⋆⋆⋆⋆
Content Warning: pedophilia, sexual abuse, rape, grooming, minor/adult relationship, death (including that of children), violence, murder, abduction, physical abuse, parental abuse, emotional/verbal abuse.
Born in the Kievan Rus, Andrei is a peasant, a painter of ikons so beautiful they are otherworldly. When he is abducted by Tartars to be sold into sex slavery in Constantinople, he gives up on any hope of a promising future -- but when he is sold again into a Venetian brothel, he is taken to live with the mysterious, beautiful Marius. Wealthy beyond imagining, and a fellow painter himself, he keeps a household of orphan boys he has tutored, wishing to make them into future noblemen, lawyers and men of status. Enchanted by the new world he finds himself in, Andrei becomes Amadeo, and quickly falls beneath Marius' spell. But Marius, of course, has a secret: he is a vampire. Desperate to be blessed with the Dark Gift, Amadeo ends up cursed forever as a boy of only seventeen, and when a dangerous cult of vampires come to their doorstep, he will become Armand -- the ethereal, fascinating, sometimes manipulative vampire whom Louis falls in love with in Interview with the Vampire.
Armand is one of my all-time favorite characters (not just from the Vampire Chronicles series, but from any, ever), but I've never read his book. I stopped reading the series after Tale of the Body Thief, which I found off-putting in pretty much every sense. I did pick up Memnoch the Devil, the book that directly precedes this one, but only made it about halfway through -- enough, however, to understand what's going on in this one. I'm so happy I decided to start up with this series again, though, because The Vampire Armand is a beautiful, heartrending journey of pain, religion, and the aftermath of trauma.
Captivating, as he has been in every book he's featured in, Armand finally gets a chance to tell us his story in his own words. Though we learn some of his past in The Vampire Lestat, it doesn't really compare to this firsthand account, full of sumptuous detail and Armand's yearning to be wanted and loved, beyond his beauty or his sexuality. This isn't easy to read, by any means: although there are no graphic details about the abuse he experiences at the hands of his captors, those experiences nonetheless color his narrative and his character. Like many victims of sexual abuse, he is promiscuous, using it as a sort of self-harm, struggling to find a healthy way to express his sexuality. It's heartbreaking, especially when we see that, in the aftermath, he feels empty.
Like all of Rice's books, the descriptions are florid and quite gorgeous. One of the main focuses in this novel is Armand's relationship with Marius, his "rescuer" and maker. I put "rescuer" in quotation marks because the truth of the matter is, Marius is no better than any of the other men who have bought and sold Armand before. I loved this book, but that's one of the big reasons why I simply couldn't give it five stars. Rice romanticizes his so-called "romance" with Marius, who not only continues to take advantage of him (when he is a child, by the way) but also physically, verbally, and emotionally abuses him. It's one of the problems with the series as a whole, this sort of brushing off of the breaking of boundaries and the idea that because they are not bound by usual rules, there's no use in moralizing. I, personally, disagree. It's too big of an issue to really delve into completely here, but please keep it in mind if you read this, and I just want to make it clear that I found their relationship disheartening and disgusting.
Difficult as it is to ignore those deeply unsavory aspects, I did enjoy the rest of the novel, particularly Armand's conflict with religion, his desire to understand and love his God, and what exactly that means for a creature of the night who drinks the blood of unsuspecting victims. It's impossible not to sympathize with him, this eternal boy who has spent his whole life at the mercy of others, even when he thinks he has found a way out. You want the best for him, regardless of the horrible things he's also done in the past. He's complex, layered, and if you love him, this is truly worth the read.
It's hard to recommend this, with all that I've mentioned above, but if you are a fan of the series, I think you'll enjoy it. Just speaking personally, I loved it, and if you are a longtime Armand fan, do yourself a favor and pick it up.
No comments:
Post a Comment