Interview...

The young adult reading market had yet to be saturated with subpar, badly edited fare. But even if it had in 1996, I'd have ignored it, as I've always maintained. Interview With the Vampire weirdly became my favourite book back then, and something of an escape from the bullshit I was enduring that year. My teen angst was really being tested. I'd picked up a copy of the Vampire Lestat my brother had borrowed, and was sucked in by the beginning. But I can't remember exactly when I got a copy of Interview. It may have been after Christmas, or for Christmas in 1995. Getting a hold of certain books at that time required trips to Dymocks in Perth, where I had to harass some crotchety bitch to order in a book, then wait months for us to make another trip up to collect them. I can't remember why I couldn't just make a bookstore in Bunbury to get me the Last Unicorn. (I thought I'd lost my first Eerie Indiana book, turns out it was just sitting in the cupboard down south with the spine facing inwards and I never bothered to pick it up- they're harder to get now they're out of print). But I could get the Vampire Chronicle books in town. I didn't even know one existed until I saw it on someone else's bookshelf.

I was in the middle of reading the Interview the book when I saw the movie. I could watch it alone at home on the condition I stopped it when the Bill was on, took the tape out and recorded that show. Only then could I finish watching the movie. And I think it was the goddamn Guns and Roses cover of Sympathy for the Devil that really riled me up, but I basically loved the movie. I was 14, didn't know dick about film, and was growing obsessed with vampires. The point was, Rice's brand were the definitive to me. They were original enough they didn't adhere to common myths. I still think her basic idea of them is still pretty cool, considering her lore has gone off the deep end.

But since then, the movie's gone from a love to a hate then to a love, back to an appreciation for what it was capable of achieving at the time. My brother told me stuff about it after he'd seen it in a theatre, his descriptions standing out to me as fascinating. Meanwhile, it's still riddled with issues. We couldn't have the cherub Armand represented as such, Antonio Banderas had to be brought in to play to the gothic aesthetic modern audiences comprehended, since the movie needed to have appeal outside the book. Louis's brother and his traumatic death are reduced to a dead mother and child Louis briefly mentions at the beginning to explain his malaise. The harrowing trip through Europe in search of other vampires is dropped. All of these decisions make sense. Casting Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt would've been for commercial reasons. Introducing Kirsten Dunst, a pre-teen* somehow managing to really embody Claudia from age five to her mental age of 70, you can't say that was a bad decision, she does the part justice. But it wasn't until many viewings later I realised she was faking playing the piano by lightly dancing her fingers over the keys. I don't think Cruise was playing, I'm sure he had a hand double, but you could cut away from Claudia's imitations and still make it convincing. They used animatronics to replicate Lestat's death, that look a lot less convincing now. The special effects haven't drastically aged but they're not up to today's standards. So now I have mixed feelings about it. I thought Rice loved it and contributed to the script, and was so overcome at the premier she was left giddy. Then later, I heard she hated it. Oh, and River Phoenix died and had to be replaced by Christian Slater, which again was a good choice but I think it's probably much older than the nameless boy Rice envisioned (later revealed to be Daniel in Queen of the Damned - his intro chapter referred to him as "the boy from Interview" and the penny failed to drop for me right away). I think I could watch it now and basically just be annoyed by its flaws more than its achievements. Now I'm rereading the book, most of the scenes depicted in the movie are in my mind's eye now. And that's not a bad thing.

I don't think she went overboard with descriptions, however I think this book was subjected to heavy editing that the later books really needed. I liked the Egypt mythology/origin explanation. I like we don't get this until book three. I think on its own, the first book could've been a simple masterpiece that needed to be left shrouded in mystery. I haven't read the original short story for years, I have it in the compendium piece which is a tome I have stashed in a box in a cupboard. It's probably online somewhere. That had a more comedic tone. I'm pissed I also can't find an older documentary about Rice which I have on VHS and remember way too succinctly since I watched it a heap of times. And I can't think of any comparable books to Interview, you could argue it has shades of Lolita but there's nothing overly grotesque about Louis's connection with Claudia. Once she has a woman's mind you get what's going on, if you're grossed out by it, you're missing the point. And if you didn't know who she represents in Rice's life, she makes less sense. I also have the graphic novel of Claudia's story which I've only glossed over. I tend to collect these books as gifts now and don't spend much time with them. (I could now I'm confined due to that virus people won't stfu about).

The Chronicles were the closest thing I had to an obsession with an IP. I could spend ages crapping on about the terrible adaptation of Queen of the Damned. I thought there was some series now she'd gotten back the rights but Hulu dumped it, so now it's being shopped as a bigger package along with the Mayfair series. So this could go either way. I would watch it provided it stopped before things got shitty with the book series. I think I'd rather she and her son focus on making this good than her churning out more novels. I'm not psyched about it though. Like I'm not dying (pun intended) to see what they do with it. I think she wants some Game of Thrones level mastery to resurrect (pun not as intended) the interest in the series. At least there's something more complete about her book series it wouldn't go off the rails because of outside influences. She's capable of doing that on her own.

Either way, I'm loving reading Interview now but I'm not sure if this forced downtime will lead me further in. I can rationalise the revisit given I know the people I tried to garner interest from won't be wrested from their beloved book series. But then I had a better book series to read as a teen than all y'all did.

*I keep finding out a whole bunch of people I think are older than me were born the same year, including her. So yeah, she really did get to mack on Brad Pitt at age 12.