Claudia
Earlier this week I decided to pick up my copy of Interview with the Vampire. I needed a book for my trip to Ohio, and the vivid and articulate words of the characters were a welcome delight. It wasn't just for travel reading or writing quality I had chosen it from my library. Interview fall within a category of books I had read too quickly. I had recently reread Dune, Heretics of Dune, and most of Children of Dune for the same reason.
As I had watched the film first and read the book afterward, I cannot resist the joy of finding this line or that I so cherished from the film. I am of the rare opinion that the film was actually better than the book. Better in the sense that the story structure was more polished and self-contained than in the book. Things simply flowed better. Some would find this opinion practically heretical. I have given up arguing my point over the last few years. I hold a similar opinion when it comes to the manga and anime versions of a story. A "faithful" adaptation is not required so as the quality of writing is maintained. I, myself, often find it enjoyable to examine the same story against different backdrops or situations. I do not believe there need be one and only one version of a story. None of the stories I've imagined have a single version.
While reading Interview this afternoon (I did not have much time to read earlier this week), I came upon the character of Claudia. Since first being exposed to the story, I had adored the character of Louis. His fallen-from-grace mentality and self-destructive bent resonated with my own thoughts and feelings. Reading the story today, however, I find a unique empathy for the child vampress I had never before known.
Much of the character's conflict comes from the fact that she is a woman in child form. "You will never grow old, and you will never die," as Louis described in the film. "But it means another thing," Claudia replied, "I shall never, ever grow up." Her mind and personality are far more mature and refined -- not to mention vicious -- than her form betrays. Yet, she does not remember anything of her life as a mortal. The Dark Gift ostensibly had cleansed her of that memory.
Many times, even while I possessed the form of a child, I did not consider myself one. I grew up with a impending sense of horror as to how the body I inhabited would develop. It hung over me like an invisible storm cloud. I would sometimes, in quiet moments on the school bus, in the shower, or on my bed slip into a desperate fantasy. I would long that some magical change would have overtaken me. That I would awaken and be nothing but a normal little girl. The fantasies were comforting -- for a while. My budding sense of reason soon interrupted my revelry: Stop thinking nonsense, I would tell myself, just give up. There's nothing you can do about it.
When I try to think back to when this started I realized that I could not pinpoint a specific time. In fact, I could not recall a time when I didn't have these thoughts. I felt intensely jealous of the girls in my classes. It seemed terribly unfair that I was forcibly lumped with an altogether different group of people I could only barely fathom. Perhaps between the terrible shame I carried of my own desires, my jealousy and incapability of understanding is why I hadn't any friends until I was in 6th grade. To this day I cannot think of something more horrible to do to a child than to introduce them to the brutal reality of the world. Paradoxically I champion that brutality in the face of adult struggles today. The cruel part of me thinks, "I was never given comfort when faced with it, why should you be any different?"
Throughout it all, there's a sense of alienation. I never exactly "fit" anywhere. Even today I only barely fit in with my current friends. That in of itself can be very isolating -- even in a room full of people. "You speak of them out there as mortals, and us as vampires..." Claudia rages in an argument with Lestat. The character seems a mix, a hybrid of things not meant to be combined. Claudia the hybrid; child yet not, woman yet not. Despite all my rationalizations to the contrary, the ridiculous nature of gender, the supposed chasm that separates its halves, I still feel like a creature caught forever in between.
