Ash(eaux)’s Reviews > The Vampire Lestat > Status Update

First of all, not to sound like a broken record but I have to go back to show comparisons real quick (lie). Already felt so frustrating reading the prologue because it's like, Lestat just waking up from his slumber and discovering and falling in love with the modern world. Since, because of alleged budget reasons, the show had to be set mostly in modern times anyway, why couldn't we get even a glimpse of his passion and just exploration of his new lifestyle before the whole ordeal with the book started, it could have been a great way to show the audience how his character differs from Louis' recollection without putting into question every single one of his words and in addition to that, since they mended their relationship at the end of season 2, Louis could have been a part of it too. Just wasted potential.

Speaking of the Iwtv book release, here's how Lestat reacts to it in this volume :

"I had to find Louis. I had to talk to him. In fact, after reading his account of things, I ached for him, ached for his romantic illusions, and even his dishonesty. I ached even for his gentlemanly malice and his physical presence, the deceptively soft sound of his voice.

Of course I hated him for the lies he told about me. But the love was far greater than the hate. He had shared the dark and romantic years of the nineteenth century with me, he was my companion as no other immortal had ever been"

crazy how I can actually stand Lestat when he's well written and doesn't come with awful narration and dialogue, like I can't even begin to express how much more romantic and interesting this version of his reaction is, and that's not even counting the fact that in the book, his hate for Louis' version is a lot more justified than in the show, firstly because for all he knows he could have been the one to publish it, and also of course because Louis describes him as an awful dull simple minded individual over and over again (an astounding number of times really, it was quite funny to see the contrast when reading iwtv), when he's in fact a lot more layered than that.

In the show, the way Louis describes Lestat is in a way worse because well, he appears as an abusive monster mostly, but Lestat's offenses against him were also a lot more serious, now when making a change like this one, as a writer you need to be careful about how you will proceed, and should aim to show a new perspective on Lestat's character to the audience without negating Louis' experience as a victim of an abusive relationship. Of course the show doesn't do that at all, somehow managed to do the opposite in so many ways it's kind of an accomplishment in a way but anyways, while reading book Lestat's thoughts and thinking back on the previous volume, I can't help but think those writers genuinely forgot that they're not creating a character from scratch and simultaneously that their version is is not the same as Anne Rice's lol, and funnily enough his reaction to iwtv is very fitting to what I would have liked to see on the show, hélas...

Uhm, ranting aside 🙈, I love everything about the book so far, the wolves scene, the depiction of Lestat's relationship with his mother, the discovery of his passion for theater, his budding relationship with Nicky (I was actually moved like I shed a tear, I'm redescovering that I didn't use to be a Lestat hater in real time) and their talk of God beliefs and sin, I can't wait to get back to it