(sorry, forgot to finish a thought!) Oh my gosh, I had to read this comment a million times before I could even formulate a reply, there's so much here XD There's something about the VC that opens a spigot in the psyche; no matter what else I could say about Anne Rice...
Lestat is a tremendous rock star in tVL, and that is what seduced me; which may have been AR's intention and, speaking metafictionally, was almost certainly Lestat's. It's true that vampires are pretty much power fantasies--rereading that too-short account of Armand building an empire on piracy, in QotD, I was kind of mad. I mean, it really is that easy for them. Which I guess is why they struggle so much with problems that humans often simply grow out of? And I love what you said about all human belief ultimately being illusion, and every single vampire no matter what apparent or real age having to deal with that on the same level.
And also in QotD Akasha pretty much culls them to the point that they either have to make lots more vampires or just exist and have relationships within this tiny pool, which is far more horrifying to me than blood-drinking or blowing people up with your mind. Isn't that the same thing that happened in Marius' day, when the elder put Akasha and Enkil in the sun? How did other vampires get made, after?
Gabrielle of all of them seemed the most adult to me. There was something Marius was saying about having to live out at least one whole lifetime to stay sane as a vampire, but even he can't have been more than thirty when he got kidnapped by Mael for the Wicker Man the god of the wood. And all his 'lifetimes' seemed to end violently: his human one, his one with Armand, and his life as Secret-Keeper. (I haven't read Pandora yet and I haven't read Blood and Gold for years; I should check.) But Gabrielle lived a whole life and pretty much had a natural death; I was fascinated by the way she described her own funeral and referred to herself distantly, when Lestat put her in her coffin. Of all of them, she does seem to grasp what you said about human beliefs being illusion; while the rest of them are still more or less the people they were, she's decided who she is as a vampire. Scorched Earth indeed.
As for Lestat and Louis... the narrative becomes this hilarious running tally of he-did-this no-he's-lying-it-was-really-that. YES. I laughed and laughed at that comment! I'm kind of not in the same place about the 65-year 'marriage' though...my grands have had the same and it was misery and neuroses for pretty much everyone concerned. Of course they were bound by social norms, and Lestat and Louis are not; they chose to stay together--and in tVL get back together again, which really does say something for their genuine feeling for each other.
I'm really interested in where Daniel goes too; the madness was not a good sign to me but maybe it was something he had to go through, like Lestat's catatonia. Interesting to think that vampires have quarter-life/mid-life crises as well, although radically amplified--this freedom and the shock of being released from your illusions might have something to do with it.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2013-04-06 09:47 am (UTC)Oh my gosh, I had to read this comment a million times before I could even formulate a reply, there's so much here XD There's something about the VC that opens a spigot in the psyche; no matter what else I could say about Anne Rice...
Lestat is a tremendous rock star in tVL, and that is what seduced me; which may have been AR's intention and, speaking metafictionally, was almost certainly Lestat's. It's true that vampires are pretty much power fantasies--rereading that too-short account of Armand building an empire on piracy, in QotD, I was kind of mad. I mean, it really is that easy for them. Which I guess is why they struggle so much with problems that humans often simply grow out of? And I love what you said about all human belief ultimately being illusion, and every single vampire no matter what apparent or real age having to deal with that on the same level.
And also in QotD Akasha pretty much culls them to the point that they either have to make lots more vampires or just exist and have relationships within this tiny pool, which is far more horrifying to me than blood-drinking or blowing people up with your mind. Isn't that the same thing that happened in Marius' day, when the elder put Akasha and Enkil in the sun? How did other vampires get made, after?
Gabrielle of all of them seemed the most adult to me. There was something Marius was saying about having to live out at least one whole lifetime to stay sane as a vampire, but even he can't have been more than thirty when he got kidnapped by Mael for
the Wicker Manthe god of the wood. And all his 'lifetimes' seemed to end violently: his human one, his one with Armand, and his life as Secret-Keeper. (I haven't read Pandora yet and I haven't read Blood and Gold for years; I should check.) But Gabrielle lived a whole life and pretty much had a natural death; I was fascinated by the way she described her own funeral and referred to herself distantly, when Lestat put her in her coffin. Of all of them, she does seem to grasp what you said about human beliefs being illusion; while the rest of them are still more or less the people they were, she's decided who she is as a vampire. Scorched Earth indeed.As for Lestat and Louis...
the narrative becomes this hilarious running tally of he-did-this no-he's-lying-it-was-really-that.
YES. I laughed and laughed at that comment! I'm kind of not in the same place about the 65-year 'marriage' though...my grands have had the same and it was misery and neuroses for pretty much everyone concerned. Of course they were bound by social norms, and Lestat and Louis are not; they chose to stay together--and in tVL get back together again, which really does say something for their genuine feeling for each other.
I'm really interested in where Daniel goes too; the madness was not a good sign to me but maybe it was something he had to go through, like Lestat's catatonia. Interesting to think that vampires have quarter-life/mid-life crises as well, although radically amplified--this freedom and the shock of being released from your illusions might have something to do with it.