Interview with a Vampire

Interview with the Vampire
This excerpt is taken from the very beginning of the novel.
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"I see..." said the vampire thoughtfully, and slowly he walked across the room
towards the window. [...] The boy could see the furnishings of the room more clearly now,
the round oak table, the chairs. A wash basin hung on one wall with a mirror. [...]
"But how much tape do you have with you?" asked the vampire, turning now so the
boy could see his profile. "Enough for the story of a life?"
"Sure, if it's a good life. Sometimes I interview as many as three or four people a
night if I'm lucky. But it has to be a good story. That's only fair, isn't it?"
"Admirably fair," the vampire answered. "I would like to tell you the story of my life,
then. I would like to do that very much."
"Great," said the boy. And quickly he removed the small tape recorder from his brief
case, making a check of the cassette and the batteries. "I'm really anxious to hear why you
believe this, why you ..."
"No," said the vampire abruptly. "We can't begin that way. Is your equipment
ready?"
"Yes," said the boy.
"Then sit down. I'm going to turn on the overhead light."
"But I thought vampires didn't like light," said the boy. "If you think the dark adds to
the atmosphere..." But then he stopped. The vampire was watching him with his back to the
window. The boy could make out nothing of his face now [...]. He started to say something
again but he said nothing. And then he sighed with relief1 when the vampire moved towards
the table and reached for the overhead cord.
At once the room was flooded with a harsh yellow light. And the boy, staring up at
the vampire, could not repress a gasp2. His fingers danced backwards on the table to grasp
the edge. "Dear God!" he whispered, and then he gazed, speechless, at the vampire.
The vampire was utterly3 white and smooth, as if he were sculpted from bleached4
bone, and his face was as seemingly inanimate as a statue, except for two brilliant green
eyes that looked down at the boy intently like flames in a skull5. "Do you see?" he asked
softly.
The boy shuddered, lifting his hand as if to shield himself from a powerful light. His
eyes moved slowly over the finely tailored black coat he'd only glimpsed in the bar, the
long folds of the cape, the black silk tie knotted at the throat, and the gleam of the white
collar that was as white as the vampire's flesh. [...]
"Now, do you still want the interview?" the vampire asked.
The boy's mouth was open before the sound came out. He was nodding. Then he
said, "Yes."
The vampire sat down slowly opposite him and, leaning forward, said gently,
confidentially, "Don't be afraid. Just start the tape."
Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire, 1976
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Relief : soulagement
Could not repress a gasp : eut le souffle coupé
3
utterly : totalement
4
bleached : blanchi
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skull: crâne
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Interview with the Vampire
Work on words
1. Do the following verbs refer to a movement or to a way of looking?
(a) remove (l. 10)
(b) stare up at (l. 22)
(c) grasp (l. 23)
(d) gaze (l. 24)
(e) shudder (l. 29)
(f) lift (l. 29)
(g) shield oneself from (l. 29)
(h) glimpse (l. 30)
(i) lean forward (l. 36)
2. Match them with the suitable translation.
(1) apercevoir, entrevoir
(2) saisir
(3) frissonner
(4) se protéger de
(5) lever les yeux et fixer
(6) enlever
(7) observer, contempler
(8) se pencher en avant
(9) lever
3. List all the body parts mentioned between line 25 (“The vampire was utterly white”) and line 32 (“as white
as the vampire's flesh”). Look them up in a dictionary if you don't know what they mean.
Overall comprehension
4. Where does this passage come from?
5. Who are the two main characters?
6. Where does the scene take place?
7. The different stages of the scene have been mixed up. Reorder them:
(a) the boy's reaction
(b) checking the equipment for the interview
(c) the vampire emerges from darkness to full light
Detailed comprehension
1. What is the younger character's probable job? Explain.
2. What is he interested in knowing?
3. Is the vampire willing to answer? Support your answer with clues from the text.
4. The equipment:
¾ List the different pieces of equipment the boy has.
¾ What does he have to check before he starts?
5. The atmosphere
a) In the first half of the passage what details can the boy see? What can't he see clearly?
b) Find the sentence that brings about a sudden change in the boy's vision of the vampire. What did the
vampire do to cause this change?
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Interview with the Vampire
6. The vampire
a) Pick out the details and images that apply to the vampire's skin and flesh, his eyes, his clothes.
b) Focus on the vampire's attitude and pick out the details that are revealing of his character and mood.
c) Pick out all the phrases referring to the boy's reaction as he is staring at the vampire. According to what
they express, put them in the right column.
Astonishment
wonder/ admiration
fear or pity
Building up your vocabulary
a) staring up at the vampire
b) looked down at the boy
ANALYSE: Compare.
¾ up and down are postpositions (= they come after a verb). They slightly change the meaning of the verb by
indicating a movement. They can be used without a complement.
¾ at is a preposition. It is followed by a complement (the vampire, the boy), except when used in a question (Who
is the boy staring up at?).
Suggest a translation for a, b and for the following sentences:
c)
d)
e)
f)
g)
He was so frightened that he looked away from him.
He is very pretentious. He always looks down on you.
He looked back at the vampire.
He was sitting, gazing into space.
He glanced around him then opened the mysterious door.
Expression
About the text: How do you react to the vampire's physical appearance and behavior?
Beyond the text:
1. Does this vampire totally correspond to what you knew about vampires? Why?
2. Imagine what the vampire tells the boy. Continue this introduction: A long time ago, when I was ...
Reported speech
¾
¾
¾
¾
¾
¾
"How much tape do you have with you?" asked the vampire.
"I interview as many as three or four people a night if I'm lucky."
"I would like to tell you the story of my life."
"We can't begin that way. Is your equipment ready?"
"Sit down. I’m going to turn on the overhead light."
"Don't be afraid."
ANALYSE : Comparez.
Quand on veut rapporter les paroles que quelqu'un a prononcées, on a le choix entre le discours direct, entre
guillemets et le discours indirect. Les phrases ci-dessus ont été reformulées au discours indirect avec un verbe
introducteur (ask, say, etc.) au passé :
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¾
¾
¾
¾
¾
The vampire asked the boy how much tape he had.
The boy said that he interviewed as many as three or four people a night if he was lucky.
The vampire told the boy that he would like to tell him the story of his life.
He answered that they couldn't begin that way. Then he asked the boy if his equipment was ready.
The vampire told / ordered the boy to sit down. Then he said that he was going to turn on the overhead light.
The vampire told the boy not to be afraid.
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Interview with the Vampire
1. Quels temps du discours direct ont été modifiés? Que deviennent-ils au discours indirect?
2. Quels autres éléments que les verbes ont été modifiés ou ajoutés ?
3. Que remarquez-vous concernant l’ordre des mots quand on transforme une phrase interrogative
au style indirect ?
Verbes introducteurs :
¾ say that / tell someone that (dire)
¾ answer, reply (répondre)
¾ ask (demander)
¾ tell / order / ask someone (not) to (pour introduire les phrases qui contenait un impératif au discours
direct).
EXERCICES : Reformulez les phrases au discours indirect.
a)
b)
c)
d)
e)
f)
g)
h)
"Do you still want the interview?" the vampire asked
"Believe me, I won't hurt you," said the vampire to the boy.
"Are you going to kill me?" he asked him.
"I've only told this story once and that was a long time ago," he answered.
"Have you ever lost a great amount of blood?" the vampire asked me. "Do you know the feeling?"
"Stop staring at me," he told the boy.
"Don't try to run away," he ordered the boy.
"You'll have to wait until night falls," he said to the boy.
Still / always
¾ Do you still want the interview?
¾ He always uses a tape recorder in his interviews.
ANALYSE : Comparez.
¾ Still se traduit par « toujours » dans le sens de « encore », il exprime une continuité temporelle :
Traduction : Souhaitez-vous toujours faire cette interview ? (= vous n'avez pas changé d'avis?)
¾ Always se traduit aussi par « toujours », mais il exprime la permanence ou la répétition, l’habitude.
Traduction : Il utilise toujours un magnétophone pour ses interviews. (= à chaque fois = habitude)
E X E R C I C E : Complétez les phrases suivantes avec still ou always selon le contexte.
a) "Are you ……………………………… afraid of me?" asked the vampire.
b) I thought that vampires ……………………………… feared light.
c) Don't disturb him. He is ……………………………… drinking blood.
d) Vampires ……………………………… wake up at night.
e) He ……………………………… wore a black coat.
f) I ……………………………… don't understand why vampires like blood.
PRONUNCIATION
1. Which consonants(s) is (are) not pronounced: walk, could, interview, backwards, whispered,
shuddered, tailored, knotted, answered, sighed
2. Find the stress: across, interview, abruptly, equipment, utterly, opposite
3. Spot the sound: vampire, profile, lucky, anxious, thrilling, flooded, smooth
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Interview with the Vampire
The author
ANNE RICE was born in 1941 in New Orleans, La., USA. Interview with the Vampire is
the first volume of the vampire chronicles. A film starring Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise was
based on this book. Here, she is interviewed by the famous talk show host, Larry King, on
the American cable television CNN.
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LARRY KING: Anne, why do you like vampires? Why do you like writing about them?
ANNE RICE: Oh? My gosh, Larry! Err – you know, Interview with the Vampire was
publishing in 1976 and I’ve been struggling with that question ever since that time. All I
can say is that when I wrote about them in 76 and when I write about them now I feel that I
can talk about everything that I feel. I can talk about my loneliness, my sense of being a
little bit of an outcast, my feeling of being an outsider. I can talk about Good and Evil,
matters of conscience. I can talk about everything and at the same time I can tell a bang-up6
story. I can – I can – err – look at the world through the eyes of these vampires and I can
describe it in what seems to me to be a very exciting way. […]
LARRY KING: Are you happy with how your work has been portrayed in film?
ANNE RICE: I was very happy with the movie Interview with the Vampire. I felt that Tom
Cruise and Brad Pitt and Kirsten Dunst did a fabulous job. That is the one film that I’ve
been very, very happy with. […]
LARRY KING: Death played a part – you lost a daughter, which has to be the most
horrific of all things to happen to someone, and that affected the writing of your first novel,
didn’t it?
ANNE RICE: It seems that it did. I didn’t realize it at the time but Interview with the
Vampire was obviously, in most respects, about that loss. I didn’t understand that. I just sat
down and wrote this book, Interview with the Vampire, and really got into the story. And if
someone had walked into the room and said to me “you are writing about your daughter
and your husband and your life” I would have been blocked. I had to go to a fantasy place
to write about the pain and the loss. I had to be with my vampire characters. I created them
at that time!”
CNN, Larry King Live, November 16 2003
Edited by H. C. Quinson
Analysis
1. Why does Anne Rice like vampires?
2. Was Interview with the Vampire autobiographical in a way? Explain.
3. Why do vampire stories lend themselves to talking about “Good and Evil, matters of
conscience”?
4. Why are these stories often “bang-up stories”?
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bang-up (colloquial) : excellent, top-notch.
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