Boekverslag : Anne Rice - The Vampire Lestat
De taal ervan is Engels en het aantal woorden bedraagt 3458 woorden.
De taal ervan is Engels en het aantal woorden bedraagt 3458 woorden.
Summary of the story
The story starts in this century when the vampire Lestat, who is known from his appearance in 'Interview with the vampire' as the companion of Louis, rises again after he went underground. He is waken by the music of some kids playing rock music. When he has gained strength again and finds out that he even become more powerful than he was he starts checking out the world. He sees the world has changed a lot in the twentieth century. The women are free and independent, the people ware the clothes that are comfortable to them and the church doesn't have great power over people anymore. Religion is dying. People do not believe in the supernatural anymore like they use to. The supernatural doesn't play a role in life anymore. So he also doesn't. Lestat knows that his role in 'life' doesn't exist anymore. There is no 'real' evil anymore.
So Lestat decides that he wants to become the real symbol of evil in this time. He wants people to know about him, about vampires. He wants to become a renegade in the vampire community. To let the world shiver. But to do that he has to be able to reach a lot of people. And for that he has to be famous.
Lestat decides that he wants to become a rock star. This because he likes the music and because this particular music has awoken him. So he goes to the rock group that were playing the music when arose again. It were young people, vague, all screaming words in their songs of evil that none of them really meant. Lestat made them an offer. He wanted to join their band and in return he promised to make them famous. (Lestat was very wealthy) They agreed and Lestat introduced himself. And for the first time in his life he told mortals who he wasn't planning to kill that he was a vampire. The vampire Lestat. Suddenly the youngsters started to laugh as if it was really funny. Lestat asked why they had to laugh and they explained that there was a figure in a book that had exactly the same name as Lestat and whom was also a vampire. Lestat asked if he could see the book and they gave it to him. 'Interview with the vampire' was the title. He asked if he could read that book and they allowed him to loan it for reading. He found out that his friend Louis had told his entire life story to a mortal. He found out how Louis thought about him, what had happened to them, what had happened to Louis and Claudia in their trip through Europe, and of course he remembered all their experiences together. But Lestat became furious at Louis. How could he say such things about him. Didn't Louis realise that he himself had learned everything about being a vampire, that he didn't need teachings of Lestat.
So Lestat decides that he will also write his own autobiography. And in this autobiography he tells everything about his experiences as a mortal and as a vampire. He wants everybody to know his true nature, a nature Louis neglected to mention.
At the beginning of his autobiography the story really starts off. His life begins in eighteenth century France, where Lestat and his family of Aristocrats live. Lestat is the youngest son and his full name is Lestat de Lioncourt. He doesn't feel comfortable at home and he doesn't get along with his brothers and father. They are denying him education and Lestat isn't able to read. The only thing Lestat wants is to be respected. His mother is very important to him. She doesn't talk much but he has the idea she is the only one who cares about him. Every time when he has a fight with his father and brothers she tries to comfort him. In the winter Lestat has to hunt the wolves that eat the cattle. He goes hunting, taking with him his best dogs his horse and some weapons. He finds the pack and he succeeds in killing them. But at the price of the death of his dogs, his horse and nearly himself. When he returns home the villagers respect him for what he did, but his father and brother don't. For them he is still nothing. His mother is proud. In the village he is admired by everybody and many people want to talk to him. He meets Nicolas, a violin player who is just like him. They both become friends and they both long for freedom.
Than one day there came a group of Italian actors in his village. Lestat met them and he also met a girl there. The actors asked Lestat if he wanted to join them in their performance. He agreed to join the play. He became Lelio, an Italian lover. For the first time in his life he really felt home among people. He felt part of the group. So when they were continuing their journey to Paris he wanted to go along with them. But his father found out where Lestat was going and he sends his two other sons to get him back. Lestat was miserable. His mother was also feeling his burden.
So together with Nicalas he planned to run off to Paris. They both wanted to leave their village, they both wanted to live. Before leaving he talked to his mother. She was Italian and he promised to write her letters every week in her language so that his brothers and father wouldn't be able to read it. She gave him some money and after saying goodbye he left for Paris.
In Paris Lestat started a whole new life. He joined the actors again as Lelio and Nicolas was making money playing the violin. They had a wonderful life. Lestat wrote his mother every week and she returned his letters with questions. Everything was going fine. But one night when Lestat was performing he looked in the audience and he saw a face. A very white face that was staring at him. When he looked for this face after the play he couldn't find it. He saw it many times, every night when he had to do the play. This face didn't concern him until he saw it again and then herd a voice say 'wolfkiller'. When he watched the face again he heard 'wolfkiller' again. The face was gone. Lestat told Nicolas about this, but Nicolas told him not to worry. Every time Lestat had to perform he saw the face staring at him and he heard 'wolfkiller', but he tried to ignore it.
Than one night when he and Nicolas were vast asleep he noticed a figure in their room. He thought he was dreaming but the figure took hold of him. Lestat couldn't imagine how this person came in, everything was locked and the doors were very strong. Than he saw who the figure was. It was that man with the white face. The man took him and Lestat tried to scream, and he kicked around him trying to get loose. But the man hold his grip and before Lestat new it he was flying over the roofs of Paris. He tried to get free bur he couldn't. Than he just had to close his eyes, he didn't feel his body anymore, he felt free of everything. It was like a dream, wonderful. Then he felt pane, his body was coming back to him. He was in a room together with this person. Lestat started to resist again he kicked and hit the man on his face on his body but the man was just laughing. Finally Lestat gave up. The man said "Perfect". Lestat looked at him. The man told Lestat he was Magnus, a vampire. He told Lestat he was chosen. Than Lestat felt fear and he tried to resist again. But he vampire took hold of Lestat and he lost conscience. At dusk Lestat woke again. Remembering the events of the past night as a dream. He was really thirsty. He saw the sun going down. Than he realised it was no dream. He was so thirsty. Than he saw a bottle of wine. He drank the entire bottle. He had drunk another one that stood beside the first one. He was very drunk. The sun was gone and the vampire returned. He drunk the blood of Lestat and let Lestat, who wanted only to live, drink of his blood. Lestat was born as a vampire, a child of the night. After this scene the vampire Magnus jumped into a fire he himself had caused. Lestat got orders to scatter his ashes or he might come back and would kill Lestat. Lestat was feeling sad. He saw himself in a mirror, his face white, his face without flaws, and his long blond hair soft as silk. His eyes terrified him the most. They weren't blue anymore, but grey green. He realised that to a mortal he had to be very beautiful. He was now an immortal.
The days after that he realised that he had to find out all there was to know about being a vampire by himself. This because he hadn't seen other vampires. When time went by he started to feel a presence. Every time when he started to look for this presence he couldn't find it. It was simply gone. Than one day he got a message that his mother, that he continued writing, was very sick. She was about to die but she wanted to look at her son for the last time in her life. He decided to go into her request. He wanted to see her to. At the house in Paris where she was brought by the lawyer of Lestat she waited for him. Nicolas also waited there. After sundown Lestat went to that house. There he saw Nicolas and his lawyer. They told him his mother was in the other room. He went in. He saw her suffer, fighting the disease. He couldn't see his mother, who used to be a beautiful woman, like that. He red her mind and showed her his life and what he had become through telepathy. She also wanted to join her son in his life in the night. He made her a vampire. She was from that moment only to be named Gabrielle.
Together they hunted the streets of Paris at night. Hunting for the blood of the 'evildoers' not the innocent. They both felt the presence of the thing. And finally it revealed itself. It were also vampires under the command of the coven leader, The vampire Armand. They had a fight and Lestat and Gabrielle were taken prisoner. Armand and his coven were very primitive vampires. They wouldn't dare to go in a church and considered themselves as servants of Satan. They saw Lestat go in to churches, dress in colour instead of black and act like a human. He did things no other vampire ever did, and he didn't want to be part of the group. Lestat and Gabrielle finally broke free and destroyed the coven of Armand. Together with Armand they formed a new coven of modern vampires who lived among humans. They started the 'Théatre des Vampires'. Armand told Lestat about his life, that he was 700 years old and that his maker, Marius was even older, known as a child of the millennia, who was 2000 years old. After telling Lestat about his life he asked Lestat to stay with him. Lestat refused and wanted to find other vampires to find out what vampires were where they came from. Lestat wanted to find Marius.
Together with Gabrielle he searched Europe for this 2000-year-old vampire. They searched Europe for him, meeting many vampires that wanted to see him, the destroyer of the Paris coven and the vampire that started the new Paris coven in 'Théatre des Vampires'. The vampire who was unlike them very human. Everywhere where Lestat en Gabrielle went they asked for Marius and got the same answer. Marius was long dead. Him being alive was only a legend, a story. But Lestat felt that Marius was alive. So everywhere he went he carved a message for Marius in a wall or on a tree. By doing this he was braking the unwritten rules of the vampires, never to call another vampire in public by name, so that mortals could know who this vampire was. But they didn't give up. But at the same time Lestat sensed that Gabrielle wanted to leave him. That she wanted to live her own life. So nights she just disappeared. But every time when he wanted to leave for another city she was there. Then in the new city she would stay with him and after a few nights she would leave again. Then the search went to Egypt. When Lestat was still in Paris he also made Nicolas a vampire. But Nicolas wasn't fit for immortality. He couldn't live with him self and he was a pest in the Paris' coven. In Egypt came the message that the revolution had broken out. And there also came a message that Nicolas was set prison by Armand en that after Armand freed him he through himself in the fire, ending his life as a vampire. And than to make the misery complete for Lestat Gabrielle told him she wanted to leave him. She left.
Nights went by in Egypt. Lestat still hadn't found Marius. And he stopped feeding himself on mortal. Than one night he saw somebody watching him from a garden. This person looked write in his apartment. He scared this person. He new that he wouldn't be safe in his apartment. The mortals would look for him over day. He fled. He fled to a ruin. There he lay a rest in the sand. Nights went by again. He was to weak to get up again. He wanted to leave. Then he saw a person coming towards him. Marius… But he couldn't get up. Marius came to him. Took Lestat in his arms and let Lestat drink his blood. Than Lestat passed out.
When Lestat recovered the next night he was on the way to Marius' island. There Marius told Lestat about his life, about the history of vampires and about his view of what vampires had to be in the world. Marius' blood had strengthened Lestat. He didn't have to feed for days. And than Marius showed Lestat something only few vampires had seen in their immortal lives. He saw the mother and father of all vampires. Marius showed them to Lestat. The father and mother both sat still. They looked like marble statues. Not moving, breathing or speaking. They were very white. It made Lestat scared. He knew that these vampires, who were the first were very old. And he new that he would also become that old and that when he would he would look just like them. So inhuman.
A few nights later Marius had to leave for a while. He forbids Lestat to go to the mother and father. He closed a heave door with his powers. He new Lestat wasn't able to open these doors. Then Lestat took a violin. He had learned to play this from watching Nicolas. He left for the mother, he wanted to play for her, to wake her up. He knew the doors would be closed but he didn't care. But when he came, the heavy doors were opened. He played for the mother and suddenly she was holding him. They drank eachothers blood, holding very tight. She was beautiful. But than he felt the king taking him off of her. He tried to crush Lestat. But the mother and Marius, who just came in to the room, took the king away from Lestat. Marius and Lestat left the room. After this incident they promised that they would meet eachother again. Marius said that Lestat could telepathically reach him. Lestat new this to be true. Marius gave Lestat the advice to live his life and to go underground when he wouldn't be able to adjust to the time where he would live in.
So this is what Lestat did. He left Marius' island and went to the United States of America. There he would run in to Louis, who he would make a vampire. He Louis and Claudia their adopted vampire daughter would live together for sixty years. After those years they would leave Lestat together. Claudia would even try to kill Lestat. But because of the queens blood he would survive the assassination. Lestat would return to Paris where he would be betrayed by Armand, and after all that he would finally go underground, not waking up until the end of the 20th century. Than the Autobiography ends.
Lestat has finished his book. The story continues. Lestat and his band become very famous. Lestat publishes his book and he plans his concert were he will reveal everything about vampires to the mortal world. He has broken all the rules. He told mortals about vampires, he told the names of many immortals like Pandora, Marius and Armand. The ancient ones might want to destroy him. Especially Marius because he told about the mother and Father. But Lestat wasn't afraid. The night before the concert Louis comes to him. It's a reunion of old friends. They talk for a while and Louis decides he wants to be by Lestat's side on the concert. Lestat agrees. The night of the concert there are many vampires in the hall. They all want to kill both Louis, for his book Interview with the vampire, and Lestat for his lyrics and for his book. After the concert they attack Lestat. But he and Louis, who are older than most of the attackers can hold them off. And they get help of Lestat's old companion Gabrielle. Then suddenly when Lestat almost lost the battle the attackers are going up in flames. Every one of them. But Lestat doesn't see his saviour. Is it one of the ancient ones? Is it Marius who wants to destroy Lestat himself. Lestat doesn't stay to find out. He takes off.
Then the sun arose and they had to find shelter. Gabrielle slept out in the open under the ground. Louis and Lestat would find shelter. When Lestat almost closed his eyes he saw someone ancient he had seen before. The queen, the mother off all vampires had awakened. But he had to close his eyes. She took him with her.
That was the end of the story. The sequel is the book: The queen of the damned. The previous book is: Interview with the vampire.
Main Characters
The Vampire Lestat: When you get to know him you see he is a very wild kind of vampire. He doesn't obey rules he only wants to break them. He is an immortal who wants to live like a human, to live among humans in the shadow of the day, or in other words, the night. Lestat wants to become the new symbol of true evil. He doesn't want to accept that vampires have no place in this time anymore. Lestat is said to be one of the vampires who is truly immortal and truly very much alive.
The Vampire Marius: He is the second oldest vampire Lestat has met until then. He is the one Lestat wants to meet because he is the keeper of 'those who must be kept', the mother and father, the king and queen of all vampires. He is the one who holds the wisdom of 2000 years of experience.
Nicolas: He is Lestat best friend when he is still a mortal. They both run of to Paris to start a life of their own. To be free. He also becomes a vampire but he can't live that life and destroys himself.
The Vampire Gabrielle: She is Lestat's mortal mother. Lestat also makes her a child of the night. This because he doesn't want her to die.
My opinion of the book
I think this book was a nice one to read. I like mystic books and books with a touch of poetic language. For instance 'Children of the night' or 'Children of the millennia' are poetic names for different kind of vampires. I also like the story. Anne Rice really gets into the mind of the vampire Lestat just like she did in the book Interview with the vampire. As the reader you sometimes get the idea that you are speaking with Lestat directly.
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