#totbt negative

[canonicallysoulmates]

You know when the ending is so bad it ruins the whole book?

That's how I feel about Tale of the Body Thief.

Disclaimer: I will be talking about the last chapter of this book so trigger warning for talk about rape. I will give a second trigger warning before I talk about it so if you want you can read the rest of this post and stop there or if it's triggering you can skip this whole post, and I recommend also skipping the book.

The first half I liked just fine, I have a whole separate post about it but basically, I felt very 50/50 I didn't care for the plot but there were some things I found interesting. At the time I would have given it a solid 3.5 stars. Then I got to the second half

Turns out the interesting stuff is only in the first half.

I don't know what it is about how this is written but I just don't care about the plot like I want Lestat to have his body back and I'm glad he does get it back but I'm not sucked into the story, and at first, I thought this was due to me already knowing that he does get his body back but then I remembered that I went into QOTD knowing quite a bit about it and the story still managed to pull me in and I got invested. That did not happen here. I'm deducting points.

I hate that Louis didn't help Lestat. I get that it was in character but I hate it. Not gonna take points away from it because of this but I will, however, take points away because of how fucking annoying I found Louis in that scene. I am on Lestat's side when it comes to burning his house down because he was practically begging Louis, trying to make him understand how horrible this experience has been for him and how much he hates the body he's in, and Louis is not listening and acting as if Lestat doesn't know what he's talking about! It annoyed me on a personal level, and with that, this book has made me annoyed at both of my favorite characters. I'm taking points off.

I don't care much for David, and I borderline don't care for even the friendship aspect of his and Lestat's relationship. This book really wants to sell me this couple, and I'm not buying. I saw more chemistry between Lestat and Gretchen which was a sweet brief romance albeit a bit weird because of the whole tending to a sick guy in the hopes he'll be nice and take your V-card thing. I'm not holding this against the book in the sense of taking points away from it but it did affect my enjoyment of it.

Before I keep tearing into this book the sex scene between Lestat and Gretchen was unintentionally funny to me because "I let my hand slip to the little doorway" I can't take this seriously, "and I felt her open petal by petal" this is why I stick to ao3 for all my smutty needs.

By this point, the book is sitting at a 2.5, Lestat has annoyed me once again by not realizing that David was not David and this was literally me with every page I turned

Then I read the final chapter and this plunged from 2.5 to 1.5 that's how much I hate David's transformation scene.

Once again, trigger warnings for mentions of rape.

I hate this moment for several reasons, the first and most obvious one being that Lestat forces himself on David. David is struggling, he's fighting back, he's trying to run away, he's telling Lestat no and asking him not to do this but Lestat does it anyways, and it would have been bad enough if he had grabbed David, bit him and turned him but he prolongs it, he drinks some of his blood he lets him go then captures him again this happens like three times with each time David trying to stop him. This person who was the only one there for him during his time of crisis, this man who Lestat is supposed to love so much he not only violates his bodily autonomy but he prolongs the horrible experience playing with him as a cat does with a mouse.

And I understand that Lestat is capable of doing horrible things, I get it it's a part of his character but this is also a character that it has been established was traumatized by having his own bodily autonomy taken away and being forcefully turned into a vampire. I would argue that we see part of this trauma in the first half of this very book because one of the reasons Lestat wants to be human again is that he wishes he could go back to when he was safe in his childhood home with his dogs before he faced the wolves, caught Magnus's attention and was turned.

To make it worse you have him thinking "Yes, fight, fight me as I fought Magnus. So sweet that you are fighting me. I love it. I do." What the fuck. Again, this is a character who has been on the other side of this type of traumatic experience.

And to make it, even more, worse, this is the second rape scene in this book. Because earlier in the book when Lestat was a mortal he forced himself on a waitress. Both scenes were unnecessary, one was more than enough, why two? why?

And after he forced himself on the waitress he felt bad because he knew he had done something horrible and yet here he is doing the vampire equivalent to his best friend. And this whole thing comes out of nowhere because yes, Lestat has been wanting to turn David for a long time but up until this point no matter how painful it was for him he had been respectful of David not wanting to be turned.

I cannot wrap my head around him doing to someone he cares about the same shit Magnus did to him.

This book could have had such a lovely ending if it had stopped at Lestat lighting the candle, and if Rice wanted David as a vampire it could have been done in so many better ways sincerely when the show gets to adapting this book I hope it either completely changes or completely disregards this last chapter. The only things I really want to see from this book to the show is Lestat being haunted by Claudia, Mojo, who is the best part, and possibly Rue Royale being restored.

There were things I liked, so I can't say it's all bad, but ultimately, I can see why this book is so hated. I, too, hate it.

[cosmicjoke]

Lestat and David and an act of self-condemnation:

Okay, one more post about “Tale of the Body Thief” and then I’m off to start “Memnoch the Devil” later tonight.  Be still my heart, lol.

But I just wanted to talk a little bit here about why Lestat does what he does at the end of TotBT, why he turns David against his will into a vampire.

I think, obviously, Lestat wanted from the beginning of the story to make David his companion.  That’s a recurring theme throughout this book, and indeed, all the books up to this point, that Lestat keeps choosing the wrong people to serve as his companions, people who don’t really understand him or can’t relate to him, people who will eventually turn away from him, and he’s sort of obsessing over David being his companion, because he sees a great deal of himself in him.  His courage, his strength, his will, his will to action, etc...  So obviously, that desire plays a part in it.  But I don’t think it’s actually the reason Lestat does it, at the end here.  It would have been the reason he did it with David when it was Raglan James occupying his body.  I think when Lestat bit him then, it was fully because he simply, desperately wanted David to be his companion.  And I’ve already gone into the implications of that experience in my other post on these last chapters of the book, so I won’t repeat myself here.

Nor do I think it was what David accuses Lestat of later, that being a petty cruelty and meanness, wanting to take David’s happiness away because he was able to succeed in this body that Lestat “didn’t have the strength to endure”, as David puts it.

What I think it really was, was an act of self-condemnation and self-recrimination.  I think it was Lestat condemning himself into darkness, and in so doing, sealing himself off from any possibility for self-delusion or ability to hide from the choice he had made, that choice being to once again become a vampire.  Lestat sees that choice as proof of his evil, and his conscience in the form of Claudia throughout the story is him tormenting himself over what he believes is his own hypocrisy and the falsity of his grief and guilt.  He’s asking himself over and over again what kind of person is he, that he enjoys being a vampire.  That he likes being this monster that he is, and that he keeps bringing others into it with him.  He’s suffering from immense guilt over that specifically, over his ability to thrive in and enjoy his vampirism, but also his inability to live without someone to share his life with, and tragically, he doesn’t see how that very fact proves him wrong about this negative self-image he has, this belief of himself as an irredeemable monster.

In the moment Lestat attacks and turns David, he’s playing a role.  He becomes this viciously cold, unfeeling and cruel person.  He’s acting like a true villain, like the very devil himself.  I’ve never seen Lestat be so mean.  And that powerfully contrasts with the person we see him as throughout every book up to this point, which is this sort of ill-tempered, but ultimately good-natured and positive person.  A kind of childlike innocent, almost, a sort of bumbling, impulsive and lovable rogue.  Someone who, at his core, is actually kind of a sweetheart.  Lestat’s behavior with David in this scene is so contradictory and so unlike how he is, throughout all the books, even IWTV, that it  strikes me completely as a performance.

And again the question comes of why.  Immediately after the act, Lestat reverts back into how he’s been throughout the story.  He’s deeply remorseful, guilt ridden, ashamed and miserable.  He begins to cry again.  The seeming relish and enjoyment he appeared to display during the attack is gone.  He hates what he’s done.  He hates that he did this to David.  He knows it was wrong and he thinks he deserves nothing now from the world but to be treated with evil.

I think this was Lestat punishing himself, in a way.  Forcing himself to face and accept his own monstrosity, and giving himself no place to hide from it, no place in which to seek solace from the torment of his own self-loathing. 

These are the final words of this story

“I wanted to say something to her as I held the locket; I wanted to say something to the being she had been, and to my own weakness, and to the greedy wicked being in me who had once again triumphed.  For I had.  I had won.

Yes, I wanted to say something so terribly much!  And would that it were full of poetry, and deep meaning, and would ransom my greed and my evil, and my lusty little heart.  For I was going to Rio, wasn’t I, and with David, and with Louis, and a new era was beginning...

Yes, say something- for the love of heaven and the love of Claudia- to darken it and show it for what it is!  Dear God, to lance it and show the horror at the core.

But I could not.

What more is there to say, really?

The tale is told.”

He’s disgusted with himself for his ability to carry on, to continue to not just live, but thrive, even in the face of what he believes is his evil.  He thinks he should remain in misery, that he should suffer and sink and self-destruct, and that he doesn’t is somehow proof of his evil, proof of his villainy and wickedness.  That is, after all, what he’s been told all his life by pretty much everyone.  That his eternal hope and optimism is, in fact, an engine of malice and destruction.  That his strength, his will to win, his refusal to “go down” is somehow indicative of wrongness, something obscene and unnatural and greedy, a weakness of character, a deep lack in his person. 

He condemns himself throughout these last chapters for his ability to be happy, to find happiness in the midst of his monstrosity, for his ability to rise above.

Lestat doing what he did to David was, I think, a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Believing himself so evil, and so beyond redemption, he chooses instead to embrace his damnation, and seal it in stone, refusing himself in the process any escape from his own torment.  If he does this thing, then he can no longer live in any kind of illusion as to who and what he is.  He can no longer lie to himself, he can no longer see himself capable of good or believe even that he ever wanted to be good.  And so I think he does this because he wants to suffer.  He wants to be punished.  He wants to remember, even in his moments of happiness, that he doesn’t deserve to be happy.  To remind himself that he’s the kind of person who would thoroughly betray and violate one of his very best friends, and so he doesn’t deserve love then either.  In a way, I feel, it’s his attempt to sink, to go down, to self-destruct, because, through all of this, he’s been made to believe completely that his great will and courage and ability to win is the very thing that marks him as a devil.  That it’s his very core, his very self, that is the true source of wrong in him.  And so maybe, if he’s forced to acknowledge that, if he’s forced to accept that, then that will somehow, at last, defeat him. 

[cosmicjoke]

I find David’s characterization in “Merrick” kind of bizarre, to be honest.  Like, he feels almost like an entirely different character in some ways to who he was in “TotBT”.  His constant interjections in the story going on and on about how much he’s lusting after Merrick don’t endear him, to say the least, lol.  But also his behavior with Merrick when they’re in South America, going back to the cave, the way he just sort of recklessly and selfishly advises Merrick after they steal the mask, how he wants to go back to the cave and get the rest of the artifacts there, sort of flies directly in the face of the David we saw in “TotBT”, who tried so hard and with so much reason to warn Lestat off of involving himself with Reglan James, and who then helped Lestat when no one else would.  I suppose you could put his behavior in “Merrick” down to him being influenced somehow by the magic of the mask and all of that.  But, in general, just all the negative reveals about David’s character in this book are a little depressing.  I genuinely liked him in “TotBT”.  He was a true friend to Lestat, it seemed, and genuinely cared about him.  But the way he keeps going on and on about not feeling guilty for sleeping with Merrick, the way he describes in detail how he was having erotic thoughts about her when she was 14, with no indication of him knowing that the reveal of those thoughts is disturbing or that him having them is awful, his general self-absorbtion and all the rest of it, the reveal about his relationship with the young Talamasca member Jacob, etc...  It’s all such a huge turn off, and makes one question just how much of the David we saw in “TotBT” was real.  I��m not sure why Anne Rice decided to make him into such a piece of shit, lol.  Yes, arguably, you could say ALL the character’s in her books are morally corrupt, but if we’re talking about the main cast of characters, almost all of their moral corruption came after being turned into vampires.  All the murder is a result of their vampiric nature impelling them to it.  But David has no such excuse for his pedophillic behavior, since that all was there when he was a simple mortal man.  The only explanation you would think is Anne Rice wanted us to hate him, lol.

[cosmicjoke]

Okay, so... Lestat tried to kill himself for real, and now I’m sad.

Shit... this was hard to read.  I mean, I could tell Lestat was depressed at the end of the first chapter of “TotBT”, but I didn’t guess what he actually meant to do when he said he was going to say “farewell” to David.  I guess this really serves to reinforce what I was saying in my last post about Lestat’s guilt, about how it’s just as immense as Louis’.  And then, of course, Louis never really tried to kill himself, at least up to this point in the series, and that speaks volumes about Lestat’s depression.  Even if he didn’t really believe the sun could kill him anymore, still, he didn’t know, and he made the very real attempt to end his life. And that whole scene with him going up to the edge of the atmosphere, letting the sun hit him full blast and then falling thousands of feet to the earth... well, needless to say, I wasn’t prepared.  Just when you think Lestat can’t break your heart any further, he does just that.

I think what drove the spike into my heart all the more is what Lestat says to David before making the attempt, asking him about the tiger, about whether it was “fun” to kill it, and David hesitating to answer, because he knew it would just feed into Lestat’s reasoning for wanting to die.  When he finally admits it was fun, because the tiger had been a man eater, that it had eaten children, that was just like a gut punch, because of course you knew Lestat would only be able to see the parallels with himself.  He even says “Ah, well, then we have that in common, me and the tiger.”  He really is a hurtin’ unit here.

Running alongside all of this is Lestat’s guilt for tempting David to become a vampire out of his own loneliness, out of fear of losing his one, mortal friend, making David more and more aware of his own time running out.  And then his guilt over Claudia, rearing it’s head full force it seems.  Lestat’s visions of Claudia here are truly poignant and heartbreaking, and I’m guessing might play a more significant role story wise as the book progresses.  Particularly moving was during Lestat’s fall back to earth, with the sun burning him, how he saw and heard Claudia, her telling him “Not yet.”

Also, it killed me when David, attempting to persuade Lestat against his suicide attempt, tells him he’s the only friend he has, that he needs him, and Lestat thinks of that as tragic, and thinks he wants to apologize to David for everything.  Because that really feeds into the main tragedy of all of this, which is that Lestat thinks of himself as a worthless monster, whose existence can’t possibly hold any real value to anyone or anything.  At the end of chapter 3, when he says “Why would anyone want me to live?”  that’s the real killer, that’s the deepest tragedy of Lestat right there.  It’s reflected too in Lestat’s theory about Rembrandt, the story he came up with about him selling his soul to the devil, but finding redemption through the creation of his paintings, when he says “Now if I were mortal, I would write a novel about Rembrandt, no this theme.  But I am not mortal.  I cannot save my soul through art or Good Works.  I am a creature like the Devil, with one difference.  I love the paintings of Rembrandt!  Yet it breaks my heart to look at them.”

Because it’s so true to reality, to real-life depression, to people who suffer from depression.  Despite people telling them and showing them that they’re wanted and loved, that they’re needed, the person just can’t believe it, not because they don’t want to, but because they simply can’t.  Their own, negative self-image and beliefs about themselves make it impossible.  And that’s Lestat here.  David tells him, after Lestat comes back to his home, the sun and fall having failed to kill him, there are “others” outside his house, meaning other vampires, wanting to make sure he’s alright, and Lestat wonders “Why would they care about such a thing?”.  He asks Claudia’s apparition, “But why?” when she tells him it wasn’t his time to die.  We see David caring for Lestat in his weakened and agonized state, laying a blanket over him, closing the curtains so no sun can come through, and telling him to rest, and he feels Claudia touch his cheek as he falls into unconsciousness.  People care for and see value in Lestat.  He just can’t see it in himself.

This truly was a heartbreaker to read.  So far, I think this book is excellent.  It’s moving and poignant and deep and such a true expression and reflection of such serious, real life issues.