The Vampire Armand

Challenging prose. I liked the artistic focus given to the scenario descriptions, but it was mostly wasted on me and it was way too much. Many paragraphs were used to describe works of art in some places, and I just don't have the art affinity to appreciate it (see here for what I mean). Also the dream sequences of Armand's childhood in the monastery were too much abstract and conveyed little of his character to me.

Overall I'm a sucker for good and intelligent prose, bringing up things I don't quite understand (art) or feel much (emotions) in a vivid and descriptive way. It takes a lot to make an immortal character feel unique, you could expect that after a few hundred years old they would all be the same.

Rice once again brings to life creatures centuries of years old. The story has little connection to Lestat's saga, but it is nonetheless a compelling tale. I liked the outcome in the end of the book regarding Marius, it was an appropriate reaction from his encounter with the reanimated Akasha.

The book starts with Armand telling David Talbot his history, from the day he was first bough as a slave and passed around in the hands of old and lascivious men. The account of his suffering in the ship that brought him to Venice was brief, his real life started when Marius found him and raised him up to be the an educated young men.

Half of the book is about his time with Marius, who was his father, his brother, his friend, his teacher, and latter his lover and then his sire, the one who gave him eternal life. Their relationship is both loving and lascivious, although Marius latter explains how he doesn't experience the same emotions as Armand does because of his undead flesh can only care about the blood. This is exposed gradually throughout the book.

Armand learns how to be an scholar through many teachers and books, and the greatest of lovers by spending many hours in brothels, both with men and women. Sexuality is fluid in this story, but Marius explains why he prefers boys over women, and even other men. At a moment when Armand is dying, Marius, reluctantly turns him into a vampire. He is worried they would grew apart after that.

Bu a new phase starts for Armand, and Marius is there to teach him everything once again. That is, until they're attacked, as Armand had previously described in the The Vampire Lestat. But now he recounts how he was mind washed by the vampire Santino into coming into the service of Satan, and do the Devils work. After a few years, Santino vanished, nobody knew what had become of him. But it wasn't until his encounter with Lestat that he started to doubt his beliefs, his teachings of misery and hate, of enslavement to a higher power that he once had opposed, being himself deeply religious once. And with Louis his life turned another page, and then gain with Daniel, his first progeny. And them the latest of his revelations, Lestat's encounter with God, his surrendering to the eternal flame, his agonizing recovery, and meeting the two mortals that would again return meaning into his life.

This book was a long and exciting ride.