Interview With The Vampire *spoilers

Interview With The Vampire

Anne Rice

Terri Thampan 804

   I have recently put away the book "Interview With The Vampire", not because it was badly written, but because if I read anymore "detailed" scenes with blood, I would start to get really squeamish. It's more like, if I see a lot of blood, or actions such as "slitting wrists" are written out, to help the vampires get blood, my wrist automatically goes on spaz mode, just to stop freaking out about how gross that is. 

   The book is really, just Louis, a Vampire, having an interview with a boy, telling him the story of his life so far. How he was turned by the Vampire Lestat, and his Vampire "Daughter" Claudia.

   What I really liked about the whole book was how deep it was, how like For Louis, the main character and the one telling the story, it's like getting more in touch with his humanity, even though he is a vampire.

   Louis, is more of an intellectual character. He prefers books and deeply thinking. He likes to use his heightened senses to look at the beauty of the world, think more deeply about things, and realize how fragile and precious life is. He, is the more, human-like, in the three main characters.

    Then, we have Lestat. He is described as the type of man who who does most things as revenge. He is angry at the world and wishes for revenge. He also likes to live lavishly. Louis thinks the reason Lestat even stays with him is so that so he can still live the life of luxury, while Louis makes the money for them, Louis being educated in money making skills to keep his plantation running. Lestat, can also be described as flashy, a show off. In the beginning, while his father was alive, I feel like the times Lestat were nice to him, were not only partly because he did care for his father, but because he wanted to make a show of it, seem like a nice guy. He's described as taking great joy in playing around with his victims, which gives him a sadistic personality.

   The last Vampire is Claudia. She was a young five year old girl who was crying over the corpse of her mother, pleading for someone to save her mother, who she thought was still alive and sick. Louis, who was already thirsting for blood, suddenly couldn't help but try to drink her blood. Lestat stumbles upon Louis drinking Claudia's blood, and shamed, Louis stops. Louis at first thinks that Claudia's dead, but then Lestat shows Louis that he has turned Claudia into a vampire. Louis feels as if Lestat gave him Claudia, so Louis wouldn't leave.

   Louis and Lestat are like Fathers to Claudia. She learns from Louis the ways of the intellect, and from Lestat, how to kill. She froever will remain looking five years old, but her mind changes. She is described as the least human among the three. She kills Lestat, in order to free herself and Louis. She clings to Louis, and says she loves him, but Louis feels that the only reason why she does so, is because he is the only one closest to "Her Kind".

    I feel, that even though they are Vampires, Lestat, Claudia, and Louis, all describe the different sides of humanity. Louis being the most close to humanity, and Claudia being more in touch with her creature side, her animal instincts. Louis is of course, the more good things about humanity. Reading, looking deeper into things, discovering more and more, wanting more answers. 

    Lestat, is more of a bitter side. He is the side, that wants revenge. Everything that has happened to us, every bad day, every single mean look, insult, or punch in the gut, he wants revenge for. He is the side, that likes to spite things. He enjoys the life of luxury, which is something most people dream for. He likes to show off his expensive clothing, and items. He likes to spite. I feel as if he does this, to spite his own past as well, a past he wan't too fond of, ad tried to gain everything he didn't have then, and have it all as a vampire. Everyone, in one point of their lives want to spite others. Want to get back at someone for what they did. It is like the more Bitter side, has taken up the role as boss of the more human like side, and the more animal like side.

   Claudia, is like a human's more primal urges. She has instincts, ad she has intelligence. But she lacks humanity. The reason why we think of animals like dogs, or cats, or pigs, and such, as inferior, is because of their lack of humanity. They cannot talk like we do, they do not feel, the same way we do, they don't understand things the way we do. If anything, Claudia has not enough emotions as to recognize her as human. She can feel anger, hatred, and negative emotions, but the more positive emotions in human life might be different to her. I have no doubt she can feel joy, or happiness, but I feel she cannot feel things that people say come from the heart, like passion, remorse, guilt, or even compassion. She does not understand these things, and represents the part o us, that is different. Some times we don't feel those things, this is the more darker part of humanity, where we get rapists, and murderers, and terrorists. They lack those more human feelings.

   I feel like the reason Claudia is like this is because she was turned into a vampire at too young of an age. While being a child has its innocence, it also meas you know less. She has not developed her humanity yet, and because of that, her mind developed differently. She has less humanity then both Lestat and Louis.

   I think that, age isn't the only reason why Claudia has the least amount of humanity. It's also because, in the story, Claudia killed the mother and daughter couple, which is around the time Claudia started to ask who turned her into a vampire. This makes me think that Claudia started to remember more about her human past, or what little of it she has. I think she struck out, killing the mother and daughter because she thought of her own mother, and how her mother had died of sickness. I think she felt a bitterness, over her mother's death.

   The thing is, monsters like vampires and werewolves are only there to look into the darker parts of human nature. Anne Rice definitely knew that, and started to help me look at characters, and their more human like features. 

The Host

The Host

Terri Thampan 804

   I have recently read the "book" "The Host" by Stephenie Meyer.  I started reading the book with hopes that Stephenie Meyer had made a good book (the Twilight Saga, which I have already read, are horrible books!) and determination to actually read the book, the whole thing. Sadly, I was greatly disappointed, for both were wrong. Now, I know I shouldn't be really writing a blog for a book I don't like, but, I only just started my newest book, and, I'm a good ranter/rantist.

   The book, is about how “Aliens” also known as souls are taking over the world. They are the kindest, most perfect beings. And they take over the world to help make it perfect. Wanderer, is our protagonist, and she learns to love humans or something like that, because I didn’t finish the book.

    Now, first of all, why don't I like this book? I have many reasons for disliking this book. One, I hate how the "aliens" are being made to be "perfect". In the book, they are referred to as souls, and are described as "all things good. Compassionate, patient, kind, good, Virtuous, and full of love". First off, as a person who likes darker stories and characters and plots in general, the whole description, was kind of stupid. What the author tries to do, is make them the perfect characters (*cough Sparkly Vampire Edward cough*) but epic-ly fails. What SMeyer describes humans as in her story, are vile, violent, evil creatures. She gives us many flaws, as a species in general. SMeyer, knows perfectly well that people aren't perfect, thus including herself as she is a person. Because of that imperfection, it's really hard to write a perfect character, a.k.a the Mary Sue: epitome of bad character writing, because there will always be flaws. The "aliens" in SMeyer's book, are very flawed.

   First off, they're conceited. They think themselves as the perfect race, and thus, deem themselves worthy to go and change the rest of the universe by taking over the bodies of other species, on other planets. Well, I don't know about you, but if someone thinks they're perfect enough, and start changing the world to be just like them, that's pretty egotistical, and in my definition, a character flaw. If that was done on purpose, it would have been more tolerable, but throughout all that I have read, it paints the Aliens as the more "supreme" race, better than the humans.

   Secondly, the aliens are described as kind, and compassionate. Again, they are supposed to be all things good (blegh). Really though, if they were all things good, they would have thought, 'Oh, this body that I'm being a parasite to, is actually someone else's and it was never mine, so I shouldn't steal it, from them.' But really, Wanderer, or Wanda (I skipped to the end before I put the book back, just to see how it ends) decided to give back the body to Melanie, and like die or something, because she wanted to be selfless. That pissed me off to no end. First off, they aren’t being selfless by giving back the bodies to the rightful “hosts”. That’s like saying; a guy who stole a valuable artifact, something priceless, and gave it back is a selfless man. Being selfless doesn’t work like that. If they were the ones who gave their bodies up out of their own free will, to others, that would be selfless.

     Another thing is, the whole race is prejudiced. They are all prejudiced towards the seekers, who are basically like police. They shun the seekers for choosing a life of violence, which they do so to protect the other souls from dangers. They protect souls from humans, and basically, kill off stragglers that can be violent. They are greatly disliked by many of the regular souls. I think this is also counted as a character flaw of the whole race; they are prejudiced against their own kind, and think of humans as barbaric monsters.

    What I didn’t like, was how SMeyer made the character interactions. Melanie, the host for Wanderer, shows different memories throughout the text. Her first memory of Jared, the man she is in love with, has him kissing her as soon as they meet, and he finds out she’s a human, not a soul using a host. I liked how Melanie forcefully removed him from her person because really, even if aliens are taking over the world, a girl who has the very determined, and strong, dominant type of personality like Melanie would not let some random guy kiss her. But what really aggravates me was that as soon as she got the kiss, Melanie realized she wanted more, and let him kiss her again. What the hell? You don’t kiss a random person you just meet! And then, it makes them really close, but like in a span of weeks, but we barely see the romance, except for how Melanie’s all over him, and wanting to kiss him, (BellaxEdward), when there have been no scenes with the characters getting closer. Also, The Seeker (who sadly has no name and is my favorite character) comes off very annoying to both Wanda and Melanie. Now, I don’t really care about that, but Melanie and Wanda get closer through this dislike for the Seeker, and then Melanie just starts spilling all her secrets to Wanda. I don’t care how much an alien invading your body is infatuated with the idea of your lover because of your memories, you don’t just spill all your secrets to them because you think, oh they won’t hurt them, when one has already took over your father and got to you (even though you escaped), which hurt you! Plus, when the Seeker seems really annoying, Melanie thinks ‘Let’s kill her!’ and Wanderer (Wanda) is like, ‘this is why we took over, ‘because you humans are so violent!’ That just angered me to no extent. First of all, if someone says that, they are CRAZY! Not all humans go around killing! And even if it is a survival thing, we aren’t going to kill you, unless you pose as harm to us. This just got me so mad; I hit my head against a table.

    Now, I think this book would be so much better if it was a romance between The Seeker (who deserves a name) and Fords Deep Waters (who deserves a better name). Now, the pairing might seem a bit like a crack pairing, but I really believe they would be a good couple. If Fords, was the kind, good guy doctor, who suddenly finds a temperament when Seeker is around, learns to live a little and understand Seeker, was the main story romance, I think I might have read the book. Seeker, if you couldn’t have told, is my favorite character in that whole book. I think it would have been much better if it was told through her perspective, rather than Wanderer’s. I can see Seeker as a more cool character. She’s a woman, who is determined, stubborn, passionate, not afraid to be violent, and can deal with the prejudice her world has against people like her. I feel like she would be an amazingly strong character, and that she is one of the more tolerable alien characters, because she herself is more human like, ad more realistic.

     The last thing that really bugged me about this story was the whole “For the Greater Good.” I read that line a couple of times and it put me so on edge it wasn’t even funny. The reason why, I don’t like that phrase, is because of Harry Potter. Grindelwald, tried using that as his saying, when he tried to exterminate all the muggle-born children. Dumbledore, as awesome as a character he is, he makes mistakes, which he humbly admits to, and has been quoted doing things for the greater good. Not all his choices are the best, and it puts me on edge when people say that line. It feels like they’re trying to justify what they do. Adolf Hitler must have used that line, “it’s for the greater good if we kill all Jewish people” so I’m a bit wary. But I’m going to go do something you should never do with Stephenie Meyer’s books. I’m going to look very deeply in to this book (which is bad for your health and mine) and say that, the aliens were trying to justify themselves. That deep inside them, they knew they weren’t as perfect as they said they were, and so tried to justify their weird craving for immortality by saying it was for the greater good.

   Oh, another thing I forgot to mention. These Aliens are basically just striving for immortality, switching hosts like that, and living multiple lives (Reminds me of Orochimaru from Naruto). They don’t need to die unless they want to. Voldemort, and many other super villains must be rolling in their graves.    

The Secret Life Of Bees *spoiler ALERTS*

   The Secret Life of Bees

Terri Thampan 804

    I have recently read the book. "The Secret Life of Bees" By Sue Monk Kidd, and it is a very deep and heartwarming book. The main character, Lily, is a girl who lost her mother when she was 4 years old. She wishes to escape from living with her semi-abusive father, and sees the chance when Rosaleen, the black woman who her father picked from his pickers (helpers) to take care of Lily, gets put in jail for spilling snuff juice over three of the most racist white men's shoes. Lily, has a picture that belonged to her mother, and goes to the address on the back of it. This leads her to the Pink House. There she meets the three sisters June, May, and August. With them, she learns more about her mother, matures, and finally gets over the tiny bit of racism even she harbors within herself.
    What's really great about this book is that you learn a lot from it. Lily, goes through many changes in her thinking, and how she perceives the world around her. In the beginning of the book, she harbored the feelings of superiority for being white. But it wasn't so much that it was noticeable, but it was a little bit that even she wasn't aware of. When she met, the month sisters as I like to call them, or June, August, and May, she started to realize she did have these feelings inside of her. This made her ashamed, as she thought that August was a really knowledgeable woman,   but before she met August, somewhere inside her, she thought that Black women could be smart, but not as smart as her because she was white. She also falls in love with a black boy, and starts to think of people not by race or color, but without those things, slowly starting to think that such things don't matter.
    Another thing I really like about the story was, it isn't just all "Everything's going to be all right" type of story. Lily, had to work hard to make June like her. June disliked Lily for being white, which gave Lily some insight that it wasn't just white people disliking black people, but also it's later revealed that June didn't like Lily's mom because August used to work as Lily's mom's nanny.
     Also, you have a character like May. May is a very kindhearted woman. Everything that's bad that happens in the world, and May hears about it, it feels to her that it personally happens to her. It's also made known that May had a twin sister named April, who committed suicide. In the book it says how whenever April felt something, May felt the same thing as well, and as soon as April died, it was like the whole world became April for May. What I found really sad and symbolic was that May also committed suicide. It was when she found out that Zach (The boy who Lily fell in love with, also August's godson) had been put in jail, and no one told her about it, did she go out and commit suicide.
      I found that really touching because, it was the same way her twin went out of this world. Like two twins, destined to share the same kind of fate, to end their life by suicide, I feel like, the wight of the world became too much for May, because no one should ever have to burden that. May is a character that tried, and it broke her so much, to hold the world on our own frail shoulders. It will kill us, just like it killed May. But we should really live our lives to the fullest, and try to correct the world, so there really isn't so much to shoulder. May gave the advice to her sisters in her suicide note, to keep on living and that it was her time to join her parents and twin up in heaven.
     What I sort of think in my reading was that T. Ray, Lily's dad, mixed up Lily with her mother, Deborah, whenever he saw her. Because, in the story, Deborah tried to leave T. Ray, because his attitude towards her started changing more. I feel like, he started getting a bit more violent with her to get her to stay with him, because even though Deborah was falling out of love with him, T.Ray was still in love with her, and didn't want her to leave him. I eel like, because she left him already, T. Ray didn't want to take that chance with Lily, the only thing he had left of his wife. He treated Lily the opposite he treated Deborah (Which was Princess like for Deborah) as if he was scared that if he treated her like her mother, she too would walk all over him and leave him. I'm not trying to justify him, but understand his character a bit more, how he treated Lily was bad. He also says, "You're not leaving me again Deborah!" to Lily when she tells him she wants to stay with the month sisters. I heard that sometimes, parents mistake their own child for the deceased spouses. I feel bad for these kids, because half the time, the parent may treat them like the spouse, or differently, which can make them uncomfortable.
      The biggest thing that happened in the story was how Lily's thoughts on her mother changed. In the beginning, she was like the dream mother, the one who was prefect in every way. But then, nearing the end of the book, she finds out that her mother left her with her father, when she ran away from them. Her mental image of her mother started to change. No matter that her mother was depressed, she had abandoned her. It made Lily see her mother as something else than what she had thought. Gone was the woman who was perfect. What I really liked, was that she started to see her mother as she truly was, a human. And humans make mistakes. The thing is, her mother tried to fix her mistakes, by going back or Lily, but unfortunately, she died from the gun exploding by accident (Lily tried to give it to her mom, but the gun went off) before she could take Lily with her. I feel like, people when they think of their deceased parents, they sort of paint them out to be perfect. Harry, in Harry Potter, has this amazing mental image of his parents, but he finds out that when his dad was a kid, he used to bully others. This shattered his image of his dad, but he learned to accept that his dad had grew up from the child he once was.
   This book gives you so much from it. It only takes some time to look for the lessons.    
 

Am I Blue?

           Am I blue?

By: Terri Thampan 804

     I have recently read the short story, “Am I Blue?” by Bruce Coville. The story’s protagonist is named Vince. When we first see Vince, he was beaten up for being gay, even though Vince himself has no idea what his sexual orientation might be. In comes Melvin, Vince’s new Fairy-Godfather. You got me, Fairy-Godfather. Melvin comes and helps out Vince, teaching him that being gay really isn't that bad, unlike what some might say, and also turning the world’s gay people the color/shade blue.

    When reading this story, I got the general message quite clearly. It’s okay to be gay. But what really drew me into the story was the character Melvin. To me, he seems like a really cool guy, I wanted to see his history. I wanted to know more about this character, even though Vince’s is history is a bit vaguer just like his. He also teaches Vince, which makes his character more interesting as he's a mentor.

    First off, what got me interested in Melvin was that he had a description. Unlike the many other characters in the short story, I might have just ignored Melvin’s if he did have one; I could actually visualize this guy. It was stated quite clearly in the text that he was tall and slender. It also gives us more information in the text, “He had dark hair, a neat mustache, and a sweater slung over his shoulders. He was kind of handsome-almost pretty. He wore a gold ring in his left ear. He looked to be about thirty.”

     Right off the bat, I can see this guy. But what I also noticed was that the way he looked, seemed to show off his personality. In the world, many people judge you based on how you look, the more messed up, and ruffled you look, the lower the people think of you. In the text, apparently, Melvin’s clothes can’t get dirty, and his mustache is neat. This makes you think, ‘well, look at this chap right here! He must be a fellow gentleman!’ (In a British accent because everyone knows sophisticated people have British accents ;P), or they will think you as more of a scholarly type.

     But he also has an earring. When I generally think of guys with earrings, I’m a bit disappointed to say, that I have a bit of a stereotype and think of rebellious kids and delinquents. To me when I think of Melvin and rethink about his character, I can totally see it as Melvin’s sign of being rebellious towards a world that discriminates gay people, who he is one of. I find that really cool, and very encouraging to others to not be afraid of the world, and stand up and be rebellious for what they believe in and who they are.
     Another thing I like about Melvin, is that the author gives hints about Melvin's past, which makes him pretty interesting. "Honey, I gave my life to be able to walk like this. Don't you dare try to stop me now." Is what he says when Vince asks him to stop walking so swishy-like. We then get the whole story in this part, "It's how I met my maker, so to speak. I was walking down the street one day last year, minding my own business, when three bruisers dragged me into an alley, shouting 'We'll teach you, faggot!' They ever did explain what they were going to teach me. Last thing I remember about life on Earth is coming face to face with a tire iron. Next thing I knew I was knocking on the Pearly Gates." This tells me that even before he died, he was determined to walk like he wanted to, not caring what others say about him. It also makes me even more curious about his history, because usually, many are afraid to do that. It makes me wonder if Melvin met someone in the past who made him be courageous enough to act like he wanted to, and not get hurt by those that call him gay. In act, he and his friends called each other faggots so they would be less hurt about the word, and show that the word had no effect on them. They were taking the famous saying "Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me" to heart apparently.
     Another reason why I like Melvin is because he wants things to change. He became the first Fairy Godfather, because he wanted to, and was determined to get it to be so. He also wants it so that people would stop ignoring the fact that being gay isn't abnormal, and start realizing that everyone knows someone who's gay. He wants it so that gays don't have to hide, in fear that what happened to Vice and Melvin will happen to them.
     I find Melvin's character very cool. His personality is very nice, and has determination all over him. He is a very encouraging character that tells people it's okay to be different and not fit the social norm. So I guess everyone who is bullied and beaten down on for being different should put on their earring of rebelliousness and face the world, knowing there are actually many others waiting to help you out.