In Defense of Vampires

In honor of Fat Tuesday and the recent Superbowl win by the Saints, I’ve decided to write a bit about New Orleans’ acclaimed author, Anne Rice.  She just happens to be one of my favorite authors as well, up there with Charlotte Bronte, J.R.R. Tolkien, and C.S. Lewis.

While watching the Superbowl at a party with friends, I was asked who I was rooting for.  I answered New Orleans “for purely literary reasons.”  This brought up the topic of Anne Rice, and Traci Matt asked me if I had Christ the Lord; Out of Egypt and if she could borrow it.  Of course, I said yes because I love sharing my books with people.

But when I got home and found the book, I discovered that there was a bookmark lodged about 50 pages into the book.  I had never finished reading it.  How very unlike me, I thought.  I would, of course, have to finish reading it before I could loan it out.  There is some sort of Moral Library Code that says that somewhere, I’m sure of it.

So as I sat down to read it from start to finish, I started to remember why I had put off reading this book.  There was a part of me that was afraid of what it would say.  In my mind, there was a lot of pressure for this book to be great.  I mean, its my favorite author, writing about my favorite historical character, who just so happens to be my Lord and Savior and the entire means of my salvation!  No pressure!  And let’s be honest about why Anne Rice is my favorite author.  It was her portrayal of the darkness, not the light, that drew me to her writing.

Now let me explain that.  I believe that this would be a good opportunity for me to defend my beloved Vampire Chronicles, by Rice.  It could be (and has been) said, “Why would any Christian be so drawn to such dark and sometimes shocking stories?”  What has been the appeal of Rice’s vampires for me throughout the years?

My love for Anne Rice’s vampires is directly related to my love of history and my love of strong, yet troubled characters.  With the use of vampires, Anne Rice could take her immortal characters, drop them into any time period, and it made sense.  She had the freedom of several lifetimes to develop the characters, their eccentricities, their passions and their short comings.  With her words, she wove rich tapestries of historical settings and atmosphere, where her characters flourished.  She has always had an amazing talent for showing that the same human emotions and insecurities existed throughout time, creating this deep connection with the past for modern readers.

Called Out of Darkness is the story of Rice's return to the Catholic faith and to Christ

But there is more to it than that.  Because deeply embedded in the volumes of her books is Rice’s own spiritual journey from disenchanted Catholic, to passionate atheist, to spiritual seeker, to prodigal daughter returned, and finally, to consecrated Christian author.  Its subtle, but its in there.  And it really speaks to me.  Whether intentionally or not, the characters in the Vampire Chronicles are infused with their creator’s journey, just as they are infused with her passion for art, music and her beloved city New Orleans.  And that is why I love those books.

You don’t read the Vampire Chronicles for idealized vampire romance.  There’s Twilight for that.  You also don’t read the Chronicles for the thrill of gothic horror, Counts in dark capes that murder without thought or remorse.  There’s Dracula for that.  You read the Vampire Chronicles because there is something inside you that identifies with idea of a lost soul, wandering through time, searching for their purpose while struggling with the desires of their flesh and their instinct for survival.  Is it allegorical?  Perhaps, though probably not entirely intentionally.  But I do believe that even if she tried, she would be unable to create characters that were completely uninfluenced by her own search for God, truth and light.  I used to think that Anne Rice was a genius because of her ability to show the beauty of darkness.  But perhaps her gift truly lies in her ability to reveal the darkness of beauty.

So it was with a bit of trepidation that I approached Rice’s portrayal of Jesus in Out of Egypt.  It wasn’t that I was afraid that she would alter or affect the relationship I have with Christ.  I was afraid that if she didn’t do justice to the monumental task of giving the divine Jesus a human voice in this fictional form, that it would affect my opinion of her and her writing.  You see, when you so closely follow the work of an author, and feel such a kindred spirit to them through their writing, you feel like you’ve developed a weird sort of one-sided friendship.  In some sort of way, I was worried that I might lose that friend if this book didn’t live up to my standards.

However, my fears were for naught.  Not only was I not disappointed, but as I got a few chapters deeper into the book, I realized that here was the Anne Rice that I loved, doing what she does best; taking me to a place, long ago and far away, with such detail and grace that I was experiencing the world of the Holy Land of biblical times in even more vivid and detailed observation than if I were there myself.  I particularly loved to read about the daily lives of a Jewish family from that era…it was like looking into a window where Jesus’ family lived and watching them live their lives, saying their daily prayers, eating together as a family, going to work each day, and keeping the rituals of the Sabbath.

After finishing the book, I went through a few of the VirtualBookshelf reviews.  Some of them were not forgiving.  One of the points that stood out to me was that one person had claimed that if Anne Rice was trying to get into the mind of God, she had failed.  But I argue that maybe this was not Rice’s first priority in writing the book.  I believe that she is aware that getting a true first person account of what its like to be Christ is not possible.   I believe that this book’s main purpose was to give us a perspective (a fictional one, of course) of the life that Christ might have led and let us draw our own conclusions.  Its main purpose is to help us experience that life and time, not to give an exact account or to try and explain what was going through the young Christ’s mind as it was revealed to Him that He was the Son of God.  As with most of the successful 1st person narratives in  literature, the goal is not to tell us what the narrator is thinking, its to step into the narrator’s shoes and see what reaction is pulled from us, reaching down into our common humanity for the answers.  I believe that in this, Anne Rice is successful.

Keep in mind that the account is fictional.  Rice strives to keep the historical setting, the cultural feel as accurate as possible, but she takes liberties with the story because there is so little that we know about the time between the visit of the Magi and the marriage feast of Cana.  Rice is Catholic, and while that comes out in the storyline, there are also many things that some might consider to be blasphemous.  The first chapter especially comes to mind.  But the point, once again, is not accuracy.  Its about perspective, experience, and dealing with these questions within your faith.

I would not recommend this first book of the Christ the Lord series for everyone, just as I would not recommend the Vampire Chronicles for the easily offended or the weak of faith.  But I enjoyed the book and I’m looking forward to the second in the series.  If you read this book for one reason alone, read it for the unique perspective of Hebrew life in Jesus’ time, something that we in our culture are so separated from and often struggle to understand when we study the gospels and the life of Christ.

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