Boekverslag : Anne Rice - Interview With The Vampire
De taal ervan is Nederlands en het aantal woorden bedraagt 2663 woorden.
De taal ervan is Nederlands en het aantal woorden bedraagt 2663 woorden.
Samenvatting
Summary of the story:
The story starts in a room where a man is telling his life story to a young man who is interviewing him. This man who is being interviewed is not an ordinary man. He's a vampire. A man who is condemned to eternal life as a man who's dead.
The story of the man's life begins in the year seventeen ninety-one. The vampire was a twenty-five-year old man back then. That year he would be born into darkness. The vampire whose name was Louis lived in New Orleans back then. He spoke French and had a plantation that was habituated by his mother, his sister and by himself. His brother was a very nice man. He cared a lot for Louis and every time when Louis wanted to talk to him he would be willing to listen. Louis also cared deeply for him. His brother was very religious. He was a born catholic. One day his brother came to him with a request. He was having visions. He was having visions that the family was to sell the house and the plantation and had to use the money to get back to France and to use the money to fight the anti Christianity. Louis refused to believe his brother and refused to sell the plantation. They both got into an argument. After a long discussion his brother left the room and the house. As he walked of the stairs he lost his balance and fell. He broke his neck and was dead in an instant. Louis, although it was an accident, blamed himself for this. After that he didn't want to have anything to do with the plantation. He moved his sister and his mother into one of the town houses in New Orleans and he leased the plantation to an agency that would work the plantation for him. But he didn't escape his brother for a moment. At the meantime his sister was being harassed with questions about the incident that killed his brother and became hysteric. Just because that was the way she thought to react. Because of these incidents Louis started to drink. He blamed himself for all the misfortune that came over his family. He wanted to die. So he walked the dark alleys and dark streets alone with the wish to be murdered. This because he was to cowardly to kill himself. And then, when he could have been attacked by anyone, a vampire did. He was drained to the point of death, but still alive. After he was found he was put to bed. A few days later when everyone in the house was asleep Louis got another visit by the vampire. The vampire told him about wonders and about what he was and what Louis could become. Louis was fascinated by what was told him and he knew than that the vampire had came to make him one of his own kind. But he wasn't born that night. He could still see the sunrise. The last sunrise of his existence. The next night he was born in darkness to become a Vampire. To live forever, in the shadow of the day.
After this night he would occupy the plantation again. Only now together with Lestat, the vampire that made him a vampire. In his mortal life Louis was very impressed of Lestat. Impressed of his almost female beauty and he was always impressed of the way Lestat talked. But now he was a vampire. Lestat was boring him with his conversation and he wasn't so beautiful anymore to Louis as he was. The next night Louis had to make his first kill, and so he did. But he didn't like it. He didn't want to kill people to feed his own hunger. After this night he only fed on animals. He became the opposite of Lestat. Lestat loved to play with his victims. He wanted them to trust him and then to feed on their blood. Louis hated him for this. And when time went by he found out that Lestat couldn't or wouldn't answer the questions Louis had about the live of a vampire, about the origin of the vampire. The relationship between him and Lestat excised pure out of necessity. Louis wanted answers about their existence and Lestat needed a house to shelter over day and money to buy clothes. Everything went well until Lestat had his eye on one of the neighbours. The Freniere family occupied the neighbouring plantation. The mother and father of the family were dead. The man in the family, the son, led the plantation and was taking care of his sisters who were all beautiful women but could not take care of the plantation and for them selves. Lestat had his eye on the Freniere man. He wanted him, to feed on his blood. Louis couldn't allow him to do this. He stopped Lestat until one night. The Freniere man had an argument and was going to have a duel. When he left the night ones in the dark Louis and Lestat followed him to witness the duel. Lestat wanted to kill the man first before he could die in the fight, but Louis stopped him with all his power. The fight was one by the Freniere man. But before he could enjoy his victory Louis lost grip on Lestat who fed on the man not knowing what was happening to him. Louis was angry. That night he went to the house Freniere and told the oldest daughter her brother had won the duel but had died an accident. He told her, her name was Babette, that she could manage the plantation. That she mustn't sell the plantation and that she had to make money to support the family despite what people say. Louis fell in a state that you could love for her that night. But the anger for Lestat was very deep now. He couldn't accept the nature of Lestat, the nature to kill. The nights afterwards they got a fight. The same night the plantation was chaotic. The slaves were scared. This was because Lestat had killed a few of them and because they saw Lestat and Louis dine from empty plates. The slaves were muting. Lestat and Louis got out in time and Louis torched the house. From that night they were dead for Louis' family and they moved to the city of New Orleans.
One night Louis and Lestat had a big fight again and Louis went out and walked the streets. There he found a little girl. Her mother had died of the plague and she was waiting for her to wake up. He hold the girl in his arms and then he fed on her. The first human he had fed on since his first kill. Then Lestat came in smiling. He was glad Louis had made a human kill. That he could not suppress his true nature. Louis ran away again fleeing from himself. The next night Lestat, who knew Louis wanted to live him, took the girl whit him. She wasn't dead yet. That night he made the girl a vampire to keep Louis with him. Louis had to take care of her.
The girl's name was Claudia. She was an immortal in the body of a five-year-old. When the years went by her mind grew older. She got a real good relationship with Louis and she slept with him in his coffin. But as the love for Louis grew, the hatred for Lestat grew to. She started to hate Lestat even more that Louis had hated him. He also couldn't answer her question and he didn't want to either. He wouldn't let her and Louis free. But above all she hated him for making her vampire. To condemn her to eternal living in the body of a five year old. She decided to kill Lestat and she did. After that Claudia and Louis decided to leave New Orleans. They decided to go to Europe.
There they went to search other vampires, to learn about their kind, and above all to learn who they were. Were they creatures of the devil or were they creatures of god. They went to look for the answers. And they would find them.
The journey begun in Eastern Europe. According to the books about vampires it was most likely to find other vampires here. As they travelled trough the eastern countries of Europe they found other vampires. But they weren't the same as they were. These vampires were savage and had no self-conscious. They were horrible things with one neutral thing. They had to drink human blood to satisfy their hunger. These vampires could not give them the answers they were looking for, so the journey continued to Western Europe, to the city Paris. Here the 2 vampires would meet a whole community of vampires among whom there was the oldest vampire alive, the vampire Armand. But in this community Claudia and Louis weren't welcome. Armand heard the questions Louis had about vampires. Louis was searching for an excuse for what vampires do, killing. According to Armand vampires are no such thing as creatures of the devil because of the fact that if he exists he is created by God, so the vampire would also be a creature of god. So his power would be given to him by God, if there is a god. Then Louis understood. Now he knew that the life of a vampire is one of pure evil. Because life is a gift. Ones he was in a church and he didn't feel god's present. In his long life he had never seen evidence of God or of the devil. He understood. If there is no such thing as a god who gives life and there is no such thing as afterlife, the vampire takes away the most precious gift this world has to offer, life itself. Creatures that do this, that take away the human life, can be nothing else than evil. This is a fact he had always known, even when he made his first kill, even when he knew he was becoming a vampire. The only thing he didn't do was accepting this. And now he knew. He had to accept the pain. Accept the fact that he had to live an eternal life with pain for what he is and with the knowledge that what he does is something that is pure evil. That it is what his kind does.
Then something happens that would change the life of Louis. Armand would need Louis to make him accustomed in the new century. This would be the only way for him to survive. But there were other vampires that were jealous of Louis and Claudia. They didn't want to accept the new part they plaid in their life and in the life of their 'leader' Armand. And then one vampire came to this group. His name was Lestat. He pointed out Claudia as the one who had tried to kill him. She didn't succeed. This was the excuse where the jealous vampire, Santiago, was waiting for. There was only one crime among vampires and that was killing another vampire. She was sentenced the death penalty. The sun would burn her to ashes. After that happening, Louis, whose vampire powers had grown due to the lessons of Armand became furious. A few days later he killed all the vampires of Paris and left with Armand. Lestat was already gone, he wasn't killed.
After that he and Armand lived together travelling the world. Hundred years later they would go back to New Orleans. Their Louis found Lestat again. Lestat couldn't accept this new century and he only ate animals. Soon he would die if he couldn't find someone to guide him trough the ages to come. When he returned to Armand, Armand asked him if he felt hatred when seeing Lestat. Louis didn't. He felt nothing. And that was something he lied. He thought back of the time Lestat, Claudia and himself were living together. In the room with Lestat he had to cry. Armand couldn't understand this. He thought seeing Lestat would fill Louis up with emotions and would make him come alive. Because that was something Armand wanted. To be alive. Then he knew. His time had come. Louis only wanted to be alone. To live alone. The night Armand had this conversation with Louis would be the last night that Louis would see him. He disappeared. Dying a vampire death. This was the end of the story.
The boy who was taking the interview couldn't accept this end. He thought being a vampire is a beautiful experience, and he wanted to become one. Then the vampire becomes furious. He took the boy and sucked him dry to the point of death. The next day he was gone. The light of the sun was filling the room. That day de boy would go to New Orleans to search the vampire Lestat.
Differences with the movie
The first big difference with the movie is the beginning of the story. The history of the misery of the vampire Louis wasn't known in the movie. The only fact known to the watcher was that he wanted an end to his life.
The second big difference was that of the love Louis felt for his neighbour Babette Freniere. In the movie she isn't even seen.
The third big difference is that Lestat makes another vampire aside Claudia and Louis. This also doesn't happen in the movie.
The fourth big difference is that Claudia and Louis go to Eastern Europe and see the other vampires. This doesn't happen in the movie. They only go to Paris.
The last big difference is that the interviewer is bitten by Louis in the end and is going to search for Lestat. The movie ends when Lestat bites the interviewer when he is driving his car.
The most important figures
The vampire Louis: He is the main character in the book. There is no vampire whom is so tortured by eternal life as Louis. Because of his suffering he almost looks human. He loves the vampire Lestat who is Louis maker. But at the same time Lestat is also the one Louis hates the most. When Claudia is made by Lestat she becomes his greatest love. They become very close and Louis is devastated when Claudia is killed by the deadly rays of the sun.
The Vampire Lestat: This is a real renegade vampire. In Louis eyes he's real brutal and egocentric. He only thinks of his own welfare and he doesn't concern himself about Louis or Claudia. He doesn't want to learn Louis or Claudia about what vampires are, where they come from or if they are truly evil.
The vampire Claudia: Claudia is made by the vampire Lestat. She was only five years old when Louis found her. Her mother had died by the hands of the plague. She had no family. When Louis lost his moral struggle and started taking human lives she became his first victim. Just like Louis she sees her eternal life in darkness as a punishment and she also suffers. This is because her appearances won't change. She is a woman trapped in the body of a five year old. She blames Lestat for this because he made her what she is.
The Vampire Armand: He becomes Louis' new companion. He is also a selfish vampire. Not capable of thinking about anyone but himself. The only thing he wants is to survive. He chooses the persons he needs to do that. First he used the Paris coven to stay in touch with time, but when the coven lost the bond with the 19th century he left them and went on with Louis in whom he found a the new impersonation of the new time.
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