Interview with a vampire

In Interview with a Vampire I was somewhat perplexed by the character of Lestat. He enters into the story a mystery, and he seems to remain one. Louis is the stories narrator, and so we get to see every single occurrence in his life. Claudia is found as a child, and while her reasoning and perceptions are complex and unreadable at times, we are allowed to see her life from it’s beginning to end, without any gaps. Lestat on the other hand is a character throughout the novel and we hardly ever gain insight to his motives or thinking.
Louise constantly derides Lestat as a terrible teacher, one who failed to fully explain the senses of a vampire and focused only on the love of killing others. Throughout the novel we are told again and again that Lestat knows nothing of vampires origins or powers. But by threatening Claudia and Louise with the possibility of some critical knowledge he is able to keep them under his power for decades.
Most puzzling is Lestat’s past. His blind father asks forgiveness for burning several of his son’s books so that he could not go to school, but how Lestat is transformed into a vampire is never explained. Later when Claudia and Louise find Armand and his group of vampires, it is reviled that Lestat had been one of several vampires under one master. But whether Lestat killed his Master or not remains mere heresy.
Lestat remains a mystery throughout the book. In the first half of the book he acts violent and vengeful in nature interspaced with bouts of civility and what could be love. On page 55 Lestat refuses to forgive his father saying, “For what! Taking me out of school!” he threw up his hand in desperation “Damn him! Kill him!” After Claudia poisons and stabs Lestat he manages to survive, though the ordeal is never told. After that Lestat is left in New Orleans for years, only recurring to help kill Claudia, after which he seems desperate to tell Louise something that the readers never find out. Finally at the end of the book Lestat eats only cats and babies, frightened of sirens. He tells Louis “Louis, I can’t bear it, I can’t bear it, Help me, Louis, stay with me.” Lestat acquires another young vampire for a slave, and ages and degenerates so much, but the stories behind these things we never learn.