It’s been quite some time since I read this novel, definitely more than ten years. This novel (and the early “Vampire Chronicles” volumes) eventually led me into my first internet fandom. I was a longtime contributor to an Anne Rice online RPG, I wrote novel-length fan fiction, and I attended the Memnoch Ball in New Orleans in 1995. Those are some of my fondest fandom memories, at least until I found a similar “family” in the “X-Files” fandom.
It’s no secret that Anne Rice has fallen from her superstar status, and I never bothered to read several of the more recent volumes of the saga. Like many of the books I enjoyed in college, however, I was tempted to return to the Vampire Chronicles and see if the intervening years had enhanced or changed my impression of the novel.
Conceptually, I found it difficult to see the novelty that was there in the beginning. At the time the novels were fresh and emerging in the public eye, when the film version was impending and had people wringing their hands in anticipation (or terror), they were fairly unique. There wasn’t a glut of vampire fiction out there, and there certainly wasn’t a subgenre of paranormal romance. Now, the subgenre is overflowing to the point of absurdity, and what was once erotic is now paled by the acrobatics of the Anita Blake novels.
In terms of the eroticism, I actually prefer the less graphic descriptions. It leaves more to the imagination, for one thing, and it puts the emphasis on the psychological aspects of the vampiric world. That was always one of the more intriguing elements of the series, and that was still one of my favorite parts of the book.
Unfortunately, the rest of the book suffers from the passage of time. With most of the surprises of the novel now cliché in popular culture, the clunky writing style is amplified. In fact, much of the book is written in such a pretentious tone that the more serious aspects are buried in the resulting frustration.
I’m not saying that “you can never go home again”, since even those many years ago, I found “The Vampire Lestat” to be the more interesting and engaging early novel. Louis is such a morose character that his mood is relentlessly depressing, and that’s a factor. But I don’t think the novel has aged well.
Rating: 6/10
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