Immortality is a Long Time

When Anne Rice wrote Interview with the Vampire, she was dealing with the death of her five-year-old son. It's no wonder that Louise, the vampire character in the novel, expresses regret for choosing immortality: 'It is a condemnation to boredom and repeated pain,' she says. I imagine Rice projecting herself onto that character, thinking that living eternally would only mean the pain caused by the loss of her son would never cease. There are other reasons to reject eternal life: 'If you have all the time in the world, urgency disappears,' Borges wrote in The Immortal. One of the reasons we travel, create, climb mountains, and contemplate sunsets is the certainty that one day we will no longer be able to do so. I think of Dorian Gray and Dracula, both of whom obtained immortality at a high price. If nothing is free in this life, then it turns out nothing is in the next either.