Drained by "the Vampire"

I ended 2009 by finishing Interview with the Vampire, both the novel by Anne Rice and the film - the screenplay of which was also written by the novelist. Normally, I'd do my comparison of the movie to the novel, but perhaps at another time. I do want to note, before I forget, that I realize that the adaptations of 90's are fast paced compared to those of last decade. Maybe it's like Roger Ebert said: "No good movie is too long and no bad movie is short enough." Or something like that. Interview with the Vampire (both the novel and the film) can learn from this.

I'm uncertain why I wanted to read the novel after some time sitting on the sidelines of the genre. I'm not a fan of Rice, though I did own two out of three of her erotic novels before I even thought of reading her Vampire Chronicles. There was something that just stirred in me one night when I was rethinking my vampire notes (for a story that I never got around to writing and probably never will). I thought, the only way to get it down right is to read what others have written. And because I wasn't going to turn to the crap that's being published now - the hidden Mormon agenda of Twilight series and the tween sensation of everything else - I thought I'd read the canon novels from the classical Dracula to 'Salem's Lot and the first three (though I might read the fourth, as well) of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles.

Normally, I'm not a fan of era novels. This is the reason I dislike reading the classics, unless I feel motivated to (like if it's for a grade, though I'm not longer in school so that's a pretty outdated reason). Anne Rice had a way to let me forget I what I was reading. I actually fell into the novel pretty swiftly. Sadly, it wasn't enough to keep me interested.

Louis isn't a strong vampire character, at least not at first. I'm still unsure if he was meant to grow into one at the end of the novel, or just become disenchanted by the whole ordeal. Surely, even though he continued to say that the human side of him was dead at the end, I still saw the same old character of the beginning. He was damaged and he was pushed to his limits, like any good character should be, but in the end he was to remain the same old vampire.

Both Claudia and Lestat were also unlovable characters. Emotional Vampires to the core, they fed off of Louis's misery. And he let them.

I'm not sure what I've learned from this, or that I've taken anything from it other than the details of vampire life in Rice's series. One thing I do know is that the novel felt longer at the end. The prose began to be a bit tedious. Though, it's the first one I've read from my list. It's either up or down hill from this.