#at this point looking through 158 annotations is a nightmare

[occasionalficwriter]

Thoughts on Interview with the Vampire - Book I of the Vampire Chronicles

Part III:

“Why do you look away, why don’t you look at me?(...) Did you think I’d be your daughter forever?Are you the father of fools, the fool of fathers?” - This entire conversation is causing me physical pain.

“Do you know what it means to be loved by Death?” - Nothing to say I just love this one.

“Because if God doesn’t exist we are the creatures of highest consciousness in the universe. We alone understand the passage of time and the value of every minute of human life.(...) if God does not exist, this life... every second of it... is all we have.” - Couldn’t be me spending eternity contemplating the horror of human existence.

“I can now accept the most fantastical truth of all: that there is no meaning to any of this!” - He’s going through it.

“I saw him [Lestat] more kindly than before. Lost like the rest of us. Not the jealous protector of any kind of knowledge he was afraid to share. He knew nothing. There was nothing to know.” - So depressing, Louis, please.

“The realization was coming to me that I found them dull in some awful way: dull, dull everywhere that I looked, their sparkling vampire eyes repetitious, their wit like a dull, brass bell.” - The grass on the other side being greener or something.

“Revenants, (...) Their blood is different, vile. They increase as we do but without skill or care. In the old days-” - Please tell me more.

“It is the crime that means death to any vampire anywhere who commits it. It is to kill your own kind!” - One again questioning my movie memory cause I swear they said the crime was to kill the maker? idk

“‘You would leave me [Claudia] for Armand if he beckoned to you...’ ‘Never...’” - Girl, no one believes you.

“If you knew how he [Armand] drinks death you’d hate him more than you ever hated Lestat. Louis, you must never return to him. I’m in danger!” - The fact she’s warning him is so much worse. I need to shake him.

“And then there is this mysterious child: a child who can never grow, never be self-sufficient.” - I wonder if this is going to be a plot point in tv show, because Claudia was pretty self-sufficient.

“I might be free, free to remain forever in this cell as long as I could be welcome,” - The irony is not lost in me.

“I speak of another kind of love which drew me to him completely as the teacher which Lestat had never been. Knowledge would never be withheld by Armand, I knew it.” - Louis is so sure he’s convincing me. But I’m also thinking about the tv show.

“‘You understand nothing. Your evil is that you cannot be evil, and I [Claudia] must suffer for it. (...) Snatching me from mortal hands like two grim monsters in a nightmare fairy tale, you idle, blind parents! Fathers!’ She spat the word.” - Claudia I adore you so much.

“The measure of my hatred is that love. They are the same! Do you know now how much I hate you!” - 🥺

“It’s you [Claudia] who will not share me with him, it’s you who want every drop of that love.” - Claudia should have killed him too, actually.

“that love which had warmed me in my self-hatred, allowed me to exist. (...) and now at last his [Lestat’s] plan was undone.” - tummy hurts

“‘What has died in this room tonight is the last vestige in my of what was human.’ ‘Well, then you are right. Indeed. We are even.’” - Ouch

“a passion for a vampire who was perhaps more evil than Lestat, for whom I became as evil as Lestat, but in whom I saw the only promise of good in evil of which I would conceive.” - Girl’s so messed up.

“I supposed in my colossal conceit and self-deception that my own grief for my dead brother was the only true emotion. I allowed myself to forget how totally I had fallen in love with Lestat’s iridescent eyes, that I’d sold my soul for a many-colored and luminescent thing,” - Oh so that’s what was happening and why we didn’t even know he cared about Lestat until he was dead.

“When, in fact, all things change except the vampire himself; everything except the vampire is subject to constant corruption and distortion. Soon, with an inflexible mind, and often even with the most flexible mind, this immortality becomes a penitential sentence” - I love this concept on how vampires can end up dying.

“‘Do you mean to tell me there was no bond of love between you and the vampire who made you?’ ‘None,’ I said quickly.” - Say that faster.

“But Louis,(...) this is the very spirit of your age. Don’t you see that? Everyone else feels as you feel. your fall from grace and faith has been the fall of a century.” - Oh, obsessed with Louis representing the modern times - at the time - and being the cure for vampire death, by, you know, being depressed.

“No. I mean, directly. I made you do it! I was near you the night you did it. I exerted my strongest power to persuade you to do it.” - Well, I guess Louis was right, Armand won’t keep knowledge from him.

“She [Claudia] didn’t realize what I realized: he [Armand] could not want her death, because I didn’t want it.” - Is he right? idk anything at this point

“And then I saw Lestat” - Oh, I didn’t expect this at all, I’m so glad it’s different from the movie cause it’s going to be a new experience.

“‘No, (...) You come back to me, Louis.’ he [Lestat] said. For a moment I could not believe my ears. (...) ‘Are you mad!’” - Clearly.

“You promised me, (...) I [Lestat] could take him back with me to New Orleans.” - Literally don’t know which one is more stupid.

“Louis, you must come back to me. There’s something I must tell you... about that night in the swamp.” - Oh 👀

“They’ve made a fool of you [Lestat], (...) You must reach Armand, Armand is the leader here,” - Girl, you’re literally worse, shut up.

“It seemed he was working something with his hands, something I couldn’t see;” - Do I wanna know?

“‘Are you satisfied?’ (...) ‘Yes...’ (...) But then he [Lestat] looked at me, and the tears spilled down his face. ‘Louis, (...) Please, you must listen to me. You must come back...’ And then, bowing his head, he grimaced with shame.” - Who even is this.

“And Lestat sat there with his eyes closed, his face transfigured with his pain. It seemed the double of Lestat, some wounded, feeling creature I’d never known.” - It’s what I’m saying.

“His hadn’t rose to his lips, his face turned away. And the soft, subdued sobs broke from him as he sat back while I stared at him, while I stared at the dress.” - Oh, I didn’t expect to cry? I guess seeing both of them there in their pain and grief is getting to me.

“I [Armand] could not prevent it,” - Who is he trying to convince here?

“The passivity in me has been the core of it all, the real evil.” - The blow, getting back to his conversation with Claudia and Armand.

“And they are the only deaths I have caused in my long life which are both exquisite and good.” - Oh, he’s truly dead now.

“I had made only one real plan in my life, and it was finished.” - My man said, I’m gonna be a protagonist who only acts once, and he did it.

Final thoughts: It took me until this part to stop imagining Brad Pitt as Louis and start seeing Book Louis as his own person, not the tv show Louis that I adore or the movie Louis that I couldn’t care less about.

#interview with the vampire #vampire chronicles #iwtv thoughts #books #my post #at this point looking through 158 annotations is a nightmare #final thoughts: pain