Personally I think Interview with a Vampire is the weakest of the Vampire Chronicles. But then again I think the vampire novels were she isn’t primarily using Lestat’s voice all suffer in one way or another. This to me is because she has made Lestat her hero/our hero for the duration, and when he isn’t in the forefront the novel it tends to drag. Especially in novels like Blackwood Farm, where he’s basically a supporting cast member. Her detail which I usually love then becomes tedious and over thought (at least to me.) It took me a long time to read Interview with the Vampire. Of the Vampire Chronicles my favorite novel is The Vampire Lestat, because we finally get to hear about his life and hardships from him and not filtered through Louis and his issues with Lestat.
Tale of the Body Thief, I liked because as with all the books about Lestat being told by Lestat there is this element of him wanting to be redeemed. Then to have him at the end of Body Thief, make David who has gotten this new body, this second chance at life. But with the advantage we all wish we had, a vampire was delicious, because here is someone who wants to be redeemed, damning someone else and still expecting that person to love him for it. And getting that love, which is even more astonishing. Memnoch the Devil was interesting to me because here again it’s about Lestat wanting to be redeemed. And of all people the devil is offering it to him, through this woman. Yeah, it got a little heavy handed with the religious rhetoric, but it was still an interesting exploration into the desire of someone who calls himself a fiend yet yearns for redemption and the inability to either gain it or except it. Because he wants what he has, he likes what he is and what he can do. He loves that even among other immortals he’s seen as something other, something special. He genuinely loves being the Brat Prince reigning over this savage garden. He loves that even when he completely screws up as in Queen of the Damned and Tale of the Body Thief, they still love him, they still all gather to comfort him. And yet there is a part of him that can honestly say that he was forced to be what he is, he never consented and therefore should he be granted some sort of redemption for that fact alone.
Feast of all Saints
What I loved about Feast of all Saints is that for everything else it is, it’s also a novel that touches on something that not a lot of African American’s like to talk about which is the hierarchy within our own culture. What allows Marcel to rise above or at least be given the opportunity to rise above is the fairness of his skin. And that’s something that not a lot of authors black or white like to touch on. It opens too many wounds. But in this novel it’s done in such a way that it gets incorporated into the story telling without being preachy about it. It’s just a fact of life that like everything else has to be dealt with.
