I finished my Merrick re-read yesterday!

I started with the idea of reading again the crossover books now that I have finally read the Mayfair Witches whole saga, so this is my thoghts on revisiting this book:

- This book should not have been a Vampire Chronicles book. It should have been a Mayfair Witches book, about the black Mayfairs and the alternate branches of the Mayfair family. It would have been a much better book imo because there’s so much story not told there?

- Like I found quite amazing how many powerful witches in the same generations we have here. It’s not the norm with the main Mayfair family, but it seems to be here. Merrick is a remarkable powerful witch; her mother Sandra and her sister Honey seems to have been powerful witches as well. Great Nannane was feared because of her powerful she was, and Oncle Vervain as well.

- Oncle Vervain takes me to another point; this branch of the Mayfair family seems to have powerful male witches all around. In the main branch, the only notorious male witch is Julien Mayfair; but here, Oncle Vervain is presented as a real powerhouse. His father and grandfather appears to have been powerful witches as well, and I found this bit so interesting.

- Other interesting thing I wish we had learned more is the relationship between Merrick and her sister, Honey in the Sunshine. The Vampire Chronicles don’t have a lot of sibling relationships, especially between two sisters (with the exception of the Twins, i think), so this one caught my attention. Some mutual envy and antagonism, but a powerful connection as well. Honey always haunting Merrick, Merrick making the murderer of her sister and mother go mad and kill himself in revenge… her methods here actually reminded me a lot of when Lasher made Lionel kill himself for the murder of Stella.

- You know, I don’t hate David Talbot with the passion that most Vampire Chronicles fans do, but he is such a boring narrator, it drags the book down several times. It was worst in my first time reading, but even now I knew what to expect, it is still bad. I do think he cares deeply for both Louis and Merrick and his love is genuine, but he’s also kinda of the worst. He’s very condescending both to Merrick and Louis and he’s so oblivious to so many things it becomes annoying. Tho it is fun to see Merrick getting the better of him again and again and again

- I love the Claudia bits in this book very very much, especially her diary. I do believe the spirit that appeared was Claudia; I think it was coherent to what we know of her. I love the bits in her diary where she talks about loving and hating both Louis and Lestat in equal measures, but wanting to drag them to the level of misery that is her constant company. And she knowing that she could not get Lestat to be conivent in a plan to murder Louis, but that Louis could be convinced, even if it would kill his soul even further… I bet it hurt Louis a lot to read that.

- I’m sorry I can’t take the ~love story~ between Merrick and Louis seriously, spell or not spell. Even before the show, I guess it was always my headcanon that Louis is gay. That part where she says he has three big loves, one being Lestat, the other Claudia, and he blushes without saying the last one… lmao. Anyways in my head it is Armand.

- Love the part that Lestat comes back all Deus ex machina to save the day and Louis’ life. The book being narrated by David is a tragedy since we can’t hear Lestat and Louis’ thoughts, but Lestat love for Louis being so powerful to drag him back from his coma by shee force of will is a lot.

- I like Merrick Mayfair. A lot. I think she’s amazing. I hate the ending that Anne choose to her in Blackwood Farm so, so much. If the show includes her, I hope she’s given a different ending.

- I think it’s such a shame that the Talamasca x Vampire feud teased in the end of this book never came to anything. Come on it would have been such an interesting plot! (Or not since you know, Anne was known to drop storylines at a whim but. Still.)

I know this is technically a sad moment in the overall plot of the book but David kissing Louis and going “all as men might do with other men when they are alone” always cracks me up

Lestat and his constant protectiveness/worry over Louis in the books

I saw Gabrielle break through the side door before the car hit the ground. And she and I were both rolling over on the grassy slope as the car capsized and exploded with a deafening roar.“

Louis!” I shouted. I scrambled towards the blaze. I would have gone right into it after him: But the glass of the back portal splintered as he came through it. He hit the embankment just as I reached him. And with my cape I beat at his smoking garments, Gabrielle ripping off her jacket to do the same. - The Vampire Lestat

What was she doing? Assessing their power? Looking from one to the other, and then back to me. A stranger looking down from some lofty height. And so now the fire comes, Lestat. Don’t dare to look at Gabrielle or Louis, lest she turn it that way. Die first, like a coward, and then you don’t have to see them die. - The Queen of the Damned

“Ah, Louis, forgive me.” The dark neglected hallway. I shuddered. “I came here because I was so concerned . . . about you.”

“No need,” he said considerately. “It was just a little pilgrimage I had to make.”

I touched his face with my fingers; so warm from the kill.

“She’s not here, Louis,” I said. “It was something Jesse imagined.”

“Yes, so it seems,” he said.

“We live forever; but they don’t come back.” - The Queen of the Damned

“All right,” he said despairingly. “I hope you discover the man’s seduced you with a pack of lies, that all he wants is the Dark Blood, and that you send him straight to hell. Once more, let me warn you, if I see him, if he threatens me, I shall kill him. I haven’t your strength. I depend upon my anonymity, that my little memoir, as you always call it, was so very far removed from the world of this century that no one took it as fact.”

“I won’t let him harm you, Louis,” I said. I turned and threw an evil glance at him. “I would never ever have let anyone harm you.”

And with this I left.

Of course, this was an accusation, and he felt the keen edge of it, I’d seen that to my satisfaction, before I turned again and went out. - The Tale of the Body Thief

Oh, yes, I had asked for it, as mortals so often declare. And I had done this despicable thing of letting loose the Body Thief with my powers. True. Guilty again of spectacular blunders and experiments. But had I ever dreamed of what it would truly mean to be stripped utterly of my powers and on the outside looking in? The others knew; they must know. And they had let Marius come to render the judgment, to let me know that for what I had done, I was cast out!

But Louis, my beautiful Louis, how could he have spurned me! I would have defied heaven to help Louis! I had so counted upon Louis, I had so counted upon waking this night with the old blood running powerful and true in my veins. - The Tale of the Body Thief

I thought then of Louis’s rejection, and that I would very soon see him again, and an evil satisfaction rilled me. Ah, he would be so very surprised. Then a little fear came over me. How would I forgive him? How would I keep my precious temper from exploding like a great wanton flame? - The Tale of the Body Thief

No scent of a mortal signaled an intruder. In fact, I knew the step that was approaching. I had heard it so many times in my life both mortal and preternatural. Yet I didn’t dare to believe in such a rescue from my misery, until the unheralded figure appeared in the courtyard, his velvet coat dusty, his yellow hair tangled, his violet eyes looking at once to the grim and appalling visage of Louis:

It was Lestat.

With an awkward step, as though his body, so long unused, revolted against him, he made his way closer to Merrick, who turned her tearstained face to him as if she too were seeing a Savior come in answer to her directionless prayers. - Merrick

Lestat seemed to be considering these things. How could he not? Once, he himself had gone into the sunlight in a distant desert place, and, having been burnt again and again, without release, he came back. His skin was still golden from this hurtful and terrible disaster. He would carry that imprint of the sun’s power for many years to come.

Straightaway, he stepped in front of Merrick, and as both of us watched, he knelt down beside the coffin, and he moved very close to the figure, and then he drew back. With his fingers, quite as delicately as she had done it, he touched the blackened hands, and he left no mark. Slowly, lightly, he touched the forehead, and once more, he left no mark.

He drew back, kneeling up, and, lifting his right hand to his mouth, he gashed his wrist with his own teeth before either Merrick or I knew what he meant to do.

At once a thick stream of blood poured down onto the perfectly molded face of the figure in the coffin, and as the vein sought to heal itself, again Lestat gashed it and let the blood flow. - Merrick

“Come now, enough of these ‘things,’ ” he said with a tone of remarkable weariness. “New Orleans waits. Louis waits. And if he hasn’t come down to New Orleans as you asked, I say we go to New York and get him.”

He had mentioned Louis countless times in the last six months, but the strange thing was, I didn’t trust him with all these mentions of how I needed Louis, and ought to write to Louis, and ought to pick up one of the many telephones around me and call Louis. I had some deep fear that he was in fact jealous of Louis, but I was ashamed of that feeling. Now he was saying, Let’s go, let’s find Louis.

[…]

This troubled me, and I wasn’t sure quite why. What if he suddenly wanted to hurt Louis? What if he became jealous of Louis—of my affection for Louis?

“Nonsense, go to him,” he said. Calm voice. Manly voice. “Am I jealous of your son, Viktor? Am I jealous of your beloved daughter, Rose? You need Louis and you know it, and he’s ready now to surrender. - Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis

And so it was done. Louis was putting on his jacket and scarf. I was unhappy. I watched him pulling on his gloves. I couldn’t imagine how this could end productively or happily. I didn’t want Louis to be humiliated, but what could Fareed and Seth say to talk of the silver cord? If they became impatient and short with him, I’d be furious. - Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis

I knew that the monster had other resources. We all do, the clever ones, who don’t wish to move through eternity like tramps. He had gold and jewels in hiding places. He had wealth undreamt of and unrecorded. And dwellings perhaps of which no one knew.

And now he had taken my Louis, my helpless Louis. Penetrated our most fortified refuge, and taken Louis away.

[…]

Again, I was not thinking. I was merely knowing—and knowing that Louis, Louis the most vulnerable of us all, was in the grip of that monster—or already dead. - Blood Communion

“In all these centuries,” said Cyril, “never have we known one whom we could see as our champion. You can’t really know, boss, just what you are now to the others. You think you know, but you don’t, and that’s why I’ll be right outside your door again sleeping in the passage, sleeping here so nothing and no one can get at you or hurt you—as long as I live and breathe.”

Then I was alone in the chilling darkness—with the villain Armand despised, and the son who had not protected his mother, and the lover who had never protected Louis from himself or others, and the miserable pupil of Marius who had so misjudged Rhoshamandes that now Marius was dead. - Blood Communion

It’s only now that i’m well into my Merrick reread that I realized that there’s a book character that almost made it into the Interview With The Vampire show, even appeared in the script, but it was ultimately cut out; that would be Oncle Vervain.

The script describes him as a young Voodo Priest, and it’s not far from he is in the books. This is how Merrick first describes him:

In the books, Oncle Vervain is a member of the Mayfair family. He is Irene Flaurent Mayfair‘s brother; Irene Mayfair is better known by the name of Great Nananne. She was Merrick Mayfair’s godmother and also her great-great-grandmother.

Merrick - Anne Rice

↳ Louis describing his first meeting with Merrick

— David Talbot describing Maharet’s offer of her powerful blood and Louis’ rejection of it

Merrick - Anne Rice

(I know there’s a lot of new fans on fandom these days, so fair warning - this post has heavy spoilers of Merrick, the seventh book of the Vampire Chronicles. Scroll past this post if you don’t want to be spoiled.)

So, I’ve been skimming the books and thinking a lot about Claudia this week, and how changing her age will inevitably change so much about her core character and what direction the show may take with her, so I’ve been skimming Merrick quite a bit. It remains honestly such a baffling book, even many years after I read it. I actually do like Merrick, or the idea of her, but the way David speaks of her, the interactions with Louis… ugh.

But anyway, Claudia. In the books, Claudia becomes a woman trapped in the body of a five year old child. The heart of her fury and desire for revenge is the horror that her mind and her desires age with time while she will forever have the appearence of a very small girl.

And the thing about Claudia is that she’s one of the coldest, most merciless vampires because she’s pure vampire. Claudia was turned too young to have human memories, human sympathies or influences; her infancy memories are all associated with being a bloodthirsty murderer alongside her fathers.

This reflects a lot in the way that she decides to kill Lestat - it’s both a vengeful and a practical decision, and in the bits of her diary we see in Merrick, she frames that decision with the base that it would be easier for her to control Louis.

And it had to be Lestat, of course - since Lestat was the one holding back knowledge, the one who didn’t want them to meet the others, it had to be him that Claudia had to kill. But despite the many issues I have with Merrick (which are…. a lot), I do like how this is framed, because it fits with my conception of Claudia as a characters in the books - love and hate for her fathers in equal messure.

And a single mindedness to get what she wants.

Even as she discusses love and hate and the pain of her existence, there’s a coldness and practicity in Claudia that is reflective of the humanity she lacks. She’s furious because she has the knowledge that Lestat and Louis took something irreplaceable from her whe she was turned, but she lacks the proper tools to properly mourn the loss of her humanity because she never fully experienced that.

In the show, I think a direction they could take is to completely flip around her character in the opposite direction.

After all, Claudia in the show will be turned at fourteen years old - right in the middle of her adolescence. Contrary to the books, she’ll remember humanity alright, and maybe? Maybe she could remember it too much.

Her tragedy will be to be forever stuck at her teenage years, not a child anymore but far from an adult, in an age where everything is too much and not enough and emotions run too high and too intense, and I think that, instead of being too cold and unfeeling, maybe she’ll be too passional and intense.

Everything is speculation right now (and the reason why I wanted to write this before she makes her debut), but I think this could be a possible direction for her character that they could take.

(In an unrelated last note about Merrick: this books still is baffling, but Louis’ goodbye letter and the part where he addresses Lestat still pulls a bit at my heartstrings.)

xxhellonursexx:

from the aftermath of Louis’ near-suicide in “Merrick,” when Lestat, several hours after successfully resuscitating Louis, asks him what he saw as the sun rose and burned him. This is part of Louis’ tearful reply. 

The chapter cuts off abruptly after the quote and does not explicitly state that Lestat hugged him, but, like, what the fuck else would you do if Louis were crying? 

xxhellonursexx:

A distraught Lestat rescues Louis from his suicide attempt by helping him drink his powerful blood. Slowly but surely, Louis’ charred flesh is healed and his burnt clothes fall away, leaving him nude and covered in a thin film of blood, but otherwise restored. 

Lestat is not described as crying, per se, but the text in “Merrick” describes his voice as being “hoarse” and “sore,” and he is clearly distraught by the possibility that he could inadvertently resurrect a disfigured, demented version of Louis, whom he would then be forced to destroy. 

Lestat reflects back on this event in later books as a moment that “broke his heart.” 

Lestat and Louis through the years

I wanted to forget him, and yet it seemed I thought of him always. It was as if the empty nights were made for thinking of him. And sometimes I found myself so vividly aware of him it was as if he had only just left the room and the ring of his voice were still there. And somehow there was a disturbing comfort in that, and, despite myself, I’d envision his face - not as it had been the last night in the fire, but on other nights, that last evening he spent with us at home, his hand playing idly with the keys of the spinet, his head tilted to one side. A sickness rose in me more wretched than anguish when I saw what my dreams were doing. I wanted him alive! In the dark nights of eastern Europe, Lestat was the only vampire I’d found. 

Interview With The Vampire (1976)

 "But why, Lestat? “ he asked a little suspiciously. "Why the danger, the risk? After all, you have done it. You have come back. You’re stronger than ever. You have the old fire as if it had never been lost, and you know how precious this is, this will simply to go on. Why risk it immediately? Have you forgotten what it was like when we had the world all around us, and no one could hurt us except ourselves? ”   

“Is this an offer, Louis? Have you come back to me, as lovers say?” His eyes darkened and he looked away from me.   

“I’m not mocking you, Louis,” I said.

“You’ve come back to me, Lestat,” he said evenly, looking at me again. “When I heard the first whispers of you at Dracula’s Daughter, I felt something that I thought was gone forever- ” He paused. But I knew what he was talking about. He had already said it.

The Vampire Lestat (1985)

I smiled. I kissed him suddenly, thrilled by the warmth of him, the soft pliant feel of his  near  human  skin.  God,  how  I  hated  the  whiteness  of  my  fingers  touching  him,  fingers that could have crushed him now effortlessly. I wondered if he even guessed.

There was so much I wanted to say to him, to ask him. Yet I couldn’t find the words really, or a way to begin. He had always had so many questions; and now he had his answers,  more  answers  perhaps  than  he  could  ever  have  wanted;  and  what  had  this  done to his soul? Stupidly I stared at him. How perfect he seemed to me as he stood there waiting with such kindness and such patience. And then, like a fool, I came out with it.

“Do you love me now?” I asked.

He smiled; oh, it was excruciating to see his face soften and brighten simultaneously when he smiled. “Yes,” he said.

The Queen of the Damned (1988)

He grew reflective again and very sad. It almost hurt me to look at him. I wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him, but that would only have made him furious.

“I love you,” he said softly.

I was amazed.

“You’re always looking for a way to triumph,” he continued. “You never give in. But there is no way to triumph. This is purgatory we’re in, you and I. All we can be is thankful that it isn’t actually hell." 

The Tale of The Body Thief (1992)

"Come home with me,” he said. Such a human voice. So kind. “There’s time to come here and reflect. Wouldn’t you rather be home, in the Quarter, amongst our things?”

If anything in the world could have truly comforted me, he would have been the thing—with just the beguiling tilt of his narrow head or the way that he kept looking at me, protecting me obviously with a confidential calm from what he must have feared for me, and for him, and perhaps for all of us.

My old familiar gentleman friend, my tender enduring pupil, educated  as truly by Victorian ways of courtesy as ever by me in the ways of being a monster.

Memnoch the Devil (1995)

“I’ll spend the next few evenings with Lestat,” Louis said quietly. “I want to read to him. He doesn’t respond but he doesn’t stop me. You’ll know where to find me when Merrick returns.”

“Does he never say anything to you?” I asked, regarding Lestat.

“Sometimes he speaks, just a little. He’ll ask for Mozart perhaps, or that I read him some old poetry. But in the main, he’s as you see him yourself, unchanged.” He paused, then looked directly at the sky. “I want to be alone with him for a few nights, I suppose, before Merrick comes back.”

His tone had a finality to it, and a sadness that touched me to the quick. He was saying farewell to Lestat, that’s what he was doing, and I knew that Lestat’s slumber was so deep and so troubled, that even such a dreadful message from Louis might not rouse him at all.

Merrick (2000)

I stopped. I put my arm around him. I held him close to me.

“I’m Lestat,” I said in a low voice. “Your Lestat. I’m the same Lestat you’ve always known, and no matter how I’m changed, I’m still that same being.”

“I know,” he said warmly.

I kissed him. I pressed my lips to his and I held this kiss for a long silent moment. And then I gave in to a silent wave of feeling, and I took him in my arms. I held him tight against me. I felt his unmistakable silken skin, his soft shining black hair. I heard the blood throbbing in him, and time dissolved, and it seemed I was in some old and secret place, some warm tropical grotto we’d once shared, ours alone in some way, with the scent of sweet olive blossoms and the whisper of moist breeze.

“I love you,” I whispered.

In a low intimate voice, he answered: “My heart is yours.”

Prince Lestat (2014)

“Very well,” Louis said.

“What do you mean?”

He shrugged and smiled.

“I’ll come if you want me. I’ll come and I’ll stay and I’ll be your companion if you want. I don’t know why you want this or how long you’ll want it, or what it’s going to be like, being with you and watching all your antics up close, and trying to be of help and not knowing how to be of help, but I’ll come. I’m tired of fighting it; I give up; I’ll come.”

I couldn’t believe I’d heard right. I stared at him as helplessly as I had in the hallway of the townhouse when I’d first seen him, trying to grasp what he had said.

He leaned close to me, and he put his hand on my arm. “ ‘Wither thou goest, I will go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people’; and because I have no other god and never will, you shall be my god.”

Prince Lestat and The Realms of Atlantis (2016)

“When I was finally led down the stairs, Louis came with me. In the darkened passage before my resting place, he embraced me and held tight to me, his lips pressed to my ear. I was aware of my hands moving over his hair, embracing his neck, drawing him ever closer, in a way I had never done in our long years in New Orleans. We joined in the posture of lovers, brothers, fathers with sons.

“I love you with my whole soul, and I will always love you”, he confided to me. “You are my life. I have hated you for that and love you now so much that you’ve been my instructor in loving. And believe me when I say you will survive because you always have and you always will.”

I couldn’t answer. I knew I loved him more than words could say, but I couldn’t respond.”

Blood Communion: A Tale of Prince Lestat (2018)