When I read the Penguin Classics publication of Bram Stoker’s Dracula at the age of 13, I officially proclaimed myself a vampire fan. That was after I had watched the novel’s 1992 film adaptation, which was directed by Francis Ford Coppola. I loved the movie for its awesomeness and smooth storytelling; I loved the movie even more after I’ve read the book, because then, I had a better understanding of the vampire myth.
Unfortunately, despite my claims of becoming a vampire fan, Dracula remained to be the only sample of vampire literature that I actually read.
A few years passed, and many vampire movies became popular. I’ve watched Van Helsing, which I expected to be a mind-blowing back story for Abraham Van Helsing but turned out to be a fanfic crossover of Dracula and Frankenstein, (Seriously, where the hell did Victor come from?! Igor isn’t even supposed to be there!) AND disregarded a few facts about Dracula (only a werewolf can kill him?—puh-lease!) AND threw Abraham van Helsing out of the window. I came across trailers of Underworld and Blade, but never got to watch the movies. After such a time, I felt like I'm not worthy to call myself a fan of the vampire literature.
So, after finally watching the Interview with the Vampire movie, Nosferatu, and a few episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and True Blood, I decided to pick up Anne Rice’s most popular work. I’ve read and heard people claiming that it’s the next best thing after Dracula, but I also encountered negative opinions. A classmate of mine claimed she didn’t like Anne Rice, but I didn’t ask her why, because I didn’t want to expose myself to negative opinion before making some of my own. Unfortunately, I have been exposed to some on YouTube, but the negative comments about Anne Rice turned out to be pretty tame.
Most of such comments basically said that Anne Rice is long-winded. I am now halfway through Interview, so now I can see what annoys some of its readers and fans. As it clearly explains on the title, it is an interview—a human interviewing a vampire in order to delve into the mind of a vampire, who somehow deviates from the evil vampire stereotype: Louis de Pointe du Lac, who is deeply in touch with his human nature, complains about killing people (and is ashamed of doing it even for the sake of his own existence) and the pains of immortality. It is a fresh story, and people love it for that new taste; however, it is an interview, so it should look like one. But as it approaches the middle of the story, it becomes more like a first-person narrative punctuated by questions from the human interviewer, which gradually becomes less and less essential because Louis seems to drone on and on as if he can tell the story on his own without the need for questions to continue.
At some point, I wondered if having the entire narrative in first-person point of view would have been better, because by the middle, when everything grew more and more intense, it didn’t sound like an interview anymore. It didn’t look like somebody telling a story to somebody else. After all, who would tell a story from over a hundred years ago with complete dialog and explicit detail?—and in an actual conversation, no less?
