Ratings1
Average rating5
'[W]hen I found Rice's work I absolutely loved how she took that genre and (...) made [it] feel so contemporary and relevant' Sarah Pinborough, bestselling author of Behind Her Eyes '[Rice wrote] in the great tradition of the gothic' Ramsey Campbell, bestselling author of The Hungry Moon The previous volume of the Vampire Chronicles, Memnoch the Devil, was called 'a modern Paradise Lost' by the Washington Post. Taking the Vampire Lestat from fiction into legend, it left him lying in a New Orleans convent, at the edge of death. Magnificent and electrifying, this new volume in the Vampire Chronicles returns to the glittering story of Armand, mesmerizing leader of the vampire coven at the eighteenth-century Theatre des Vampires in Paris (seductively played by Antonio Banderas in the film of Interview with the Vampire). Snatched from the steppes of Russia as a child, and sold as a slave in Renaissance Venice, Armand's story sweeps through several hundred years, to New Orleans at the end of the twentieth century, where Lestat lies waiting for immortality, and the legend continues to grow. . . . .
Reviews with the most likes.
“If I am an angel, paint me with black wings.”
Armand is in a constant sense of insecurity. For him self-sacrifice and suffering are the only way to achieve something, either action or response from someone, the torture towards others are the demonstrations of the tortures done to him, he obtains pleasure in the moral and physical torments, more towards himself than to others. His suffering makes him proud.
The emptiness he often feels when he appears to lose all (His mortal world, Marius, The Coven, Louis, Daniel) is just an unstable self-image and that is why every single time this character appears in the Vampire Chronicles, he is different. Every character that describes him in past books has a different approach to him. Everyone sees a different shade of him because he changes with every change in environment and interaction. Even in this book, his autobiography, he is never the same in his real convictions. Defiant pious little Andrei in the Monastery of the Caves, sexual and curious pleasure and pain/love and hate seeker Amadeo in Venice, self-tortured, externally violent and numb Armand in the Paris' Coven, and utterly lost-and-found Armand in the centuries to come.
This book may not be strong in plot development for it only is a slight expansion of the stories told in several books past, however, Armand is a curious and compelling character, who is utterly lovable in essence.
Featured Series
13 primary booksThe Vampire Chronicles is a 13-book series with 13 primary works first released in 1976 with contributions by Anne Rice and Adalgisa Campos da Silva.