Anne Rice’s famouse Interview with the Vampire, which was released 1979, is more than a simple vampire novel. If you are looking for the often present thrilling vampire romance stories you are on the wrong track. In this book vampires are merely an instrument for the big picture, the big question. They create the possibility to think about the impossible.
So what is Anne Rice’s novel about, if not vampires? It is about the gifts and burdens of immortality, the definition of good and evil, about god and the devil, love and hate, about the definition of wrong and right. It is about life, life in eternity.
“[...] How many vampires do you think have the stamina for immortality? They have the most dismal notions of immortality to begin with. For in becoming immortal they want all the forms of their life to be fixed as they are and incorruptable [...]. When, in fact, all things change except the vampire himself; everything except the vampire is subject to constant corruption and distortion. [...] One evening a vampire rises and realizes what he has feared, perhaps for decades, that he simply wants no more of life at any cost. That whatever style or fashion or shape of existence made immortality attractrive to him has been swept off the face of earth.“
Luis, the main character, finds himself being different from other vampires, he is more sensible, more emotional, more human and that is his biggest burden and greatest gift. He starts searching for answers as more and more questions arouse inside of him, but soon he must realise that the answers he finds are not what he hoped for them to be.
Anne Rice is a very gifted writer and her ability to make emotions alive with words makes you vividly feel and imagine the struggle inside Luis. This together with her clear view on the unanswered questions of life makes this novel a treasure for everyone who reads it.
