{"id":2180,"date":"2002-08-08T15:54:46","date_gmt":"2002-08-08T22:54:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/?p=2180"},"modified":"2002-08-08T15:54:46","modified_gmt":"2002-08-08T22:54:46","slug":"books-interview-with-a-vampire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/2002\/08\/08\/books-interview-with-a-vampire\/","title":{"rendered":"Books: Interview With a Vampire"},"content":{"rendered":"

I don’t like chess. That is to say, I love the idea<\/i> of chess — the idea that it is essentially a mathematical battle, with every move changing the equation of possible moves and strategies — but I find playing<\/i> chess a bit of a bore. Apparently I have similar feelings about vampires. I’m a big Buffy<\/i> buff, and I love the idea<\/i> of vampires. But when it comes down to reading an entire book about ’em, I get bored quickly. I didn’t know this when I picked up Anne Rice’s Interview With a Vampire<\/a>. In fact, 30 pages into it I told my wife that I was already so engrossed that I expected to finish it in a day or two. Three weeks later I trudged to the end.<\/p>\n

The problem with Interview With a Vampire<\/i> is that it is — surprise! — about vampires. Not about exciting vampiric adventures, or about people who fight vampires, or about the relationship between vampires and mortals — no, it’s just about run-of-the-mill vampires and their everyday (or, rather, evernight) lives. The whole book revolves around one completely unremarkable vampire, and reads like a biography of some ordinary schmoe off the street, if said schmoe were to suck blood and require sunblock SPF 94.<\/p>\n

This is the part in the book review where I generally talk a bit about the plot. But, man, I’m serious here: not a whole lot happens. In fact, if you want a good synopsis of the few bits of action, I’d heartily recommend renting the movie<\/a>, which I quite enjoyed. The film, bereft of (interminable) internal monologues, is exactly what I’d hoped the book to be. And Tom Cruise is surprisingly good.<\/p>\n

So now allow me to qualify everything I’ve said thus far by adding that Interview<\/i> is actually a very well-written book. I picked it up expecting a poorly-written pulp novel and found it to be the exact opposite. And if I were really into vampires — instead of being the goth-poseur that I apparently am — I would have loved it, would probably be halfway through the third in the series by now. So before opting for Interview<\/i>, ask yourself this: do you like vampires<\/i>, or do you just like the idea<\/i> of vampires? (If you answered “neither” then what the hell are you doing even reading this? Besides, you’re a liar: everyone loves the idea of vampires, at the very least.) If you fall into the first category then, by all means, read Interview<\/i> — it gets a hearty and sincere recommendation from me. But if you, like me, prefer your vampires one-dimensional and perpetually either on the giving (Blade<\/i>) or receiving (Buffy<\/i>) end of an ass-kicking, you may want to steer clear.<\/p>\n

For the record<\/b>: I thought the book Dracula<\/i> was pretty pointless as well. So my track record with the undead is pretty weak all around.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don’t like chess. That is to say, I love the idea of chess — the idea that it is essentially a mathematical battle, with every move changing the equation of possible moves and strategies — but I find playing chess a bit of a bore. Apparently I have similar feelings about vampires. I’m a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2180\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}