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If you have read my opinion on Interview With The Vampire, you will know that Anne Rice’s style of writing had made me start to fall in love with Lestat, the Master vampire. By the end of this book, I was now truly in love with him. This book is about his story, how he came to be ... Read review
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A review by carolinesite on The Vampire Lestat: The Vampire Chronicles (Vol 2) - Anne Rice March 16th, 2001
Author's product rating:
Would you read it again?
Absolutely
Story
Outstanding
Characters
Outstanding
Readability
Excellent
How does it compare to other works by the same author?
Excellent
Advantages:
A must for readers of the first chronicle . Beautifully written .
Disadvantages:
None whatsoever .
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
I have just finished reading the second book of Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles. It has taken just a few days to read. A fatter book than the first, it was compelling reading, and I just could not put it down. I found myself not only reading this at bedtime, but in the middle of the day too.
If you have read my opinion on Interview With The Vampire, you will know that Anne Rice’s style of writing had made me start to fall in love with Lestat, the Master vampire. By the end of this book, I was now truly in love with him. This book is about his story, how he came to be vampire, his search for knowledge about his kind, and about the love and fears he has felt throughout his 200 years of immortality. I wanted to hold him, I wanted to tell him things that I know I cannot. But it wasn’t a feeling of desire. The vampires have no sexual contact of the kind that we know. Their love is displayed through their beauty of each other, and the drinking of each others blood (not that there was a lot of that).
Lestat’s story starts as he rises in present day (mid eighties). He has been under the ground since 1929, a long vampire sleep that only the stronger and older vampires can endure. Although asleep, he has been listening to the changes going on in modern day. The sound of amplified music, moving pictures, and other sounds. He befriends a rock group, and he is surprised that they have heard of him. They show him the book, Interview With The Vampire, and he reads it over and over again. They obviously think the book is fiction, and that he has taken his name from there. They do not suspect that he is indeed a real vampire.
Louis has told his story to the world, something a vampire must never do; reveal the secrets of the Dark Gift, or mention the names of other immortals. But who could believe it? Lestat starts to write his own account, starting from before he was a vampire.
He was the youngest son of a Marquis. His father was blind, and his mother was dying. He was known as the ‘wolf killer’ to the villagers, and he befriended one of the villager’s son, Nicholas. Nicholas loved to play the violin, and Lestat loved to hear him play it. They would have conversations about good and evil, whether there was a God and a Devil, and how one day they would be on the stage. They ran away together to Paris, where they joined a theatre company. Lestat an actor, Nicholas in the orchestra. One night, a figure burst through their window and took Lestat. It was a vampire. An old spindly looking vampire, named Magnus. Magnus took him to his tower and made him a vampire. He told Lestat that there were plenty of riches in this tower for him to survive. He also told him never to drink blood from mortals after their hearts had stopped. That is all Lestat was to know about his Dark Gift. Magnus threw himself onto a fire. He was left alone. Like a child he cried. “Don’t leave me, Magnus”.
He gradually learnt, by himself, what he had to do to sustain himself. With the riches Magnus had left, he brought the theatre that he so much loved, and he brought his beloved Nicholas the most beautiful violin. Of course no one knew of Lestat’s fate. No one saw him, for a long time he stayed in the shadows. All his communications were done through a solicitor.
He received word that his mother was about to die, and she came to Paris to see her son. He visited her and told her what had happened. He could not bear to see his beautiful mother die, and asked her if she would join him in his world of immortality. She did.
He taught her what he had learnt. Soon they could feel a strange presence. Other immortals. After a fight, they were taken to a vampire coven under an old cemetery. The vampires were dressed in filthy rags, they were like ghouls. They were disgusted that these 2 were living as outcasts. That they were walking amid mortals. Lestat told them that times had changed, and that they too could be doing as they were. This was his first meeting with the coven leader, Armand. There was a love - hate relationship between the 2. They admired each others beauty, but Armand wanted to rule Lestat. The coven had also imprisoned Nicholas, and had been feeding from him. He would die, but Lestat could not conceive this, so made him a vampire.
After a while, Lestat set Armand up in the theatre that he owned, allowed him to stay in the tower that Magnus had given to him, as long as he took care of Nicholas and the other remaining vampires. Nicholas had hated being given the Dark Gift, and despised Lestat for it. They changed the name of the theatre to The Theatre of Vampires, where mortals would come and see (unknown to them), real vampires performing on the stage.
Lestat and his mother left them there, in Paris, in search of the knowledge they wanted to know about how they came to be in existence. They travelled to Greece, Italy and Egypt in search of this, until after 10 years they decided to part ways.
His story goes to reveal how he met up with Marius, the vampire that had made Armand. Marius was the oldest living vampire, centuries old, but was 40 years old forever. He got the answers to his questions, and also learnt of Those Who Must Be Kept.
When Lestat heard of the French Revolution, and that the rest of his family had been killed, he wanted to visit the New World, America. His father had been shipped to safety in New Orleans.
This is where Lestat’s story and Louis story meet, and I shall not go on so as not to spoil anything. Anne Rice describes beautiful scenery as Lestat travels the Old World. Her writing style is excellent, as is her research into ancient history. You could almost believe this all to be true. The ending of this book had me ecstatic. I was so happy, and very nearly shed a tear, when an old friend returns to him.
I have now started to read the third of the Chronicles, Queen of the Damned, and as I turned the first few pages, I was overjoyed to see that it is Lestat once again, narrating the story.
More Reviews
Let me bite your neck Review ofThe Vampire Lestat: The Vampire Chronicles (Vol 2) - Anne Riceby
chachaqueen
Advantages: An amazing believable world, Can't put it down! Disadvantages: Can't put it down!
...decided to start writing about the Vampire Chronicles at the second one! Odd maybe, but an Interview with a Vampire, the first book of the series, is very well known now, especially after the release of the film. I decided to start with the next one along, The Vampire Lestat, as I felt that this is where you can really start to enter the world that Anne Rice has created.
So what are the Vampire Chronicles? The Vampire Chronicles are based around ... ...by some of the older vampires. Although an Interview with a Vampire began with Louis Pont du Lac, it is Lestat who is the central figure for the Chronicles. I will explain more later!
The Vampire Lestat begins in the mid 1980's where Lestat is woken by listening to a rock band playing nearby. He tells you how the world looks through his eyes, as he has been asleep since the last time that Louis saw him.
He then proceeds to tell his story:
He begins ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Would you read it again?
Story
Characters
Readability
How does it compare to ...
very helpful
18.11.2002
Lestat Review ofThe Vampire Lestat: The Vampire Chronicles (Vol 2) - Anne Riceby
sandyrass
Advantages: This is the definitive work of Vampire fiction of recent times, if not ever. Disadvantages: None whatsoever
...entire and wholly believable as the one in which we live. The sheer scope of this particular novel is what makes it stand out at the definitive vampire novel of modern time. Charting the life of the intensely charismatic Lestat from his early childhood through to adulthood as a human, and then onward into his life after receiving the 'Dark Gift', I defy any person not to fall hopelessly in love with this character. Even through the most chillingly ... ...to detail is exemplary, making the whole book leap into life.
Out of all her books, this and 'Queen of the Damned' which continues the story as this leaves off, are the ones which should have been immortalised on film. Upon reading it the images immediately spring to life.
The predecessor 'Interview with the Vampire' too was a great novel, but the span of time between that and this, her second novel in the series, shows a leap in literary skills ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: Suspense and drama in the usual style by Ms Rice Disadvantages: None
...Following on from Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice wrote The Vampire Lestat as the second part of The Vampire Chronicles. As a quick recap (but if you haven’t read Interview with the Vampire or seen the film, this will mean nothing to you!), Lestat was Louis’ creator in Interview with the Vampire and well, wasn’t considered to be a popular ‘vamp’ by Louis in his narration. Lestat was regarded by Louis, as a bit ... ...and Claudia (another child of the devil-spawn, Lestat who was this time a real child) got a bit upset by this, felt Lestat was a nasty bit of work, and too possessive by far and tried to kill him – did they succeed? Well, would Rice have written a follow up from the perspective of Lestat if they had?
Lestat’s narrative starts with his recent ‘rising’ from living in disgrace in an old ramshackled house in New Orleans and describes ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: Takes all of the good aspects of 'Interview with a Vampire', and suffuses them with the joy and passions of the inimitable Lestat. Disadvantages: Not really 'pure horror', more darkly gothic atmosphere.
'The Vampire Lestat' was the sequel to the radical 'Interview with the Vampire', and was the cement that made the Anne Rice vampire machine take true root in the subconscious. A better book by far (though the first too was very good), the difference lies mostly in the narrator. Where Louis, the interviewee of the title in the first, was made solemn and guilt-wracked by his undead condition, Lestat is wild, impetuous and joyful.
Those who read the ... ...the first place, and his companion for many years. By the end of novel the first, Lestat was in poor condition, made pathetic by his inability to comprehend the vast changes that the 20th Century had brought to the world. At the start of 'The Vampire Lestat', he gets the hang of it, and embraces it with maniacal joy. The excuse for the narration is a fun one - 'Interview with the Vampire' was indeed published, and Lestat is annoyed at what he sees ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: engaging and moreish, Disadvantages: sometimes goes of track.
The Vampire Lestat was written by Anne Rice and Is the second volume in the 'vampire chronicles'.
After watching the interview with the vampire, I wanted to know what happened next, so I went out and bought the book.
The book is about the journey of a a dissilusioned french lesser royal, from his initial mortal life to imortality.
The book opens with Lestat in the present world, reflecting on his past and giving opinions on the modern world, from ... ...and good looks, he attracts the attention of an ancient and bitter immortal. Lestat is abducted and transformed into a vampire himself.
Lestat spends the first part of his imortal life, pondering his future as a vampire and lives in despair.
He haunts the backstreets of paris, preying on wrong doer's, desperatey trying to aquire a taste for his new life.
In a conflict between his past and present state he abandons his family and friends. Lestat ...
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