The Complete Vampire Chronicles 12-Book Bundle (The Vampire Chronicles) (427 page)

His voice was faltering and weak from lack of use, and he spoke very softly, his breath just touching my flesh.

“Sybelle,” he said.

“Yes, Lestat, what is it, what about her, tell me,” I said. I held his hands as firmly and lovingly as I could.

“Sybelle,” he said again. “Do you think she would play the Sonata for me if you asked her? The
Appassionata
?”

I drew back and looked into his vague drifting blue eyes.

“Oh, yes,” I said, near breathless with excitement, with overflowing feeling. “Lestat, I’m sure she would. Sybelle!”

She had already turned. She watched him in amazement as he made his way slowly across the lawn and into the house. Pandora stepped back for him, and we all watched in respectful silence as he sat down
near the piano, his back to the front right leg of it, and his knees brought up and his head resting wearily on his folded arms. He closed his eyes.

“Sybelle,” I asked, “would you play it for him? The
Appassionata
, again, if you would.”

And of course, she did.

T
HE
E
ND

8:12 a.m
.

January 6, 1998

Little Christmas

A Conversation with
Anne Rice
author of
THE VAMPIRE ARMAND

Q: One of the vampires in
The Vampire Armand
lives among humans disguised as a painter. Why did you decide to make him an artist?

A
: Marius, Armand’s mentor, did live in sixteenth-century Venice as a painter among mortals. I first mentioned this in
Interview with the Vampire
. Of course, at that time, I had not delved into the character of Marius. The exploration of Marius came later when, in
The Vampire Lestat
, he explained to Lestat how he, Marius, enters and withdraws from the human world. At that time in his existence, the late 1700s, Marius thought he would always be living in this rhythm—enjoying a mortal life, then sleeping for a long time, only to emerge to live another seemingly mortal life.

But now, as I reach
The Vampire Armand
, I have found myself discovering a greater secretive depth to Marius. He does not find immortality as simple as he would like to find it. On the contrary, he has suffered some hideous defeats, and it is the task of Armand in this new novel to describe in detail what happened when Marius was struck down by the evil Roman coven of religious vampires who believed Marius to be profane.

Making Marius a painter probably derives directly from my love of painting, from my obsession with the Renaissance, which I’ve enjoyed since I was a little girl. One of the first books I ever completed was a biography of Leonardo da Vinci. Marius lives right in the heart of sixteenth-century Venice and paints with all the fervor and technique he can muster—only to have his achievements destroyed.

Marius’s ambitions gave me a way of living out my dreams of being a painter myself.

Q: Did you consult with your husband, Stan, an accomplished artist and poet, to help you create this character?

A:
No, I didn’t consult Stan in creating Marius. Stan is a continuous influence on my work. His recent paintings have overwhelmed me with their intense use of color, and their violent narratives and images. However, it was decided by me long ago that Marius would be a painter. I wrote of this in the mid 1980s before Stan had devoted himself completely to painting. I think Stan and I share an obsession with painting. But one thing I should note; Stan has taught me more about modern art than any other teacher I’ve ever had. Yet modern art still locks me out. Marius reflects an age that is easier for me to embrace.

Q:
The Vampire Armand
is the sixth and latest book in the Vampire Chronicles. What led you back to the series?

A:
I can’t resist the vampires. In 1976 I had no idea that I would still be in the world of the vampires over twenty years later. But the simple fact is that when I slip into the character of Armand, or Louis, or Lestat, or any of these immortals, I find myself in possession of a crystal-clear lens through which to see my own time, and any lessons I have learned.

Going back to Armand was natural, because he was one of a trio with Louis and Lestat, and though their stories have been told in the first person, Armand has always remained a mysterious and maligned character, estranged from the other two, yet intimately involved.

In earlier books, I allowed myself to be intoxicated by Armand without knowing all the answers to the questions about him as a character. I was enthralled with his beauty and his seeming coldness, as if I had not created him. It was as if he had walked into the book on his own. It’s often this way with me and characters.

I let Armand become brighter and brighter as he hovered in the shadows. Though I was deep into the persona of Lestat when I wrote from Lestat’s point of view, I knew that Lestat didn’t understand Armand.

At the heart of the Chronicles is my love of playing with misunderstanding. My real plunge into opposing points of view began with
The Vampire Lestat
, when Lestat turned the tables on the Louis of
Interview with the Vampire
. So to go on now to this third heroic demonic being is natural and more or less inevitable.

Q: Why did you focus on Armand, who first appeared in
Interview with the Vampire?

A:
It was really Armand’s turn. The only other character of great importance in
Interview with the Vampire
who has not told her own story is Claudia, and Claudia is not with us now. Armand is. He is still part of the Chronicles. And with his point of view, I could bring the readers up-to-date on the vampire Lestat and what has been happening to him. It all felt rather natural.

Q:
The Vampire Armand
travels across time and place, from ancient Constantinople, to Venice during the Renaissance, to nineteenth-century Paris and contemporary New Orleans. Why did you choose these settings?

A:
Passion is the only basis I have for the choice of settings. I go where I want to be in my imagination; I go where I want to study or understand. I am fascinated by old Russia. I am in love with Italy. As for New Orleans, I live here now full time and my childhood love grows stronger every day. I do think my settings reflect my hunger for the exotic, the intense, the rich, the sensuous. But like everything else in my work, they derive from instinct and not from logic or intellectual intent.

Q: How did you research the book?

A:
Research for
The Vampire Armand was
extensive. I did much more reading on Kiev and the Monastery of the Caves in Kiev than I ever needed for the book. But it gave me a deep experience of Russia or the Ukraine, as we call this part of the world now. As for Italy, I have been there four times now—I went right after completing
Armand
just to see certain paintings I had mentioned in the book—and I continue my study unendingly. I read, read, read. When I can get on a plane and go, I do. I didn’t feel I could go to Russia. But I got as close as I could through history and through gazing at reproductions of the icons so magnificently created in Russia.

Q: What are your work habits for a novel?

A:
Once I truly begin to write, I work obsessively, in twelve-hour days, punctuated by days of long sleep and vivid dreaming. Starting time and ending time are no longer important. I might begin at 9
A.M
., or after noon or at eight in the evening. I go from there. I turn on the computer and write, write, write.

My room is a mess. Notes are scribbled on the walls so that I can look up at them at the appropriate moments and insert the date, the name, whatever, when I need it. Books are stacked so high that people have to search for me when they come into the room. Opened books with marked-up pages are stacked on top of one another.

I become suicidal. I go through a horrid despair some time or other before the final page, during which everything seems meaningless—from the dawn of history to the very hour in which I am writing. I’m intolerable to live with. But I spread myself thin over a
number of loved ones and staff members so that no one person has to put up with how intense, hysterical, and miserable I am.

When I get elated and talk fast and furiously about wonderful aspects of history or the characters, or good developments in the story, people run away from me. I don’t blame them.

While the novel is being written, I try to avoid dressing for outdoors. No one can make you go out if you don’t have shoes on. Not even in the south. I wear long velvet robes and soft velvet slippers. I refuse to go out. All food is brought in. I eat hamburgers because they are easy to hold with one hand while reading and holding the book with the other hand.

In the middle of the night I read, sometimes on the carpeted floor of the bathroom, just because it’s warm. I am wretched. I don’t care anymore about being abnormal. Writing is everything. Everything. It seems impossible to write the book. It seems impossible to lift a hairbrush to brush my hair. But I do it. I put on mascara every day that I write.

This period of intense work lasts about six weeks. It’s best that way. My imagination is overheated, and my memory clogged with data of varying importance. If I go over six weeks, I begin to forget things; I feel the loss of intensity and information and I become all the more self-destructive and obsessed.

The end of the book is a big event for me. A big event. I start screaming. I put the hour and the date at the end of the last page. I expect everybody to understand, at least a little. It’s a triumph! The darkness of destiny has been driven back for a brief while. I celebrate. I scream, eat chocolate, and sleep.

Right near the end of writing
The Vampire Armand
, I realized I had to return to Italy, especially to Florence, and at once I began to make preparations for the trip. As soon as the novel was finished and off to the publisher’s, as soon as it could be accomplished, I flew to Italy. That gave me hope, a way out of a life threatening darkness that often follows the climax of a book. But I still ate chocolate and screamed.

While writing, I don’t want to rest. I don’t want to sleep. Why sleep? It seems stupid, except when weariness overcomes me like a giant cloud of poisonous vapor. Then I sleep fifteen to twenty hours. I tell people to go in and out of the bedroom and ignore me lying there, as if I were dead. I won’t talk on the phone. I won’t open my eyes if I don’t have to. I dream terrible, upsetting dreams. I want to kill myself. But I can’t. I can’t do it to other people, and I have work that must be done, novels that must be written. So I don’t kill myself. Besides, I don’t think it’s good to kill oneself. It’s a horrible idea. It has a horrible effect even on acquaintances. I think a lot about people
I loved who are dead. I think of how dead they are, year after year, ever more dead.

On the structure of the novel itself, I used to outline heavily. I don’t now. I can’t bear to know everything about what horrors await the characters. I don’t want to know. I want—for this phase of my life—to write without knowledge of what is going to happen next. I want to be born again every day at the computer keyboard. I do envision an ending and a reason why the novel exists—a justification for the tale. But it’s all vague. I want it that way.

I won’t pre-write anymore. I refuse. I’ll read and read and look and look in preparation. I’ll see my character, his name, his general fate. But I won’t pre-write. No notes for scenes. No bits and pieces of dialogue. No. It’s too agonizing to move the characters toward a fate that has already been suffered by me in my mind. I’m fresher and better if I don’t know for sure what is going to happen.

Heavily outlined and prewritten novels of mine include
Cry to Heaven
, parts of
The Vampire Lestat
, very little of
The Witching Hour
, all of
Violin
,
Memnoch the Devil, The Tale of the Body Thief
, and the last fourth of
The Feast of All Saints
.

The most spontaneous novels I’ve ever written were
Taltos
and
The Vampire Armand
. Almost all of
Interview with the Vampire
, and most of
The Vampire Lestat
, were utterly spontaneously written. The first part of
The Witching Hour
, the first few chapters, were heavily prewritten. But then
The Witching Hour
became a runaway spontaneous novel with hundreds of pages taking shape before my eyes. I like it this way now.

I write on a state-of-the-art computer, with the fastest hard drive imaginable, and the greatest amount of memory. I use the old program Wordstar because I know it so well. I print out the work of the day when I finish every day no matter what the hour. I have a super-fast printer that can cough up a whole novel in no time. I always have a hard copy of all the work to date right beside the computer. If I move back to an earlier chapter, which I often do, I throw the old draft in a Ziploc plastic bag marked “old chapter no. whatever” and print out the new draft of the chapter and stick it with the others. I use lots of Ziploc plastic bags. I don’t write by hand.

If a revelation comes to me when I’m too tired to really write, I scribble this on the wall of the bathroom or on the wall of my office, using a black Sharpie pen. With a black Sharpie, I write all over the computer, the keyboard edges, and the edges of the monitor.

I do keep a diary by hand. I’ve been keeping it since 1970.