Book Review
Title: The Vampire Lestat (The Vampire Chronicles #2)
Author: Anne Rice
Genre: Paranormal/Horror
Rating: *****
Review: I recently finished my reread of Interview with the Vampire and loved it and now I am finally started the sequel, I was a little worried about following Lestat as the main character since we really dislike him for the majority of the first book. The first thing I need to say is this book definitely opened with a bang, the novel opens in 1984 where Lestat has been sleeping under the earth, trying to cope with the passage of time and how the world has been changed in an extended dream sequence. Until one day, Lestat realises he is wide awake and wants to re-join the world in particular he wants to join a small rock band called Satan’s Night Out. When he has the strength and courage to join them, he introduces himself by name and tells his band mates that he is a vampire, something Lestat has never done unless he intended to pass the Dark Gift onto that person. While he isn’t believed the others in the band recognise his name from a book and present him with a battered copy of Interview with the Vampire. Lestat immediately recognises the book as truth and that his beloved Louis had told the truth about their kind which would have made him an outcast if he wasn’t already dead. Lestat decides in this moment he is going to answer Louis’ tale with one of his own in which he fills in all the information about himself that Louis didn’t know and provide a different perspective on some of the events Louis discusses with Daniel. At this point we jump to presumably Lestat writing his tale where he discusses his human life, how his family were important but broke and it has fallen to Lestat the youngest of the 3 surviving sons to provide for the family which he resented. He speaks of how he tried to run away twice once to the monastery where he had been sent to school only to be brought back by his brothers and later running away to be an actor before being dragged back. The only person who seems to remotely understand him and what he wants is his mother although she is remote and distant most of the time, she is attentive to Lestat at this time. After hunting down a pack of eight wolves in which his beloved dogs and horse are killed and he himself is injured Lestat meets Nicolas de Lenfent who had been sent to university in Paris and left because he wanted to be a musician despite the will of his father. The boys begins meeting in order to discuss everything they have never been able to say in front of others and Lestat feels a love for Nicolas he has never felt for anyone else, the closest love he has to this one is the love he has for his mother who is now dying. This Lestat is drastically different from the one Louis presents us with in the first book and I am extremely eager to hear Lestat’s story especially when his overall goal is the bring vampires into the light and hopefully draw out his beloved Louis so they can talk.
As we approach the ¼ mark in the novel, Lestat begins to realise who it means to be mortal and how even after they die, they don’t get any of the answers they spent their whole lives seeking and this leads Lestat to become afraid of his own mortality. However, his mother seeing how this is slowly driving her son to madness gives him the last of the money from her family and encourages him to run away with Nicolas to Paris and live how he wants to live and they do exactly that even though both are disowned by their fathers. Once in Paris Lestat and Nicolas being using their skills with the violin and acting in order to find work and support themselves and loving every moment of it and it isn’t long before Lestat gets the break he has waiting for and is acting on the smaller stages full-time and there are whispers of him moving up in the acting world very soon. As Lestat is rising in his world, Nicolas is struggling in his and they try to keep each other afloat but a mysterious face appearing at Lestat’s performance has him afraid especially since Lestat knows that this person knows about the wolves he killed back home and the name Nicolas gave him; Wolfkiller without every speaking to them or laying eyes upon them for more than a few seconds and I am sure this is the vampire that is going to change Lestat eventually. One night after falling asleep beside Nicolas, Lestat wakes to find the vampire in his room and before he can do anything more than shout for Nicolas the vampire carries him off into the night. Lestat doesn’t cower or back down but fights with everything he has even after the vampire starts to drink from him but he doesn’t kill Lestat. Lestat wakens once more to find himself in a tower cell with the vampire but it acts calmly around him and treats Lestat well before feeding off him again draining him to the point of death and offering him eternal life which he accepts. Unlike Louis’ turning Lestat’s is filled with a pleasure that he has never known before and fights to cling onto it even though he knows it is wrong to do so. Once he has been turned, he knows that his creators name is Magnus and Magnus intends to kill himself by burning but not before instructing Lestat on the basics of being a vampire. All Magnus tells him is he has to feed on blood and only the sunlight and fire will kill him and even with fire the ashes have to be scattered in order to prevent the vampire from returning and he leaves Lestat his wealth and his home. Lestat as a newly born vampire doesn’t feel any of the fear Louis felt and embraces this new life with the same passion he had in his human life and proceeds to learn all he can about his new nature. Lestat it turns out has a mind reading ability, he can’t read minds in the literally sense but he can sense the thoughts of others around him which he uses frequently. He also uses his new found wealth to take care of his family, his friends, and the theatre he has been working at as these are all things Lestat loves dearly but he does feel a longing to return to Nicolas although he doesn’t give into this. We also learn that in Paris, he hasn’t found one other vampire but he does sense a presence watching him but it retreats as soon as Lestat acknowledges it, Lestat is also learning how to blend in around mortals and the limits of his abilities.
As we cross the ¼ mark in the novel, for a time Lestat wonders alone figuring out exactly what he is capable of and he learns a few things about himself that he would realises the implications of until much later on in his immortal life but that doesn’t concern us just yet. After a while he feels drawn back to the life he had before and returns to the theatre to see his old friends including Nicolas but it doesn’t go as Lestat planned. While no one suspects anything is wrong with Lestat he quickly finds himself becoming overwhelmed at the amount of mortals surrounding him but he is able to hold himself in check until Nicolas hugs him. At this moment Lestat realises how much he wants to kill Nicolas and tries to get away from him only to find himself being drawn onto the stage where Magnus first spotted him. At first, he seems content to just perform as he used to but quickly it gets out of hand as he shows off some of the vampiric abilities, he has been gifted which cause the audience to flee in panic apart from one man who bravely faces Lestat down and even goes as far as to shoot Lestat but he heals quickly from the injury. While his friends as worried about him Lestat tries to down play it which only causes more worry in Nicolas’ mind but also a great amount of envy and hatred towards this new Lestat who he doesn’t quite understand and they go their separate ways again. Lestat returns to the way he was before and wants to get rid of the theatre so he isn’t drawn back to it again and makes arrangements for the company to be sent to England and for Nicolas to be sent to Italy with his mother which is the only way he knows to get him to leave Paris and gives his lawyer a week to arrange it. However, when he returns at the end of that week, he learns that his mother has come to Paris so she can see him before she dies and that she has been housed near Nicolas which is the last thing Lestat expected to happen and he demands his lawyer stays with his mother until the following evening when he can safely visit her. By the time he arrives the following evening the doctor tells Lestat his mother won’t live through the night and he already knows as he can smell the death on her but he can’t be parted from the only woman he has ever loved in his life. Here he shows his mother what he is and some of his abilities and offers her the chance to be like him, to be immortal and she takes it so Lestat turns her imitating what Magnus did to him and hoping that it works which it does. He watches in fascination as his mother changes before his eyes and they leave together into the night so they can feed without telling Nicolas or anyone else where they are going. After turning his mother, Lestat realises that she has become more than a mother to him and he takes to calling her by her name, Gabrielle and has he describes it she is now his friend, child, mother, and lover all rolled into one and he also realises that he is no longer alone in the world which gives him a great amount on comfort. However, it doesn’t take him long to start noticing the differences between him and Gabrielle as vampires, for a start he can no longer hear her thoughts but she has a stronger sense of the mysterious presence which has been plaguing him for a long time. Lestat tells Gabrielle everything he has learnt about being a vampire and one night they learn that the presence is actually numerous vampires but these vampires aren’t like them as they are weaker and won’t enter sacred places like churches and see Lestat as an outlaw for entering the church. After attacking the tower Lestat has been living in and killing the stable boy Lestat realises that they only place they will be safe is inside the church but it is a close call as it is close to the sunrise and Gabrielle seems to be effecting early than Lestat by the rising of the sun.
As we approach the halfway mark in the novel, I was beginning to understand some of the actions taken by Lestat in the first book but I was also beginning to wonder why he never mentioned his creator or the fact his own mother was a vampire unless something happens to her in this novel. Upon waking the pair find the church full and scare the people inside in order to escape but the other vampires are relentless in getting hold of them and it eventually becomes clear to Lestat through Gabrielle that the other vampires have taken Nicolas hostage in order to draw them out. They manage to find a brief refuge in Notre Dame but the leader of the other vampires enters and tries to use his gift of persuasion over the pair only to find them too strong from him to influence and after a brief fight, Lestat realises that they are outnumbered and allow themselves to be taken away to the underground cemetery lair of these other vampires. Once there Lestat finds Nicolas in a terrible state but still human much to his relief but he quickly learns why the other vampires have been pursuing them, it turns out that this is a coven of vampires that worship Satan and don’t want to anger God in case he ends their immortal lives and Lestat knows this to be false and tells them so. However, in doing so he undermines the authority of their leader, Armand and he tries to hold them together but can’t. When Armand realises this, he sends the coven members away and tries to make Lestat understand what he has done but we see here not the clashing of ideals but two vampires from two very different times and the conflict this has caused. After leaving with Nicolas and returning to the tower, Lestat takes some time to rest but he knows he has to turn Nicolas or kill him as he knows too much about the vampires, Lestat and Gabrielle especially so he turns his friend only to realises he can’t stand to look at the boy he once loved any longer. Nicolas acts literally like a reanimated corpse as he does nothing for himself in those first few days until he ends up back at the theatre. The very same theatre Lestat gave to the few surviving members of Armand’s coven now he is hunting them down and killing them all and here he presents Nicolas with his violin which seems to draw him out but also draws the other vampires to him and declares that the theatre will become the home for his coven, the Theatre of Vampires which should ring major bells from the first book. Lestat is horrified by his friend and can’t wait to get away from him leading to a brief fight between the pair as all their history has basically been destroyed but when Nicolas is trying to lure the old cast back from England in order to turn them into vampires Lestat lays down the law and it is Eleni, one of Armand’s vampires that accepts these new rules and holds the deed to the theatre, although all of them are unsure what Armand is going to do to them when he finds out what is really going on at the theatre. This posed so many questions in me as it is clear now Armand and Lestat already knew each other well before the events of Interview with the Vampire and they don’t have a good relationship with each other. However, from Armand’s description here to Louis’ description of him in the first book are completely different. Lestat describes him as boyish, that the body he inhabited was too young for the power and wisdom contained within it where as Louis describes him clearly as a man, which is making me think that either Louis just saw him differently or this might not be the true Armand and it isn’t a big leap in logic to assume Nicolas could have dyed his hair auburn as the other vampires in the theatre from the first book have all dyed their hair black but I will have to wait and see.
As we cross into the second half of the novel, Lestat meets again with Armand but not in the way he suspects as Armand seeks him out wanting to form a small coven with Lestat and Gabrielle. Lestat refuses as neither he or Gabrielle can really handle being around their own kind for a long time and they know if they pushed Armand away, he would destroy them but he persists telling them that he needs to be with someone like himself and the only vampire he has met that has powers remotely similar to his own is Lestat. Here we get Armand’s backstory which was honestly one of the most heart-breaking sequences I have had to read in a long time as he was captured and enslaved in a brothel when he was young only to be sold to Marius, a painter who is also a vampire who takes Armand under his wing and plans to give him the Dark Gift when it is time. It is undeniable that Armand loved Marius even before he was turned but it only increased after until the Children of Darkness, the Satan worshipping vampire Armand would later lead come to destroy them all including Marius which breaks Armand’s heart. However, he does agree to whatever the Children of Darkness want to ensure he survives but it plunges him into the deepest depths of despair that he has never been able to free himself from. When Armand’s tale is done, Lestat still refuses to take Armand with them but Gabrielle tells him to go to the Theatre of Vampires as they will need a leader and Armand could do that while Nicolas teaches them all they need to know about living in this age and they eventually convince Armand to do just that before making plans to head off into the world. Here we do see a divide between Gabrielle who wants to live out in the wild places even taking to sleeping in the earth rather than a coffin while Lestat wants to see if the rumours about Marius still be alive despite his attempted burning as true as he would be a truly ancient vampire with millennia of knowledge, he could give to Lestat. This made me question things even more as Lestat is showing us he has the same thirst for knowledge and understanding that Louis had in the first book but he never mentions any of this to Louis not even that he knew Armand or that there were other vampires since he himself is responsible for the founding of the Theatre of Vampires because if he didn’t turn Nicolas then it would have never been created and I am wondering why. As Lestat and Gabrielle travel the world together we see the distance between them growing as Gabrielle often leaves Lestat for long periods of time as he continues to seek out Marius while keeping in touch with family and friends back home. Lestat’s worry increases as news of the revolution in France reaches him and it is Gabrielle who prevents him from returning on more than occasion. However, when Nicolas chooses to die the same way Magnus did Lestat is heartbroken and Gabrielle stays with him for a while but he hasn’t heard any news from France in a while and he is becoming increasingly worried. It soon turns out that Gabrielle has hidden letters from him where he learns of the death of his entire family except for his father who is now residing in Louisiana and begs his son to return to him. Gabrielle meanwhile begs him not to go but Lestat still feels loyalty and love towards his family because he knows they won’t be there forever and makes preparations to collect his father. This means leaving Gabrielle behind as she won’t come with him and he can’t live the wild lifestyle she lives in the jungles of Africa.
As we approach the ¾ mark in the novel, Lestat is completely heart-broken at the death of Nicolas, his family, and the loss of Gabrielle to the point where he feels that he can’t go on. He buries himself in the earth and there he sleeps for a long time almost in the same state we find him in at the beginning of the novel. While we don’t know exactly how much time passes Lestat begins to feel someone calling him up out of the earth and there he finds another vampire waiting for him. This vampire feeds him and introduces himself as Marius, the vampire Lestat has been looking for since he learned of him through Armand. Lestat isn’t completely himself for a while and the next recollection he has is of Marius taking him somewhere on a ship but he isn’t afraid of this ancient vampire. Marius is taking them to his home where he is basically worshipped as a lord but the mortals seem aware of what he is and don’t feel any fear in it. There Marius tells Lestat he will give him all the knowledge he has collected over his long life but warns him that it may change him in ways that can’t be undone but Lestat still wants the thing he has been craving since Magnus changed him. Marius takes him down in a beautiful chamber where two ancient beings sit, at first Lestat thinks them to be dolls and later learns that they are alive and have been this way for a long time. Lestat is afraid of them but when encouraged by Marius to speak to them, the female one tells Lestat her name, Akasha which she has never given to Marius. Once they leave, Lestat is burning with questions as Marius settles in to tell his tale. Marius tale is quite different to the other vampires we have seen as he was chosen by a tribe of Druid’s to be a God and there, he meets a vampire. This ancient vampire looks to have been severely burned but he is able to change Marius and tells him to go to Egypt and find out why they burned even in the night or when they slept. Marius does just this and learn of the Mother and Father, the first two vampires supposed to have been possessed by a demon through their blood giving them immortal life. These were rumoured to be Akasha and Enkil, the male vampire but Marius doesn’t initially believe these tales. In this we learn of the origins of vampires and how Akasha and Enkil are the oldest of their kind but they have entered an almost frozen state and have to be cared for by other vampires, the last vampire before Marius to have this duty couldn’t do it any longer and took them out into the sun presumably to kill them but it didn’t. The sun didn’t even burn these two only brazened their skin but the second the sun touched them every other vampire burned too, some were completely killed while other sustained injuries that will take centuries to heal showing us that all vampires are connected to the Mother and Father as they are all descended from the blood taken from them.
As we cross into the final section of the novel, Marius’ tale draws to a close and he then proceeds to tell Lestat some more practical things about being a vampire that he doesn’t yet know. However, he also explains that Lestat needs to leave him soon and while Lestat doesn’t want to do this, Marius explains that he needs to live his own life as he was young when he was turned. He councils Lestat to live as mortals do and when he makes other vampires to choose them because he loves them and to allow them to retain as much of their humanity as they possibly can. Marius also warns him against turning someone young as he did with Armand as they aren’t quite like other vampires. From the first book we know that while Lestat might have changed Louis for love, he definitely didn’t do that with Claudia as she was just a way to keep Louis around as Lestat is afraid of being alone. We also know Lestat encouraged both Louis and Claudia to throw of their humanity as soon as they could and berates Louis when he doesn’t do this and he also ignored Marius’ advice about turning a child and suffered the consequences for it. However, this poses the question that Lestat was meant to meet again with Marius sometime after the events of the first book and yet he has been sleeping for a long time when we encounter him at the beginning of this novel and we only have 75 pages left to get the answers. After a few more interactions Lestat ends up angering Enkil enough that Marius tells him he needs to leave for his own safety but he now has Akasha’s blood flowing through him when he arrives in New Orleans where he falls in love with Louis. We then jump back to the present as The Vampire Lestat has now been published and the concert is scheduled despite the numerous threats Lestat has been receiving from others of his both old and new. However, this means nothing to him when Louis returns to him and asks to come to concert with Lestat and Lestat agrees now they have a better understanding of each other. The concert seems to go fine but they are set upon by three vampires in the parking lot where Gabrielle comes to their rescue. However, they are being pursued by more vampires but something or someone is striking them down before they can do any real harm to the trio. Both Louis and Gabrielle are frightened at the feel of the being but Lestat doesn’t feel it at all and when he finally allows himself to call out to Marius, he learns that Marius has been buried in ice and Akasha has escaped brought back to life by Lestat’s music. That morning when he crawls into his crypt Akasha is waiting from him and takes Lestat into her arms. The ending of The Vampire Lestat leaves me with a lot more questions than I had when I started the book and I will definitely be continuing on with this series very soon to find the answers.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Also see: The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty
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