The Passion of Anne Rice

Anne Rice used to write about vampires and witches. My favorite book of hers is "Memnoch The Devil." it doesn't read like a story. More like the Bhagavad Gita http://www.bhagavad-gita.us/articles/660/1/Introduction-to-Bhagavad-Gita...

From Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memnoch_the_Devil

"Lestat meets the Devil, who calls himself "Memnoch." He takes Lestat on a whirlwind tour of Heaven, Hell and the main epochs in the evolution of the universe. The tour offers a retelling of the entirety of Biblical history from the devil's point of view, in an effort, by Memnoch, to convince Lestat to join him in a noble quest. In his journey, Memnoch claims he is not evil, but merely working for God by ushering lost souls into Heaven. Lestat is left in confusion, unable to decide whether or not to cast his lot with the Devil...

....After the tour, Lestat believes himself to have had a major revelation. Among other things, he believes that he has seen Christ's crucifixion and that he has received Saint Veronica's Veil. He has also lost an eye in Hell. He tells his story to Armand, David Talbot and Dora, who have joined him in New York. Dora and Armand are deeply affected upon seeing the veil. Dora takes it and reveals it to the world and Armand goes into the sun and immolates himself in order to convince people that a miracle has occurred.

At the end of the novel, Lestat and David go to New Orleans. There, Maharet returns Lestat's eye to him, along with a note from Memnoch. This note reveals that Memnoch may have been manipulating Lestat to serve his own agenda. Lestat then loses control of himself and Maharet is forced to chain him in the basement of the St. Elizabeth's convent, which is owned by the vampires, so that he will not hurt himself or others. When he is at last released, Lestat enters a prolonged coma on the floor of St. Elizabeth's (in which he remains for the next installment of the Vampire Chronicles).

Although the novel fits in the The Vampire Chronicles storyline, the vast majority of it consists of the "tour" Memnoch gives Lestat of Heaven, Hell and of the cosmology and theology behind it all.

The novel follows up on claims made by David Talbot in The Tale of the Body Thief that God and the Devil are on better terms than most Christians believe. It also reinterprets biblical stories to create a complete history of Earth, Heaven and Hell that fit neatly with the history of vampires given in The Queen of the Damned."
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Now, even though this summarizes a very busy plot, most of the book *is* the tour, and it reads poetically, almost philosophically.

On the mystical level, it is profound. My favorite part is where Memnoch takes Lestat to the crucifixion of Jesus (they are able to travel through time, obviously) and lestat feeds on Jesus' blood, and Jesus lets him do this. It is a very profound moment for Lestat, a vampire, who drinks more than blood when he feeds on people, he drinks their soul...

Now this kind of imagery is horrifying to a Christian. Beyond blasphemy, just total,, utter evil. Anne Rice has also written her own version of a gnostic Gospel about Jesus' childhood, which is profound, because the Bible as we know it only covers his infancy and the last 3 years of his life,,,there is a whole lot in between all of that, and Christians especially would benefit from realizing that. Again, to even consider this is blasphemy, which is why Anne Rice has had to commit herself to disguising her own spiritual revelations as science fiction and fantasy. Otherwise, i am sure she would have been assassinated by now, like so many other prophets. Funny, how most Christians preach Christ's love for us, that we are supposed to love him back, but we are not to look any further than the Bible for information on this man we are supposed to give our souls to. "To add to or take away from" their book is a terrible son. We are not supposed to even desire to fill in the gaps with our own faith and understanding.

Anne Rice has officially come back into her Catholic faith, the faith of her childhood. i find all of this incredibly profound on so many levels. A woman who questioned, and imagined, and opened herself up to world of metaphors and mysticism, who has, in her own journey of deviance off of the path of religion, found her *own* faith, not just an inherited set of unquestioned beliefs. I can't wait to read her new series, "Songs of the Seraphim" http://www.annerice.com/ReaderInteraction-MessagesToFans.html

In answer to her fans begging for more Vampire Chronicles, she says:

"In spite of a flood of emails askng for a Christian Lestat novel (a novel in which Lestat is redeemed), and my own comment about this in the press, I am completely putting aside this project. After prayer, meditation, and much pondering, I do not think such a novel is possible. My present focus has to be on my novels about the life of Jesus Christ and I do not want to revisit the realm of my earlier books. I thank all of you who have written to me on this, both pro and con. You have helped me to think out the question. I can assure you; as things stand now there will be no Christian Lestat novel."

That is because her stories of demons, and now angels, are, to a certain extent *true* if one sees these things for what they are, which are simply very accurate observations of human nature. Lestat cannot be redeemed, because he has gone too far down the path of serving "evil."

Like humans, we learn to build up our exterior, and to push back our true and beautiful nature, filling ourselves with anger, fear and hate, pushing out love, making less and less room for beauty in our lives. When we do this consistently for too long, we walk ourselves toward a life of misery and pain, or metaphorically speaking, damnation. Lestat has too much fear anger and hate to be redeemed. So do a small group of the humans on the planet, but for most of us, we can always stop what we are doing and do something else, something better, that will make room for beauty and love on the planet.

Anne Rice's novels are all beautiful, and entertaining. They are very insightful studies of human psychology as well. And for some, she might serve as a prophetess, if one is inclined to consider the possibility of such things.

What an amazing story, The Passion of Anne Rice.