Book Information
Title: Vampire Armand
Published by: Arrow Books Ltd (United Kingdom)
Publish Date: 1999
ISBN: 0-09-927147-8
Armand is present as Lestat slumbers, and is approached by the David Talbot to tell his story. Armand agrees and charts his life from his pre-vampire days to how Armand came to be in Paris, his involvement with the Théâtre des Vampires along with his early encounters with other vampires.
The Vampire Armand's Plot with New and Reoccurring Characters
Armand (first introduced in the book Interview with the Vampire) begins his tale in 15th century in Kiev where he is purchased by the vampire Marius de Romanus (whose life story is told in Blood and Gold), who names him Amadeo. During this time he is Marius’ apprentice and along with several other apprentices, is educated, given shelter, and the relationship between the two becomes sexual. He eventually becomes a kind of ‘head boy’ in the household.
When he was around 15 or 16 he was turned into a vampire by Marius after he was badly wounded.
The rest of the book follows his life as he learns about how to be a vampire from Marius and eventually finds his way to Paris where his path crossed with Louis de Pointe du Lac. The story told in Interview with a Vampire is not repeated in great detail but Armand does recount several instances from their time together from his point of view.
The Vampire Chronicles
Armand was introduced visually on screen by Antonio Banderas in the 1994 Film Interview with the Vampire, however, after reading the book Vampire Armand it seems that he was mean to be considerably younger. Fans going from the film to the book may have trouble adjusting to the fact that the adult they saw in the film was actually supposed to be a child around the same physical age as Claudia.
In the book Armand, like the rest of the vampires, seems to be bisexual. Marius (portrayed as being camp but otherwise harmless by Vincent Perez in the 2002 film Queen of the Damned) is shown to not only be bisexual (which most people can deal with) but to also have an interest in young boys. Surely this makes him a paedophile. The context of the story put his sexual relationship with Armand happening way back when and Armand claims that he was in love with him, but surely it doesn’t make any difference as he is still messing around with young boys. Times were different back then, and perhaps the point Anne Rice is making is that children were seen as adults at far younger ages way back when. Still, it is difficult to judge Marius by anything other than today's standards.
The Anne Rice vampires seem to drift through the past as observers of the strange people called humans around them. Most people would be delighted at the prospect of remaining young and beautiful forever, yet the vampires in the Vampire Chronicles always seem to have grown weary of time and are just drifting around pointlessly. If that is how they feel then why do they not simply walk out into the daylight and let it burn them to ash?
Anne Rice tells of a world filled with vampires that a reader will either love or hate. The idea of vampires as erotic figures, with pale skin, and the capability to love but never being able to be part of the world will appeal to some. However, others will read one of the Vampire Chronicles and wonder exactly what the point of it was. Armand tells his story, but his past seems to have very little to do with anything. It seems to be a more of just in case the reader was wondering how he became a vampire and what he has been doing since being turned. It is difficult to understand what Anne Rice was hoping to say about Armand by showing the reader his back story that she hadn’t previously said during the earlier books in which he was first introduced.
The first 200 odd pages focus on his human life, and in all honesty the reader could skip those pages to when he is turned and they would not have missed anything.
Verdict
People either love Anne Rice or hate her. With so many vampire stories out there and the majority revolving around the idea of tortured immortals it will be down to the readers to decide which books are worth their attention.
Vampire Armand tells the story of the boy-vampire but there are no shocking insights which will really affect the reader’s opinion of him from his first appearance in Interview with the Vampire.
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