Interview with the Vampire (1976), a Novel by Anne Rice: summary

The book contains 308 pages and published 42 times since 1976. This edition was published by Sphere in Great Britain in 2014. The adaptation film is good, but the book is better. The vampires are made from human, their despair in immortality, and complicated conflict, the shadow beyond morality when they suck human’s blood. 

The story follows the interview of a boy, a reporter, with a vampire named Louis in a tape recording. Describing his life as vampire: Lestat, the vampire who turned him to be a vampire, the loneliness by converting an orphaned five-year-old girl into a vampire named Claudia, morally question, the conflict with his new family in vampire world. 

Interview with the Vampire (1976), a Novel by Anne Rice: summary

For a long time he stood against the dim light from the street, and the passing beam of traffic. The boy could see the furnishings of the room more clearly now. He set his brief case on the table and waited. The vampire already waited for him. The boy explained he had enough tape to record the interview.

The vampire was utterly white and smooth, as if he were sculpted from bleached one, and his face was seemingly inanimate as a statue, except for brilliant green eyes that looked down at the boy intently like flame in skull. The boy shuddered, his eyes moved slowly over the finely tailored black coat he’d only glimpsed in the bar, and the gleam of white collar that as white as the vampire’s flesh. He stared at the vampire’s full black hair, the waves that were combed back over the tips of the ears. The vampire in French accent ensured he would not hurt the boy, then he started his story before he became a vampire.

He was twenty-five-year-old man he became a vampire, and the year was seventeen ninety-one. It was a tragedy, his younger brother died. They were living in Louisiana, they received a land grant and settled indigo plantations on the Mississippi very near to New Orleans. Their life was both luxurious and primitive. They lived far better than they could have ever lived in France. His father was dead, and he was head of the family.

His brother was so different from everyone. Prayer was mattered to him, he began to see visions. He was fifteen, very handsome, smoothest skin, the largest blue eyes. Finally he built an oratory removed from the house. He lived in oratory, day and night he knelt before the altar. The slaves all thought he was mad. He loved his brother, encouraged him in his prayer and meditations. One of the servants saw his entire body moved forward as if being swept by the wind, another said he was about to say something. They had argued before he fell.

Meantime, the slaves on his former plantation had begun to talk of seeing his ghost on the gallery. He drank all the time, lived like a man who wanted to die but who had no courage to do it himself. He walked black streets and alleys alone. A vampire attacked him, and sucked his blood, but he didn’t die. The vampire who sucked him came back that night he wanted Pointe du Lac, his plantation.

He thought the man was another doctor, he was no ordinary man at all. His grey eyes burned him with an incandescene, and long white hands hung by his sides were not those of human being. Vampire Lestat wanted the plantation. A mundane reason, surely, for granting him a life which last until the end of the world. Lestat had human problems, a blind father who did not know his son was a vampire and must not to find out. Living in New Orleans had become difficult for him, considering and the necessity to care for his father, he wanted the plantation.

Lestat was no more human to him than a biblical angel. He converted Louis into a vampire, as soon as the became the accustomed to the sounds and sights, it began to ache. All human fluids were being forced out him. The entire France was under influence of the devil, the Revolution had been his greatest triumph.

No one found Louis in New Orleans, no one could explain the blind old man’s presence in master bedroom. Louis’s sister had contacted the police, several of them were Pointe du Lac when he arrived. It was already quite naturally dark, the police met him in minimal light. After Louis settled, he had the problem of the plantation itself. His slaves were in a state of confusion, and no work had been done all day. They didin’t realize at the time that the slaves would be the first, possibly the only ones, to ever suspect that they Louis were not ordinary creatures. They failed to realize that their experience with the supernatural was far greater than that of white men. The sucking mesmerized him, the warm struggling of the man was soothing to the tension of his hand. Vampire didn’t drink after the dead’s blood. The experience of killing had been cataclysmic. So had that of sucking Lestat’s wrist.

New Orleans was filled not only with the French and Spanish of all classes who had formed in part its peculiar aristocracy, but later with immigrants all of kinds, the Irish and the German in peculiar. Then there were not only with the black slaves, yet unhomogenized and fantastical in their in their different tribal and manners, but the great growing class of the free people of the color. And, of course, the planters, always the planters, coming down to the town with their families in shining landaus to buy evening gowns and silver and gems, to crowd the narrow streets on the way to the old French Opera House and the Theatre d’Orleans and the St. Louis Cathedral. New Orleans was a magical and magnificent place to live. In which the vampire, richly dressed and gracefully walked through the pool of light. Before the whisper that said he was attracted any at all, too pale and natural, had even passed the lips, the vampire might be gone. Lestat killed humans all the times, sometimes two or three a night, the triumphant kill for Lestat was a young man. Louis killed animals.

They both knew the plantation, and Louis had indulged in one of the greatest pleasures of a vampire, that of watching them unbeknownst to them. There were the Freniere sisters, they were a unique group of women. Each in her way was as smart as the brother. He named her Babette, was not only as smart as his brother, but far wiser. All were totally were dependent upon young Freniere. If he died in the duel, the plantation would be collapse. It was the first battle with Lestat, Louis had prevented him from killing the boy for months, Lestat had meant to kill before the Spanish boy could. Freniere was mortally wounded, but he killed the boy later.

Louis had first battle with Lestat, when he wanted to kill Freniere’s boy. Louis was a handsome when he was alive. It was about seventeen ninety-five, they having lived there for four years in relative quite, investing the money, increasing their lands, purchasing apartments and town houses in New Orleans which he rented. He visited Babette and talked to her. They he visited her frequently, and she was happy, but finally she learned him as a devil. He was in love with her, but he felt a desire for communication, stronger than any desire that he felt. He felt lonely. Lestat never told him how he had become a vampire or where he might find a single other member of vampire. He hated him, wanted to leave him.  

She had been crying for so long, she sat beside a dead woman, a woman who’d been dead for some days. She was only five at most, and very thin, and her face was stained with dirt and tears. She beg him for help, they had took the ship, she said, before the plague came; their father was waiting. Louis wished to leave Lestat, he wanted to travel the world to find other vampires. Lestat had warned him, vampires were killers, they were lone predators. They were jealous of their secret and of their territory; and one would be the slave of the other, the way Louis was of him.

Their life was much change with Mademoiselle Claudia, though at first time she screamed all the time look for her mother. She was not a child any longer, she was a vampire child. Louis protected her from Lestat, gathered her into his coffin every morning. Lestat gave little suggestions that he might do her harm.  A starving child was a frightful sight. The plague raged in the city then, they took her to cemeteries, to her decaying corpse of a woman. 

All the time Louis educated Claudia, whispering in her tiny ear that their eternal life was useless to them if they did not see the beauty around them, the creation mortals everywhere, teaching her coherent songs and poetry. Years passed. Yet more and more her doll-like face seemed lost somewhere with neglected toys and the loss of a certain patience. She was not a child any longer but a woman, she wanted a coffin of her own. Vampire didn’t grow up, her perform was still child’s bod, but she fell in love with her father, Louis.

Before leaving, Louis had arranged the funds for Lestat, he took Claudia with him to Europe. He was merely Lestat’s banker. It was Claudia to kill him, she wanted to free them both. Though he already warned her, Lestat was stronger than her. She put poison in his absinthe. She sank the knife into his chest, the blood flew everywhere like water. His entire body was shriveling, drying up, the skin thick and wrinkle. She had wrapped Lestat’s body in a sheet and sprinkle it over with the long-stemmed chrysanthemums.

Louis didn’t remember Europe from his childhood, not even the voyage to America. He was a Creole, spoke French and read French.  She mad a plan, it was her idea most definitely that they must go fist to central Europe, where the vampire seemed most prevalent. He remembered rolling over and over with Lestat in the flames, feeling the suffocating heat in his face, seeing the flames above his back when he rolled under him. Lestat didn’t die, he appeared. He wanted to kill Claudia.

From the first moment they arrived in Varna, he had perceived certain charges in her which made him at once aware she was Lestat’s daughter as well as his own. From Louis she had learned the value of money, but from Lestat she had inherited a passion of spending it. They travelled alone in strange county, abut finally they came to a village which was to be the turning point in their travels.

They met an Englishman in the inn, his wife had killed by the vampires. Morgan and Emily were on a honeymoon journey, through Germany. Emily’s story had led them went to the vampire’s nest, and it was in the ruins. A vampire attacked them, but Louis killed him, they had met the European vampire.  They found Morgan was dying on the ruins, Claudia sank her teeth and his hands dropped helpless.

It was throughout Transylvania and Hungary and Bulgaria, and all those countries where the peasants knew the living dead walked, and the legends of the vampires abounded.  They must bypass Vienna, they need their language, their people, Louis wanted go directly to Paris. After the hopeless nights of wandering in Eastern Europe, they lived again, they were in love. It was rumored to be one of the largest hotels in Europe, the stayed in one of the finest suites. She loved the galleries, the theatre, the cafes. She liked the lady doll, and asked Louis to visit the woman who made it. 

A vampire had stalked him for days. He had come to Paris looking for Louis. Santiago gave him a card invitation from Armand. The master vampire welcomed them in Theatre des Vampires. Louis and Claudia watched perfect performance by the vampires, they were in community of vampires. Armand welcomed them to his house. Several women vampires had gathered around Armand, their arms were around his waist. Estelle and Celeste had porcelain beauties. Claudia disliked the two vampires, they were revenants, the vampires of Eastern Europe.

Santiago, the tall vampire, warned Claudia about the crime she had committed to the vampire that made her.  Claudia was in danger, Louis had convinced her that Armand alone among the vampires of the theater could be trusted. Armand was more powerful than Santiago.  Louis was older than Santiago. Celeste had a great deal of power, being one of the oldest, and she was jealous of the child’s beauty. Armand was beautiful and simple, he had a mortal boy, a slave. It was an icon for Louis o love. Not physical love, for vampires, physical love culminated was satisfied in one thing, the killing. Killing other vampires were very exciting, that was why it was forbidden under penalty of death.

Claudia brought a woman, she asked Louis to turn Madeleine to be a vampire. She was gone from him into the arms of Madeleine. The doll maker had done with her life. She had only seen the first vein of suffering, she had understanding of death. She was easily sharpened, so easily driven to wanton violence.

Louis didn’t know his own powers, Armand had thought him to use power, and higher and higher they climbed the wall. Armand also explained the vampires did not age, and they would only hurt for a while. He was shock to find Lestat in the theater, he insisted want to kill Claudia. They had been killed Madeleine and Claudia, but the child, the ancient one, was ashes. Santiago had killed her. Louis had burnt the theater, Santiago was killed and all the vampires in it.

They left Paris and traveled the world. But all during those years, he had desire to return to New Orleans. And Armand who was his constant companion, and his only companion, existed at a great distance from him, beyond that veil which separated him from all living things, a veil which a form of shroud. At last, they came to America and lived in New York for a long time. He had believed him to be dead in Theatre des Vampires, but Armand told him later. Armand tried to protect him from the knowledge, hoping that he would not undertake a long journey for revenge. He hadn’t thought of Lestat at all the night he had torched the theater, he had thought of Santiago and Celeste and the others who had destroyed Claudia. In New Orleans, he had seen Lestat. At the end of the interview, the reporter asked Louis to make him a vampire, but he could still feel the sun. 

*****

11 pm

March 20, 2015

Sekapur Sirih

Buku setebal 308 dan dipublis di Britania Raya pada tahun 2014 yang merupakan terbitan ke 42, terbitan pertamanya pada tahun 1976. Telah menemani perjalanan di sejumlah kota dan menikmati kopi latte di toko kopi kesayangan. Sebuah karya masterpis dari penulis Anne Rice, seorang penulis fantasi sekuel vampire berkebangsaan Amerika. Telah difilmkan, dan sebuah tontonan yang bagus,

Ini adalah wawancara vampire dengan seorang repoter muda, yang direkam dalam tape rekorder. Tokoh vampir yang dibuat hidup seperti manusia, memiliki perasaan bersalah ketika membunuh dan menghisap darah manusia, tidak pernah tua dan abadi, jika terluka, bisa sembuh sendiri dalam waktu cepat. Kehadiran vampir belia berumur lima tahun, Claudia, sangat menghibur vampir Louis yang selama ini merasa kesepian, karena vampir Lesta yang mengubah dia menjadi vampire tidak pernah memberitahu komunitas mereka. Ada kasih, balas dendam, pengampunan, petualangan, persahabatan, kecemburuan dirangkai menarik dalam cerita klasik fantasi ini. 

Terjemahan dalam Bahasa Indonesia:  Wawancara dengan Vampir, Anne Rice

Vampir Lestat yang merupakan vampir muda, menarik, dan energik tengah berada dalam kesunyian dan membutuhkan seorang teman. Louis, pemuda keturunan Perancis yang kaya dalam suasana berduka atas kematian adik lelakinya. Dia didatangi Lestat dan mengubahnya menjadi vampir. Pemuda kaya itu dipilihnya untuk menopang ayahnya, mortal (tidak abadi, manusia biasa), yang buta dalam usia tuanya. Akhirnya keduanya pun berteman karena bagaimanapun Louis perlu panduan dari Lestat untuk menjalani kehidupan barunya sebagai vampir tanpa setahu keluarganya dan saudarinya.

Dan yang menjadi masalah adalah pembantu rumah tangga dan juga budak berkulit hitam, mampu mencium keberadaan keduanya adalah vampir. Pembantu itu pun dibunuh dan berikut beberapa mayat tergelempar akibat sengatan Lestat. Namun berbeda dengan Loius, dia tidak tega meminum dari manusia lebih memilih darah binatang.

Gadis kecil, Claudia yang merupakan yatim piatu ditemukan menangis sendirian di pinggir jalan dan Lestat pun mengubahnya menjadi vampir. Mereka sangat senang akan kehadiran gadis itu, sifat lucu seorang anak kecil menghiasi kehidupan mereka. Gadis itu pun hidup dalam kemewahan, pendidikan yang bagus dari keduanya, dan bahagia. Waktu berlalu, gadis itu pun tumbuh cantik, cerdas, dan dewasa secara pikiran namun tidak secara fisik. Keinginan sebagai gadis dewasa sulit dipenuhi. Dia pun jatuh cinta pada Louis yang sangat baik padanya namun pemuda itu hanya menganggapnya sebagai putrinya. Karena memang apa yang dilihatnya hanyalah tubuh anak-anak.

Konflik pun muncul dan gadis kecil itu membunuh Lestat. Dia dan Louis melarikan diri ke Eropah. Dengan tidak mudah degan menaiki kapal di antara manusia hingga Eropa akhirnya keduanya pun sampai pada kelompok mereka di sana. Serangkaian petualangan yang tidak mudah melewatkan kehausan  darah dan perselisihan dari kaum vampir miskin hingga elite.

Lestat merupakan vampir yang sangat kuat, sungguh tidak diduga mereka bertemu dengan  Lestat yang mereka anggap sudah musnah. Lestat pun akhirnya mengakhiri hidup vampir Claudia dan pertemanannya dengan Louis pun terputus. Di akhir wawancara reporter meminta untuk diubah menjadi vampir, tetapi ia masih dapat merasakan hangat mentari.

*****