Anne Rice’s Interview With The Vampire included a few Shakespeare references. And so does the second book in the series, The Vampire Lestat. This second book is narrated by the character Lestat. The first reference is to Shakespeare himself, with Rice writing, “I learned more after that from the English language writers – everybody from Shakespeare through Mark Twain to H. Rider Haggard, whom I read as the decades passed” (p. 4). The second reference is to Shakespeare as well: “Musicians performed Mozart as well as jazz and rock music; people went to see Shakespeare one night and a new French film the next” (pages 8-9).
The next few references are to Macbeth, and all three are to my personal favorite of Macbeth’s speeches. Rice writes, “‘“Handsome enough” is this Grim Reaper,’ I half uttered, ‘who can snuff all these “brief candles,” every fluttering soul sucking the air, from this hall’” (p. 137). The “brief candle” of course refers to Macbeth’s line “Out, out, brief candle.” A little later Rice writes: “‘Tomorrow…tomorrow night,’ I think I stammered. That line came back to me from Shakespeare’s Macbeth… ‘Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow…’” (p. 147). That same line is referred to a few pages later: “I was thinking about her as if there were ‘tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow…’” (p. 154).
The next reference is to Shakespeare, with Rice writing, “And why should I bother to tell of the times he came to me in wretched anxiety, begging me never to leave him, of the times we walked together and talked together, acted Shakespeare together for Claudia’s amusement” (p. 499). The book’s final reference is to Macbeth, and again to that great speech: “‘There’ll be time after,’ I answered. ‘“Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow”’” (p. 524).
The Vampire Lestat was published in 1985. The first Ballantine Books edition was published in October 1986. The copy I read is, I believe, from 1993 or 1994.
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