The Vampire Armand : a review A look at Armand's story told by David (through Anne Rice)
_Forlorn Angel : Amadeo_ (http://membres.lycos.fr/hiyami/amadeo.htm) - _Biography_ (http://membres.lycos.fr/hiyami/kindred/armand.htm) - _In his own words_ (http://membres.lycos.fr/hiyami/kindred/tva.htm) (T.V.A. excerts) - T.V.A. : a review _"Denis"_ (http://membres.lycos.fr/hiyami/kindred/denis.htm) (spec) - _"Winter's dawn"_ (http://membres.lycos.fr/hiyami/kindred/winter.htm) (spec) - _Fan-Gallery of Vampires_ (http://membres.lycos.fr/hiyami/kindred/fan-vamp.htm) Beware, this page is full of spoilers for "The Vampire Armand". Shortly, TVA left me mixed feelings all the while, but the end saves the unconvincing parts - well, until the inevitable Lestat-shows-off , that is. Now not shortly at all... But let's start by the start. Armand is back. *waving hands to welcome him and crying tears of joy* Not that he was ever far, regarding me, since I never believed he could give up that easily, but he's back to the world, which is a good thing for his sanity and his balance. And I welcome all things that are good to him. Yes, it does include Benjamin and Sybelle, surprisingly enough. But I save that for later. Armand in the attic looking for a little girl's ghost that never was there, and reluctantly accepting to tell his tale to David, not for David, that was not a bad introduction. With just enough hints to catch my attention and sound like Armand's words indeed. A ghost in the attic. Armand's biting tone. His killing and familiar games with David as the toy. I remember those games. He tends to play them on those who try to follow him, to make sure that they realize who and what he is. Besides, he always thought it was useless to hide or show off his darkness. It's in him, period. No need to dramatize it or pretend it doesn't exist. Accept it or run away while you can (as you figure, my choice was the first). * * * Making sure he was dead, I wrapped its length around my left hand and purposed to pull the whole mass from his scalp. David gasped. "Must you do this?" he asked me. "No," I said. [...] "You frighten me, the way you look," I said. "Have I so carelessly revealed myself to be a monster? You know, my blessed mortal Sybelle, when she is not playing the Sonata by Beethoven called the Appassionata, watches me feed all the time. Do you want me to tell my story now?" [...] "What was the reason then? I was only going to pull out his hair and throw it away." "Like pulling off the wings of a fly," he offered seemingly without judgement. "A dead fly," I said. I deliberately smiled. * * * No need to tell more. I can just picture that smile. Death smiles that way too. As I do - though of course on me it doesn't look quite as impressive as on your undead-cherub face. Armand started his story by the events that had led him to become a vampire, and as always it really hurt. Yet he was mercifully brief and allusive about his worst memories, but never mind, I always felt the pain throughout his coldest words, and I couldn't help it that time either. Then appears Marius, and it's where, in my understanding, Armand's voice began to be mixed with Anne's one. Or maybe I should just say, where things started not to fit quite well at times (the whipping scenes), or to sound redundant (lengths and lengths of descriptions and admirative adjectives), or useless (a better word would be "designed not to disappoint the regular readers of the Vampire Chronicles", but not necessary at all in that specific book IMHO), and sometimes completely out of place. Please understand me, I'm not thinking that Armand is not able of the things that were described in the book, or even that he didn't live some or all of them. But the narration doesn't ring as "true", Armandian to me as other parts of the tale. It reads more like tidbits of other Anne's works that she didn't know where to put and that she added in the middle of Armand's tale. Maybe much like she turned the original idea for Memnoch into a Vampire Chronicle by giving the leading part to Lestat while it wasn't her first intention. To give an example, it seems very inconsistent that Amadeo would be "rescued" from the brothel where he'd been sold, with so much bliss and drama when Marius "saves" him, to later go back there to enjoy the services of other boys who must have, for at least some of them, as much a tragic tale as he has. It also sounds a bit too perfect... Maybe highlighted in Armand's memory by the dark times before and after these short years in Venice? Hmf. Even that possibility makes me want to bite... Brain-washing, that's how I call that. The whole thing was totally inconsistent for me, anyway. Except if you buy that because Marius is supposedly a "good", wise vampire, it makes his attitude right, truly it's barely better than what he saved him from - except that it includes a mental subornment too. And no matter what, I still have a hard time to cope with the image of Amadeo with Marius. I always want to step in and separate them. So I can't really enjoy the tale of their relationship. Sounds like Marius is almost always doing the wrong thing - IMO at least ; that means : the opposite of what I'd have done in his place. But of course, I know and cherish Armand in a very different way than he did and still does - , except when he accompagnies Armand in his journey back to Kiev. And when he finally decides to make him a vampire since he has no choice left. But even the way he did the Dark Gift made me hiss. Maybe it's jealousy. Maybe it's just that the Armand I know has given away this part of his life. Or maybe just that he knows I don't like to hear about Marius?... *smile* So, with much relief I left Venice, to find back Amadeo's usual voice in his travel to Kiev. Travel in the past. Highly familiar. The spookiest thing is Amadeo's real name finally revealed. Andrei. When I needed to give him another name, I always called him Andrew. Somehow no other name seemed to fit him as well as this one. Reading it written there was quite a strange experience, though. Santino... I don't have much to say about Santino. I resent him for being the fanatical one who slain Marius' apprentices just because they had committed the "sin" to make friends with vampires. Something the Children of Darkness were forbidden to do, to commit with mortals. I resent him for having led Amadeo to such a thirst that he killed his best friend among Marius' boys, Riccardo, which was his last link to his short, happy years in Venice. Not to mention that I might have done exactly the same if I had been in Santino's situation and didn't love Armand in a too respectful way to hurt him, even in an attempt to keep him by my side. Like, I probably wouldn't kill Marius if I had the opportunity and strength, though I'd like it even now, afer reading the whole story. But I wouldn't do it as long as Armand wouldn't clearly let me know that he would no longer care. I don't like Santino because I hate fanatical speeches and people who want to tell others how to live and what is right or wrong, and people who kill or torture those who don't respect *their* rules. But all in one, he doesn't irritate me as much as Marius does. Maybe because he's the bad guy of the chapter. He was designed from the start to be the one who would cause the second crash of Amadeo's life. He was never presented as a savior, unlike Marius. He was trapped in his old beliefs and the same semblance of life he caught Armand in. Armand in the Coven. A true undead. Broken by unrequited beliefs. Not alive any more. For a long while. Starving from beauty and warmth. Floating on the edge of insanity. Kept away from final darkness by... what? No memories. Maybe insanity is the last tight rope to inner light. That is where he starts to see ghosts, but not quite as a friendly presence. Lestat. *sigh* What else to say about Lestat? Nothing from the few Armand said changed my opinion about him. I don't mind about Lestat. I never got why Armand even cared about him, and for myself I don't. I was much happy that he seemed quite bored to even have to sum up these events in his tale. I was also quite delighted of what he wrote about Louis and faithlessness. Claudia... What he did to Claudia, his Fankenstein-like experiment, was unexpected in the way it was done but not so surprising in its purpose. I wasn't horrified... Disappointed by the results and sorry for the monster child that it didn't work. Uncaring about the lady vampire that Armand killed to get Claudia a grown-up body, as much as he was himself by the look of it. Cold, cold, cold. There's a cold core to Armand's nature that echoes to mine. Sometimes I somehow know, by human habits, that I should be horrified or pitiful, but I'm not at all and not caring that I don't feel anything of that kind. I'm not at all insensitive or emotionless, understand. But at times there's this diamond-like part of my brain waking up, smiling of horrors. I know that Claudia's mind and heart was mainly of that nature too, and full of hatred and rage, and that's why I know she had to die. She was way too dangerous to be left alive, poor little one. She had nothing else but this icy thirst and burning rage tearing her. Salvation. Louis was Armand's temporary salvation, a.k.a. the one who gave him the curiosity to leave his Coven and let them die... For something else. Armand hadn't quite recovered completely from his centuries in the dark by then, and not even when he met Daniel. Oh great. Daniel. *evil smile* How shortly he told about Daniel. A doomed relationship from the start. I'm so relieved he knew it and took his distance soon after Daniel's turning into a vampire. Isn't it what I always thought? That the two of them wouldn't stay together for long once there wasn't any more warm mortal blood and dependence bond between them? Memnoch events. Makes it a lot more clear for me who still haven't bothered to read the whole book... I know, shame on me, but I simply don't care enough about what Lestat can experiment and his questioning about God and the Devil. I really can't bother to read it, the more I can do is to skip over pages to pick up the main point and Armand's appearances. Armand's summary of what happened didn't really make me curious to know more. I only wanted to know what *he* had felt. It seemed all quite confused, but he looked very distressed... Still struggling with a past his mind concealed to himself. I guess it is to be taken as the mere burst of five hundred years of longing for death. No wonder he always chooses so well his victims among those who are "half in love with death" already. His visions during his flight to the sun are a mystery for him and so are they for me. A bird?... A priest? A messiah? Why... And on to Sybelle and Benjamin... Benjamin first. A brazen kid grown in a savage land, "knowing his way around the block" as Armand defined himself at the beginning of the book. Familiar both with nature and city, and more than all, with human nature. A funny boy, lively and fresh, and strong like stone within. Sybelle. I think I should be jealous of Sybelle. But I can't, really. It's so weird. Armand never was like that in previous books, wasn't he? He was never like that with Lestat or Louis or Daniel. Then suddenly... Oh well... Armand is talking there for us actually. Even when Armand explains why he was so stunned by the Veil and what it meant to him. Even though nothing's farther from me than religious feelings about God or Christ... Well, I guess that'll be forever your worst trick, Armand. It just sounds like if he made a book not just to tell his tale but to speak for us. Now at least that's a pretty good reason for something I couldn't understand... And that would be the end of my review. Armand, my little brother of soul, tired of having me speaking for him, spoke for me in return. Isn't that the sweetest gift from a sadistic trickster? Yours forever, your LiegeLady, "for all your strange faults and wild evil". ************************************** Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL at http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour
