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Good at Being Evil: the Demons of The Vampire Chronicles 189tify with the lot of suffering humans. Incarnation into human form and Jesus’final self-sacrifice are portrayed as complete mistakes. Memnoch tries inthe novel to make God understand the morally destructive nature of humanexistence (tormented by the lack of any absolute knowledge or meaning,broken by intolerable suffering). Jesus goes through suffering and death, butbecause of his divine understanding he makes an inhuman (or superhuman)mistake and glorifies the value of suffering into a Christian dogma.“‘Oh, no, no!’ [Memnoch cried out to Jesus]. ‘This is disaster.’ […]“Lord, there are times when the hardest men hold infants in their arms,their own children, and the happiness and satisfaction of those moments isso sublime that there is no horror on earth that can destroy the peace theyfeel! That is the human capacity for love and understanding! When onecan achieve harmony in spite of everything, and men and women do this,Lord. They do. Come, dance with your people. Sing with them. Feast withthem. Throw your arms around the women and the men and know themin the flesh!’ 65The inhumanity and fundamental inability of God to understand theDevil, who is trying to defend the cause of humanity and ethical values issymptomatic of the novel in general. It has taken the whole of (Catholic)Christian theology and put it through a demonic inversion. The traditionalnames for Good and Evil – God and Devil – are reversed. At the same time,however, the narrative does not carry far enough to subvert the oppositioncompletely. The evil God is still omnipotent, and the rebellious Devil islocked into impotent, if righteous, rage. The Christian subtext becomescoded with ambivalent and blasphemous acts and parallels; as Lestat confrontsJesus for the last time, on the road to Golgotha, he both receives theveil of Veronica (the mythical cloth with Christ’s image) and drinks hisblood. Jesus himself is depicted as teasing Lestat into this ambiguous act ofblasphemy or mystic union: “The Blood of God, Lestat,” Jesus whispered.“Think of all the human blood that has flowed into your lips. Is my bloodnot worthy? Are you afraid?” 66 Later, back from Heaven and Hell, Lestatkneels down on a menstruating woman and licks her menstrual blood – in adouble act of blasphemy parallel to his vampiric “Communion” with Christ,and rejection of Christ’s sacrificial blood.“Forgive me, forgive me,” I whispered, and my tongue broke through thethin cotton of her panties, tearing the cloth back from the soft down ofpubic hair, pushing aside the bloodstained pad she wore, and I lapped atthe blood just inside her young pink vaginal lips, just coming from themouth of her womb, not pure blood, but blood from her, blood from herstrong, young body, blood all over tight hot cells of her vaginal flesh,blood that brought no pain, no sacrifice, only her gentle forbearance withme, with my unspeakable act, my tongue going deep into her, drawing out65 MD, 277.66MD, 283.
190Demonic Texts and Textual Demonsthe blood that was yet to come, gently, gently, lapping the blood from thesoft hair on her pubic lips, sucking each tiny droplet of it.Unclean, unclean. They cried on the road to Golgotha, when Veronicahad said: “Lord, I touched the hem of your garment and my hemorrhagewas healed.” Unclean, unclean. 67This (compulsively repetitive) celebration of the “impurity” of theflesh, however, sounds odd as Lestat had spent most of the previous book(The Tale of the Body Thief) cursing the filth and agony of human bodies. Inthe end, any claim or gesture in the Vampire Chronicles should not be interpretedas a declaration of some authentic position, but rather as strategicmoves which are connected with some opposition in a structure of tension.Lestat finally transgresses all limits and rejects all options: he comes throughhis Christian adventure claiming: “God and Devil are idiots!” 68 As a creatureof borderlines (and as an image of a borderline personality), the vampireLestat cannot accept any alternative, nor any system of signification, apartfrom the value of story-telling. The confrontation with Christian mythologyproves finally to be profoundly disappointing. Lestat feels seriously betrayedand is imprisoned during a violent attack of madness. As he is free again, hewalks into a deserted automobile store, watches his reflection in the glass,and the Vampire Chronicles are finished with this image – the vampire selflooking at his own reflection. “I am the Vampire Lestat. This is what I saw.This is what I heard. This is what I know! This is all I know.” 69Lestat finds no meaning, nor lesson: after every system of thought hasbeen transgressed, contradicted and blasphemed, the vampire self finds himselfdevoid of all “depth” or substance. He is only a mirroring surface whichmay reflect (and distort), but which figures relationships to others (andother texts) as violence, parasitism, and death. The interpersonal and intertextualrelationships are both portrayed as necessary, but also fundamentallyambivalent and rooted in difference, debt, and separation. Maybe this is the“demonic voice” these vampire narratives are trying to drown in their voluminous,polyphonic fantasies.Demons have been used in narratives for a wide variety of reasons duringtheir long history. In Anne Rice’s vampire novels, the quest for some“Grand Narrative” that would organise life and meaning in our contemporarysociety is set in an unresolved tension that suits well the traditionalthematics of the demonic. The blasphemous obsession with the Christianreligion in the Vampire Chronicles grows more pronounced as the series entersits fifth part, Memnoch the Devil. This can be interpreted in terms of theVampire Chronicles’ particular “demonic poetics” (how these novels utilisedemonic imagery in their own, particular manner): the series simultaneouslystrongly rejects all the answers offered by religions as insulting to a modern67MD, 322.68 MD, 339.69MD, 353.
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TAMPERE STUDIES INLITERATURE AND TE
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Tampere Studies in Literature and T
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ments, and also such further lines
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IllustrationsCover: “Possessed Re
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The BeginningsAnd Jesus asked him,
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The Beginnings 3mons form an import
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The Beginnings 5negative, demonic a
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The Beginnings 7chapter four), but
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The Beginnings 9scious conflict, fo
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The Beginnings 11that is produced o
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The Beginnings 13The History of the
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The Beginnings 15emphasised that su
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The Beginnings 17turalism,” but i
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The Beginnings 19the materials I ha
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1. The Ancestry of the DemonicÑH.
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 25ness
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 29tic o
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 31It sh
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 33of th
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 35able
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 37The f
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 39and t
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 41- in
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 43Chris
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 45[…]
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 47of th
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 49serpe
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 51tween
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2. The Demonic in the SelfBut ancie
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The Demonic in the Self 55Individua
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The Demonic in the Self 57should be
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The Demonic in the Self 59tack in t
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The Demonic in the Self 61A number
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The Demonic in the Self 63tion. 36
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The Demonic in the Self 65the nethe
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The Demonic in the Self 67sciousnes
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The Demonic in the Self 69influence
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The Demonic in the Self 71LEADER:Yo
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The Demonic in the Self 73Particula
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The Demonic in the Self 75NIETZSCHE
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The Demonic in the Self 77ing into
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The Demonic in the Self 79Nietzsche
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3. Unravelling the Demonic TextThe
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Unravelling the Demonic Text 83in o
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Unravelling the Demonic Text 87stru
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Unravelling the Demonic Text 89ies,
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Unravelling the Demonic Text 91open
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Unravelling the Demonic Text 95both
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Unravelling the Demonic Text 97woul
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Unravelling the Demonic Text 99demo
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Unravelling the Demonic Text 101Thi
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Unravelling the Demonic Text 105“
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PART II
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114Demonic Texts and Textual Demons
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5. Mothering a Demon:Rosemary’s B
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The EpilogueIf there are answers to
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BibliographyA note on this bibliogr
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Index2001: A Space Odyssey; 207abje
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