"The Suit Changes Nothing"
So, I'm still reading the Interview with the Vampire book and it's baffling, but the Freniere situation in the book really tells you a lot about both Lestat's and Louis' thought processes in relation to Louis' turning.
See, in the book Louis is pretty tight lipped about his turning initially. You get the sense he presents it as he felt at the time, overwhelmed, disoriented, wanting to use Lestat and vampirism to punish himself for his brother's death, numb from grief, but also extremely awed by and attracted to Lestat and unable and unwilling to say no to his own turning because of it.
At the time of or I guess right before his turning he's also very much suicidal and pretty much looking for something to strike him dead, which Lestat does, seemingly fulfilling his deep desire to die. In the end it seems Lestat only gives Louis the choice between death and vampirism. Life as he knew it never being on the table again once Lestat catches wind of him.
And Louis actually ends up using Levi Freniere in the book to explain how he felt about his own turning after the fact. He also explains what Lestat was like when he'd set his sights on someone.
I've mentioned this before but he starts the Freniere tale by saying
"I shall give you a perfect example of what Lestat liked."
"Up the river from us was the Freniere plantation, a magnificent spread of land which had great hopes of making a fortune in sugar, just shortly after the refining process had been invented."
Given that he uses Freniere's situation to actually talk about his own situation, this to me is him describing himself in terms of land. Not just any land, but coveted, promising land. Coveted by and promising to Lestat.
Which makes sense given that every time before in this book when he talks about Lestat wanting him he actually words it as "Lestat wanted my plantation."
And you know it was never about land because he contradicts himself on this later by saying
"And so he [as in Lestat] could acquire cash at any moment and I [as in Louis] could invest it. If he were not picking the pocket of a dead man in an alley, he was at the greatest gambling tables in the richest salons of the city, using his vampire keenness to suck gold and dollars from young planters' sons who found him deceptive in his friendship and alluring in his charm. But this had never given him the life he wanted, and so for that he had ushered me into the preternatural world that he might acquire an investor and manager for whom these skills of mortal life became most valuable in this life after."
[Interesting that he uses "suck" as the conjugated verb for this.]
I've always loved the gambling scene between Louis and Lestat on the show. It perfectly conveys what Lestat is there for even while he seems to be trying to deceive Louis into thinking he's simply looking for a business partner. Louis doesn't completely buy it on the show, but he allows it. The show was right to somewhat make that a pivotal moment, the first time Louis chooses Lestat.
In the book Louis is using the gambling scene to contradict himself, by saying Lestat did not in fact have to turn him to acquire his plantation. That they most likely met at a gambling table, where he found Lestat deceptive in his friendship and alluring in his charm and Lestat could have simply cheated him out of the deed to his plantation if that was all he wanted. But Lestat did not want the plantation without Louis. He wanted a home with Louis. And so he turned him instead.
But back to the Freniere situation that thoroughly explains this.
So Louis uses the opulence of the Freniere sugar plantation to explain what he looked like to Lestat. He's also sad and talks about unhappiness as he does this and then he says:
"This refined sugar is a poison. It was like the essence of life in New Orleans, so sweet that it can be fatal, so richly enticing that all other values are forgotten"
Louis is still talking about what Lestat likes at this point. But the thing is, Lestat likes him, pretty much only him. And here, he seems to be mourning everything he is that made him attractive to Lestat.
The way he describes the Freniere plantation, that is how Lestat saw him, magnificent, refined, great potential, innovative, so enticing it's overwhelming and making you forget everything else that matters. Notice that none of this is about physical features. It's about what's inside.
The way he words it he's talking about the allure of his blood to Lestat, but he's also talking about sex. About his and Lestat's mutual attraction to each other. To the point where neither of them cared about anything or anyone else. Pretty much describing the way they saw and felt about each other as overwhelming.
They do this in the show too, but using the analogy of a suit. Louis reminiscing on the possibility of him and Lestat not being attracted to each other, him not being noticed by Lestat if he had maybe worn a different suit the night he met Lestat. But that the suit changes nothing. Because it doesn't change what's inside. It doesn't change that he and Lestat wanted each other. It doesn't change that he's gay and that made him fundamentally capable of being attracted to Lestat. It doesn't change the fact that for Lestat it was never about the suit. Lestat saw Louis and liked what he saw sure, but he read Louis' mind before he truly chose him. It was always about what's inside. Lestat was never not going to notice or choose Louis because Louis could not change who he was at his core, which is what actually attracted Lestat to him.
Louis also talks about how he felt about Lestat turning him and it's funny because I've written an entire post on this in relation to the show before I ever started reading the book because they don't draw too much attention to it on the show. But now I realize it's described extensively in the book.
You see, Freniere was supposed to fight in a duel because he insulted a Spanish Creole boy and might potentially die because of it. And Lestat intended to kill Freniere before he could die in the duel.
Louis kind of says that Freniere was an idiot for getting himself mixed up in a duel over nothing but that he did not deserve certain death at Lestat's hands because of it.
"He [Freniere] was to negotiate marriages, to put together dowries [for his sisters] when the entire fortune of the place rode precariously on the next year's sugar crop"
"If Freniere died, the plantation would collapse. Its fragile economy, a life of splendor based on the perennial mortgaging of the next year's crop, was in his hands alone. So you can imagine the panic and misery in the Freniere household the night that the son went to town to fight the appointed duel."
The interviewer then asks Louis
"You mean then...that you felt for the Freniere women?"
which would be Freniere's sisters who would be left destitute if he died, being the only male in his family, the only one who could provide for them. Louis even says that it sucks because Levi has at least one sister who might be smarter than him but was never taught to run the plantation because she was born a girl.
"I felt for them totally. Their position was agonizing. And I felt for the boy. That night he locked himself in his father's study and made a will. He knew full well that if he fell under the rapier at four a.m. the next morning, his family would fall with him."
It makes me think Lestat partly stayed with Louis at the plantation because it's what Louis wanted. Lestat wanted Louis. Louis wanted to continue to provide for his family.
Which brings me to the extent to which Lestat wanted Louis.
Louis explains Lestat's obsession with him through the Freniere situation. And Lestat's vampire predator nature has everything to do with it.
"Lestat decided he wanted him[Freniere]. And now picture Lestat, gnashing his teeth like a comic opera devil because he was not going to kill the young Freniere [since he might die in the duel first]. "
"I'd [as in Louis] prevented him [Lestat] from killing the boy for months and now he meant to kill him before the Spanish boy could."
"We were on horseback, racing after the young Freniere towards New Orleans, Lestat bent on overtaking him, I bent on overtaking Lestat."
"I was incensed at Lestat as never before, and he was determined to get the boy. 'Give him his chance!' I was insisting"
"To glut himself upon the life of an entire family [by killing or turning their provider] was to me Lestat's supreme act of utter contempt and disregard for all he should have seen with a vampire's depth."
Long story short Lestat races towards the duel against the sunrise and with Louis after him, putting both their lives in danger. Louis tries to restrain Lestat to keep him from killing Freniere right before the duel. Freniere doesn't die in the duel but in the commotion of him not dying and Louis trying to save him after as the duel partner goes for a gun after he's lost the duel, Lestat attacks and kills Freniere anyway.
Lestat wanted Freniere. He hunted this boy for months with the intention to kill him and nothing could or did stand in his way.
Louis tells his story, articulating his feelings about his turning after the fact, using Freniere as a stand-in. Beyond the overwhelm and awe and attraction and disorientation he felt in the moment.
Because initially he describes his turning as inevitable and the circumstances around his turning as first wanting to die after his brother's suicide and Lestat then draining him on his doorstep. Being overwhelmed by Lestat, being in awe of Lestat. But also wanting to be damned. To be punished because he and his family blamed him for his brother's death and intending to use vampirism and Lestat as a way to punish himself for it.
It isn't until Freniere, that Louis uses that story to voice the anger, the rage, he feels at Lestat taking him wanting to throw his life away at face value and then actually taking it from him and (almost) leaving Louis' family destitute by doing so. And being even angrier knowing that on some level he chose it [although in my opinion consent was dubious and on the show you see Lestat realize this in real-time over time, that Louis wasn't in the right headspace at all to consent to something of that magnitude.]
And so in this book Louis mourns everything that made him attractive to Lestat. He mourns being attracted to Lestat. But as he says on the show "The suit changes nothing".
