Prince Lestat

It is about 1:45a.m. and I have just finished Prince Lestat. I was thrilled, to say the least, when I found out Queen Anne was letting Lestat back out into the world this year to run amok. But, then, you start thinking, "could it really be as good as before? Can Lestat, our Lestat of old, really stage a comeback after his final bow over ten years ago?" Why did I waste time worrying? Of course he's back, and doing his thing, his way, as always. The moment in the story when, after a long absence on his part, he is walking along with David in deep discussion about events and decides, in Lestat fashion, that he desperately needs a drink, of David, now. Of course, David, is angry at being manhandled and resists. But it's the line, the beautiful, perfectly Lestat delivered line, "oh yes, please, despise me" before taking his drink that made me smile from ear to ear. THAT is Lestat, our beloved Brat Prince, with a sly wink at the audience, telling all of us what we've known from the beginning: " Go ahead and despise me, but you know you really love me, especially when I am being bad." I loved it! Thank you Anne Rice! I am with you, as always, on whatever new journey you are taking us on, especially with such a charming host to lead the way. Long live the Prince!

This book has been immensely touching, a meeting again of old friends one was very fond of and thought were long gone. Reading this, one begins to be reminded very much of a reunion party. So many memories, so much joy, when eyes meet and recollections unravel. Anne Rice, too, has come beautifully into her own again. Her plot breathes its own life, has its own purpose, and once in a while one sees glimpses of the old romanticism that brought one into the Blood, figuratively speaking, that was present at the beginning with Louis's Interview - in the loving descriptions of architecture, or the names of vampires one has become so familiar with, that the mere gesture of name-dropping is granted to send the familiar reader half-mad with anticipation. It shakes the heart. One also welcomes the new additions to the Savage Garden. Rhosh, Sevraine, Gregory... with wonderful, rich personal histories. (If VC has taught its readers anything, it is that every individual has their own story that is worth telling; the former is well-established as a promise, the latter is convincing and well-fulfilled.) Another bright point is that Rice's female characters have become so much more admirable with growth. Here they have their own being apart from their companions through which they have been spoken of. It is a feature that one often finds lacking in the previous books of the Vampire Chronicles, when the females seem less alive and independent, and thus less captivating and enduring than their male counterparts. Here there is something to love in each one of them, and this is delight, to see their names resurrected from the dust, their persons re-fleshed: Gabrielle, Allesandra (the strange mad queen of Armand's Parisian coven) and Bianca (who in Blood and Gold only left the impression of being Marius's lover and only that, vanishing from the pages when she has served her function), are especially finely sculpted here. Prince Lestat draws to a close with Louis's POV and while I expected that to have some emotional effect on me (Louis has been my favourite since the beginning), I was not prepared for the extent to which it moved me. To see Louis sitting down calmly and reflecting on himself since the beginning of the series was a poignant moment of quietness (in fact, to see him again at all was a blessing). To know he was still that familiar creature of tenderness and pain and reflection, to know that he knows he has survived into a new era meant everything to me. Words cannot describe how happy I am for him. It is to Rice's credit that her artistry has shown itself once again and this book more than enough makes up for the slip-ups of the previous ones (which I shall not mention). With Prince Lestat she makes a return to the philosophical, aesthetic, humanist brilliance of the first few books that have give the Chronicles their enchanting immortality.