Dec 26, 2009

The Vampire Lestat | Ideas for Group Discussions

Anne Rice makes no secret of her desire to do more than simply spin a good yarn. Her often wordy philosophical passages and her theorizing about everything from alienation to Zeitgeist fill her books with ideas that sometimes obscure the plot.

Her attitude about religions and their often detrimental effect on society and on individuals threads through nearly every chapter. Her aberrant characters — the vampire, mummies, and witches — personify her interest in the social outcast. They reflect her notion that those who question established religion may well be seen as being as...