal contacts; something that Dracula didn't have.
Characters:
Now, my favourite character is Lestat, this is because he's the absolute hero. He's the one that all of the others are trying to be like. Yet, they'll seem to want to kill him. I think this is brutally unfair and Louis has no right to be a vampire everybody knows that Lestat is the vampire. I mean our hero has an entire novel in the series dedicated to him! The whole series revolves around him! Why would you be Team Louis? Louis doesn't even come back from most of the series. There is nothing to stop Lestat taking over the vampire world; only Armand, Daniel, David, Tarquin, the Mayfair witches, Akasha and other stupities; once all of these are dealt with must be pretty easy for the head vampire to reclaim his throne. Throughout the entire series (which I will can talk about later) this vampire is the ultimate antihero he does things that are considered out of the normal at the risk of those who he knows can take the risks. For example he accidentally wakes the Queen Vampire; and now she wants to wreck a horrible vengeance upon earth and kill humans and vampires alike. Just a big revolution of suffering, I guess.
Themes:
The best theme in the entire series is the language of the supernatural. I think Rice does this brilliantly and she completely understand crossover between our world and their's. There's the sense of: do we think she's a vampire? There's also a sense of: she understands her characters very very well. It's almost like she's there narrating the entire scene to us and it's like Lestat is telling her what to write. And with all the juxtapositions between our world and their's it's a very binary outlook - there's a lot black-and-white and not a lot of grey area. And this grey area is filled with language of supernatural and only Rice can do this. Only Rice can achieve this. And since the language of the supernatural is used continuously throughout the series I think it's a grey area that definitely requires some focus.
Storyline:
I cannot say anything bad about the storyline of this book. Again it's one of those that you have to read it and you have to live it to be able to truly connect with the characters. It's a very avant-garde novel and I think that because of this avant-garde nature it too, like the other novels seeks to be a parody of itself. For example when Claudia and Louis go to the theatre they see "vampires pretending to be humans pretending to be vampires" and they believe that this is very "avant-garde." Do you realise what this is now represents? It represents that Anne Rice has fooled us all. Well played Rice, well played.
This is because the vampires in the series are constantly "vampires pretending to be humans pretending to be vampires" and they are always being victimised and criminalised for it, yet nobody can prove it. People think it is simple avant-garde theatre act. The Theatre Des Vampires.
Verdict:
I give this book 9.
100% Characters:
I cannot fall at any of the characters. We are made to love someone we are made to hate some (Claudia). But all are constructive using "the hero with 1000 faces". This book by Joseph Campbell Will help to anyone to understand why the characters are the way they are and come to think of it the only thing you can think of when you hear the word Lestat is Tom Cruise. Why? That is the most famous portrayal of the vampire, yet not the only one. The vampire was also played by Stuart Townsend in (2003) film The Queen of the Damned. This was more hedonistic Lestat than what we were used to. A grey area filled up with crazy guitar music.
100% Themes:
The themes of this novel seem to work absolutely perfectly with what it's trying to achieve. As I've already proclaimed, the avant-garde nature of the work makes for a better interweave of themes and creates the human-vampire-human equilibrium act pretty well.
100% Storyline:
The story is the relentless tale of Louis, born to darkness. Intricately woven so that we as readers meet every major character on our journey - encountering both good and bad vampire in order for it to be expanded on later.
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