Shot de la película ¨Entrevista con el Vampiro¨, aquí Brad Pitt y Tom Cruise. Imagen bajada de Internet.
Anne Rice no tuvo la intención de crear una novela gótica sobre vampirismo. De hecho, este tipo de novelas no estaban de moda en 1976, fecha de publicación de ¨Interview with the Vampire¨. El libro –según su autora- refleja el nihilismo de la posguerra de la II guerra mundial. Además es un lamento sobre la herencia religiosa perdida. Claro está que mucha gente consideró su libro como un trabajo ¨inmoral¨ que no podría enmendarse. Rice dice que utilizó la palabra ¨vampiro¨ porque tiene fuerza, pero de hecho no cree en los vampiros, y por si no fuera suficiente, su obra actual se ha volcado totalmente a la religiosidad, a los ángeles y la búsqueda de Dios.
Las palabras siguientes, han sido tomadas por párrafos de su página web
My point here is that “dark stories” have been part of our literature for a very long time, and that they are viewed as highly valuable by educated people throughout the West.
I am hardly stating an original idea when I say that such stories are transformative. They invite the reader on a journey which reflects perfectly the formula of Aristotle for great drama: as one reads (or watches the film or play), one feels pity and fear, and eventually experiences catharsis. One is taken to a place, through the literary experience, to which one might not have ever gone on one’s own. I feel strongly that dark stories demand that the audience earn the transformation; they require a certain suffering on the part of the audience as the price of eventual affirmation.
I would like to submit that my vampire novels and other novels I’ve written, such as the Mayfair family trilogy, and the novels, Servant of the Bones, Violin, Cry to Heaven and Feast of all Saints are attempting to be transformative stories as well. All these novels involve a strong moral compass. Evil is never glorified in these books; on the contrary, the continuing battle against evil is the subject of the work. The search for the good is the subject of the work.
Interview with the Vampire, the novel that brought me to public attention, is about the near despair of an alienated being who searches the world for some hope that his existence can have meaning. His vampire nature is clearly a metaphor for human consciousness or moral awareness. The major theme of the novel is the misery of this character because he cannot find redemption and does not have the strength to end the evil of which he knows himself to be a part. This book reflects for me a protest against the post World War II nihilism to which I was exposed in college from 1960 through 1972. It is an expression of grief for a lost religious heritage that seemed at that time beyond recovery.
Yet, somehow, my earlier novels have been dismissed out of hand -- by people who haven’t read them -- as “immoral works.” They are not immoral works. They are not Satanic works. They are not demonic works. These are uninformed and unfair characterizations of these books, and this situation causes me deep personal pain.
If I had it to do over again, I would not use the word “vampire” in my novels. In 1976, when Interview with the Vampire was published there was no “vampire literature” published in America. There was no “Goth culture.” Certainly there was no “vampire lifestyle” and I am not sure there is any “vampire lifestyle” today. As far as I know vampires do not exist. I certainly don’t believe that vampires exist.
In 1976, I felt that the vampire was the perfect metaphor for the outcast in all of us, the alienated one in all of us, the one who feels lost in a world seemingly without God. In 1976, I felt I existed in such a world, and I was searching for God. I never dreamed that the word, vampire, would prevent people from examining this book as a metaphysical work. I thought the use of the word was a powerful device.
As I look back on it, I have to say that the use of this word did indeed bring me popular attention, but it brought me that attention at a dreadful price.
I also have to confess that, whatever my intentions, there is now no consensus among my very wide readership as to what all these earlier books really mean. In some ways, that is interesting and encouraging. In other ways, it can drive an author to desperation.
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