Sorry this is so late..got a little distracted
So this book was pretty interesting, right guys? It was right up my alley - old style writing and vampires of course. But there were some things I did want to talk about. I will ask some question, let you all answer, and then give my opinions.
Personally I was most intrigued with Claudia, the beautiful child vampire that Louis has a very interesting relationship with. She, as she matures intellectually, realizes that she is a woman, with all the lusts and needs of one, but she is stuck forever in the body of a child. A body that she pampers and drapes in silks and laces and that Louis describes with the conflicting minds of a lover and father figure. What do you think Rice is saying with Claudia? What is she saying about women of the time, and what is she saying about the status of a child and her aspirations to be grown.
Louis is the main character and throughout the novel he struggles with his existence as a vampire which he equates with his loss of a soul and his humanity. Armand observes that everytime Louis kills, emotionally he dies too. Why is Louis not able to come to grips with being a vampire when everyone around him can embrace their new nature? Louis says that he doesn't feel that he truly appreciated anything until his transformation, so why is he so disillusioned?
Why do you think that the vampires that Claudia and Louis first come across in Europe are mindless zombie-like vampires?
Something that Pang and I kinda talked about was the role of sexuality in this book. Louis' feelings for Claudia and Armand. A question I saw online asked if Louis' character transcends sexuality altogether. What do you think?
So...answer whatever you want or just write stuff and ask your own question.
Becky, would you do us the honor of choosing our next book? I figure we can take a break December for the holidays and pick up again in January. What would you like to read?
3 comments:
wow, excellent discussion questions! too bad that i'm a book club loser and i still haven't finished the book. soooo very sorry. i will get through it and get back to you with answers. right now i'm just at the part where claudia vows to kill lestat...so...
ok, so i'm up? this book was just recommended to me and it sounds interesting:
and then we came to the end (joshua ferris)
what do you think? a january start and a feb discussion?
Sounds good to me, nice pick :) someone describes it as "the Office meets Kafka" so I am all for it.
i think that maybe the vampires that they came across earlier on where like that due to their environment. i mean, Paris and New Orleans were both a busy and civilized cities. maybe it's because they were in the country? don't know, just throwing it out there.
my question is...why is Lestat so obsessed with Louis?
there were definitely a lot of underlying sexual issue there in the book, but i find it hard to explain. i feel like maybe Louis loved Claudia so much because they are around each other a lot (i mean, other than the Frenier woman, he wasn't linked emotionally to anyone else. i think at first, he was enthralled by Claudia's beauty, then it grew as her mind expanded. kind of when you spend a lot of time with some one, you grow to love them/be fond of them.
am i just ranting now?
i'm also going to just throw this out there...is Louis bisexual? since he's "in love" with Claudia, but choses Armand to be with. or are they just companions?
overall, i thought it was a pretty good book. and i'm excited about the next one. we've picked a very good range of books so far. way to go girls!
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