I have very recently come into
possession of the majority of Anne Rice's 'The Vampire Chronicles'.
So now I've got them all, and I've been reading them. Well, okay, not
Blood and Gold or Mnenoch
the Devil because the person who
gave them to me didn't have those ones. Never mind, eh? Not like I've
missed anything controversial or direction changing about the series
then.
Now, I've always
enjoyed Anne Rice, but, before I begin I will admit to a couple of
pet peeves. There's the small matter of continuity – exactly how
her vampirism works, as well as the physical characteristics and ages
of her changeless vampires are somewhat open to discussion. Is Armand
auburn, or is he strawberry blond? And, curly? Did his hair always
curl? And is this blog really the place for insanely geeky
speculations about relative strengths and telepathic abilities of her
vampires?
I can answer that
last one: No. So, Alys, stop it. Now.
Then
there are the more significant concerns: her pervasive tendency to
preach, whether her ideology of the moment is materialism, secularism
or Catholicism; the absolute, conspicuous consumption of all her main
characters as a way of burning through their obscene, nay, limitless
wealth; her occasional, and irritating lapses of voice; the minor,
subsidiary and unconvincing roles of her female characters; her
bizarre, and frankly patronising, conception of age (especially
annoying in the historical circumstances;) her total, I mean
absolute inability to to write a
convincing English gentleman, and her insistence upon narrating an
entire book from such a vantage point.
The
fact is, Anne Rice is a flawed writer, but I would argue that, in
some measure, it is her flaws which make her lovable; I want to
assure you of that before you come to the conclusion that I'm having
some manner of apoplexy. So, while in several matters or style, taste
and skill Anne Rice is far from perfect, she is still a remarkably
compelling writer. And, for the record, I loved Merrick and
think David Talbot is wonderful – he's not English by any stretch
of the imagination, but he's none the worse for it.
So,
for a quick review: although I found The Vampire Armand
dragged in places, I've never
had that much time for him as a character anyway, it was amusing
enough. Pandora was a
refreshing and thought provoking look at one of her much underused
minor figures. Yes, Merrick stumbled
in places, and Blackwood Farm in
others, but both were well rounded, enjoyable reads – and to be
honest, meeting some new faces was rather pleasant after so long with
the same old crowd. Throughout all of these books there is a
commitment to character and world development in the aftermath of the
events of Mnenoch the Devil;
events of which, I'll admit, I have only the foggiest understanding.
Which
brings us to Blood Canticle. Which
brings us, if I'm honest, to my biggest misgiving about the entire
Vampire Chronicles series,
a misgiving standing – as he so repeatedly tells us – 6 foot tall
with his blond hair, blue eyes
clad in understated designer clobber or else in velvet, leather and
lace. Yes, dear old Lestat; Lestat, the Brat Prince who breaks down
the fourth wall with all the subtlety of a bulldozer. Lestat, the
demon turned anti-hero turned rock-star turned demi-God turned Saint
turned... no, hang on, I'm a bit lost. Er...
Let's
start again. Without Lestat, there would be no Vampire
Chronicles; okay, we might have
Louis moping into eternity with his irritating but compelling
melancholy, because his Lestat is not our
Lestat.
Without Lestat, it is arguable that the world – and certainly
Rice's fictional universe – would be a duller place. I have no
problem with Lestat. I even have no problem with Lestat being
snatched up into the ether and going on some strange, metaphysical
journey, meeting Saint Veronica, meeting Chris and converting back to
Catholicism. I don't mind
that Lestat wants to be good; on some level, Lestat has always
wanted
to be good. At times, I might argue, he even succeeds.
No,
my problem with Lestat is that he and Anne Rice get a little bit too
close. Always, he has been given too much emphasis, too much power,
too many excuses.
Every
now and then, his voice slips and we see no longer our alluring,
conceited murderer desperate for redemption but a writer who wants
us, who needs us
to believe that Lestat is really okay. That what he did to Louis, or
Claudia, or David, that any of that can be shunted under the carpet;
that really, this being is a consummate charmer, a doomed individual
worthy of our sympathies, of our love.
I can understand why Rice does this; she loves Lestat. From what I
understand of her biography, he is, to an extent, her mirror. When we
love someone, we invariably want the world to focus on their good
characteristics – their flaws must always be seen as forgivable.
When I write, before I get heartily sick of my protagonists and start
being really unpleasant to them, I want the same thing: I want them
understood, nurtured, I want to hand them over to people who will
understand them in all their complexity. And in the intimacy of the
first person, the confessional nature of it, this impulse is very
hard to ignore.
Rice
is lucky, of course. Lestat is very easy to love, if you're into that
kind of thing; mouthy, attractive and impulsive, tortured,
affectionate, sexual – oh, so very sexual – and dangerous, too.
Readers who enjoy her books are generally willing to forgive him –
at least, within the scope of the books themselves. All is well; the
Brat Prince receives the adulation that he so clearly wants, and
which Rice desperately asks. Then... then Mnenoch
the Devil, which
I haven't read.
After
that, a slew of books about other people; Lestat is a minor figure,
comatose and tragic, or else moving slowly and plagued by doubts.
Taken from the limelight we can feel the equal measures of devotion
and scorn which he invokes; and because David loves him, because
David has forgiven him, we love him also. Quin falls in love with him
on sight, and Lestat behaves with a charity suitable to the
capricious and ardent nature we've seen elsewhere. Everywhere, he is
shown to inspire love and to make some effort to be worthy of it.
That's it – Claudia, Louis and David, that poor girl in Tale
of the Body Thief who's
name I've forgotten, all those past betrayals brushed under the
carpet. The massacre of some thousands of men in Queen
of the Damned of
no further import. Impulsive, yes. Mislead, yes, easily mislead, but
evil? Well, only enjoyably so.
On
to Blood
Canticle, and,
as the effusive blurb informs us, “Lestat really is back with a
vengeance”, an expression which will henceforth fill me with as
much enthusiasm as a Doctor Who story entitled 'Insert
appropriate noun of
the Daleks'.
Yes,
Lestat is back, and Lestat is pissed off that people aren't taking
his redemption seriously. Lestat is back and, however much he might
doubt it, something important
happened
to him, dammit! Lestat is back and Lestat is... whining. He wants us
to understand, wants us to see how important and seminal his
experiences were and how we've no right to speak about him as a
fictional character and complain that his behaviour has become
inconsistent, just because he's changed. “How can I be
inconsistent,” he asks, “when I'm as badass as ever?”
And
this is my complaint: here
he
is inconsistent, here
he
is no longer being badassed. Frankly, Lestat is exactly
the type of Vampire I'd expect to have some massive, spiritual
experience. The image of him soaring up to heaven, plummeting down to
Hell, drinking the blood of Christ himself and stumbling back into
the modern day with an insanely valuable relic is his style
precisely. If he's going to go all 'born again' on us, I wouldn't
expect him to do it in any kind of understated, 'good works and clean
living' kind of way; after all, in Queen
of the Damned he
didn't just bring the Vampires out into the light – he pretty much
brought about their extinction as a species. What I don't expect him
to do is mewl about it; “It's not my fault, it's not fair,” is
the kind of thing Armand, might say, although even he'd say it with
more dignity.
The
whole problem, for me, is summed up in the character of Mona. About a
third of the way through the book, she writes a little essay on what
it means to have become a vampire, having been a committed Catholic
until that point. Written in the style of a first year Lit student,
it's main point seems to be that as Vampires can no longer be
assessed within the human moral framework, she cannot know until she
dies whether they are part of God's plan and can still achieve a form
of salvation, and therefore can but try. All well and good – what
else would a Christian, even a lip-service Christian, be worrying
about after getting turned if not salvation, damnation and one's
altered place in the grand scheme of things. Thing is, this is
nothing new – this is what Rice was getting at in the first four
bloody books. And the sixth. And the seventh. It takes Lestat 200
fucking years,
and
God knows how many pages, to reach the conclusion that 'maybe there
is a God and, if there is, maybe he has a place for me and I'm not
damned after all. I can't be sure though, as the only way to find out
is through snuffing it, which I can't do. Cue existential despair.'
We get it, Anne Rice, we bloody well get it. It sounded better the
first six times.
