Servant of the Bones, Chapter One
Jul. 16th, 2018 09:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
a_sporking_ratBefore we begin, let me share this 1995 quote with you from Rice:
"The meaning of The Vampire Chronicles is still unfolding for me, and is as much connected to God as to the Devil, as much connected to pleasure as to pain. That the books are entertainment seems a given, and for that I'm grateful. That they can be seen as a religious journey is also clear. I am immersed in the questions, and praying for the answers. Lestat, c'est moi. I want you to love all of my characters. I am, in the writing of these and other novels, as ambitious as Dickens. I want everybody to cry when Claudia dies, just like they did for Little Nell."
With that said, let's begin another Rice tale, this time not one of her vampire books, nor her witch chronicles, but a stand-alone novel about an entirely different sort of supernatural creature, one that seems to be of her own invention from what I can tell.
"Servant of the Bones" was published in 1996. So, after the debut of the Vampire Chronicles, but before Blackwood Farm.
It is prefaced with "This book is dedicated to GOD"
...hoo boy. So I guess this is after she re-discovered religion. I wonder if it's written before or after "Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt" (for those that don't know, that's her published Jesus fanfic) Lemme check...nope, Out of Egypt was actually written in 2005, just before Blackwood Farm! That...explains a lot about Blackwood Farm. And makes me surprised it wasn't MORE preachy throughout.
For the record, I'm not opposed to religion, or religious people, or religious people putting their faith into their books. After all, I think we all want to promote values we consider positive through our fiction, whether it's diversity or care for the environment or strong women or whatever. I would want my work to reflect certain values of mine if possible, so I would be a hypocrite to say others work can't reflect theirs. Just...in some cases (and this applies to cases where I agree with the values too) it's not done well. And Blackwood Farm isn't giving me too much hope for Servant of the Bones. I have read SotB before, I just can't remember anything on this topic. I just remember it being sexist.
But, I'm pre-judging it at this point. Instead, how about let's dive in with fresh eyes and give it a fair chance?
SERVANT OF THE BONES: PROEM
We start with Psalm 137, which I'm not bothering to read, let alone transcribe, but it's about Babylon and Jerusalem and stuff. We then get to the "proem" (another word for preface, which confused me) in which the first sentence is:
"Murdered. Her hair was black and so were her eyes."
The unidentified first-person narrator tells us how this murder happened on Fifth Avenue and that he saw it "soundlessly" on the television screen on the news. The girl's name is Esther and had once been a student in his class, though he doesn't say what that class is. Her father, Gregory Belkin, is the head of a worldwide New Age temple and they have loads of money. Esther was "rich and lovely to behold" and she was a "flower of a girl" and a "doe of a girl" who asked her questions "so timidly" and was "kind, humble, ever-listening, and sweet, yes, very sweet."
So, let me spoil something here for you. There are only three female characters in this book. There is an evil witch, there is Esther's mother that the hero has sex with, and there is dead Esther, who is only ever talked about as oh so sweet and pretty and pure.
I think you see the problem here. As a friend of mine put it, that's literally the three kinds of women allowed to exist in stories -.-
The narrator says he "remembered Esther pretty well" and for some reason not explained, he finds her death and her father's subsequent "delusions" to be "ironic". I'm not sure what's ironic about that, but perhaps we shall find out.
"I never tried to understand the whole story." and forgot about her, her murder and her father. Then "It was time to stop teaching for awhile" and he went away to the snowy mountains to "write my book" without having so much as prayed for Esther's memory "but I am a historian and not a praying man" because those have something to do with each other I guess?
"In the mountains, I learnt everything. Her death came to me, vivid and lush with meaning, through the words of another."
This is the last line of the pref---I mean proem. This is not a bad start at all. We don't know the narrator's gender yet by the way, I just say "he" because I already know it.
Next we move on the Part One, which is prefaced by a poem by Rice's own husband, who was still alive at this time (he passed in 2002) For those unaware, he was a poet who published several collections and won the Edgar Allen Poe award for one of them. I have no sense of poetry so I can't really say if he's any good. But this one is called "The Bones of Woe" and it is about golden bones. It was written originally in 1975, and I wonder if Rice was inspired by it? Because, as you shall see, that imagery ends up being rather important.
Chapter 1 of Part One is our still-mysterious narrator telling us that "This is Azriel's tale as he told it to me, as he begged me to hear witness and record his words." and that Azriel chose the name "Jonathon" for the narrator when he "appeared in my open doorway and saved my life"
So, like Interview and Blackwood, this is a person telling a story of their long life to another person. We shall see if it's more like the former or the latter. As a note on this type of framing device, I recently revisited "Wuthering Heights" via audiobook. Bronte uses the same tactic for most of the book, with the housekeeper Nellie relaying much of the WH tale to the visiting Mr. Lockwood. But, it makes a good deal more sense there. First, it's not all done in one sitting. In fact, at one point Nellie insists it's getting too damn late, and Lockwood asks that she persists. He also wants her to put all the details in there. Second, he's got good reason to want to know---the first time, he's just curious about the oddities of his landlord and his family, and gets sucked in to the story when Nellie begins. The second time, he's ill in bed with literally nothing else to do out on the isolated heath. The third time, he's by chance returned to WH after fleeing it (when he found out from Nellie's story what a dickbag Heathcliff is) and naturally wants to know how things have ultimately turned out. It's quite a bit more believable to me than Lestat being like "well I kill all other vampires in my territory but you're so super special and exceptional" at Quinn. I can buy Lestat being intrigued by the issue of Goblin, but not in Quinn himself. Certainly not enough for that fucking ordeal.
But back to the actual book---he says that this Azriel "call me Jonathon" which I assume is a typo for "called me Jonathon", I think Rice had well ditched her editor at this point. Though Azriel has chosen this name for the narrator on his own, the narrator tells us that Jonathon is indeed one of the names he was given at birth, but not one that appears on any of his book jackets. But then he thinks it doesn't matter what name that Azriel gives his scribe, only that someone writes down what he has to say. He tells us that Azriel knew who he was, has read all his works, knows his style and reputation and outlook. He wonders if perhaps Azriel admired that even though he (Jonathon) is 65 years old but still writes "day and night like a young man, with no intentions of retiring from the school where I taught" and thus it was no "haphazard choice" that led this Azriel to climb the "steep forested mountains, in the snow, on foot" with nothing in his hand but a magazine.
Jonathon then describes Azriel to us. He is a kind-looking young man who has long curling black hair, huge black eyes, a small thick nose, thick prominent brows, and a large cherub's mouth. He is wearing "one of those double-tiered and flaring winter coats that only the tall of stature and romantic of heart can wear with aplomb or the requisite charming indifference". This coat "now and then became too large for him" because his appearance changes to match that of the man on the magazine cover that he holds. This is something that Jonathon sees "before I knew who he was, or that I was going to live, or that the fever had broken."
Jonathon explains to us he's not eccentric or self-destructive, he didn't come to the mountains to die, just to work on his book. It takes him a paragraph to say this. He then goes on to explain everything he keeps in this house. I don't want to recap it because it's so dull but let me give you a sample of what I had to suffer through:
- Bottled water for drinking
- Oil and kerosene
- Batteries
- A small tape recorder
- A laptop and spare computers "all small and powerful beyond any understanding I ever hope to acquire"
- Yellow legal pads
- Fine point pens with black ink
- Books everywhere, with a duplicate of every text he consulted, plus some poetry books "for ecstasy"
- Yams, apples, chicken broth, and other simple foods
This wouldn't be a big deal to read about. It's not a big list. But it all takes paragraphs. Seven paragraphs. SEVEN. It takes seven paragraphs to relay all this in detail. I get setting a scene, but this is painful, and it's made worse by the way Jonathon's narrative style jumps around. This is probably meant to indicate his fevered state, which is fair enough, but going from one sentence about a guy being A GODDAMN SHAPESHIFTER to seven paragraphs of simple supplies that likely will never be relevant again is...not fun.
One of these paragraphs is devoted to talking about WHY he brought simple foods. You see, he says he is tired of the "rich food" of New York, of the "crowded fashionable restaurants" and "glittering party buffets" and even the "wonderful" meals served to him by his own colleagues. I wonder if Rice thinks that this is the only food available in New York? Has she never heard of just getting a bagel or a hot dog? Or how about a farmer's market, where you can get your own fresh veggies and fish and what-all? How much more simple can you get? I just...I hate traveling, I hate cities, but the food in New York City always sounds great to me in terms of sheer diversity, so this whole "oh I'm living on yams and chicken broth in the mountains cuz I got tired of FANCY RICH PEOPLE FOOD" is so weird to me. I guess what he means is that's why he brought only simple food with him, and otherwise might have brought some more complex ingredients, but the way it's phrased I'm just like "...so just eat something else oh my god". Which. He is I guess.
Anyway.
He then tells us how "the world I left behind seemed just a little more mad than usual." He then spends about two pages describing various disasters around the world. Starving children and disease in Africa, a famous athlete accused of killing his wife, bombs and Jews and Arabs in Jerusalem, remnants of the Soviet Union making war in the Ukraine, the Bosnians and Serbs in the Balkans, and the death of Esther Belkin. He says that after her death, caches of assault weapons and gases and explosives had been found in all the Temples of the Mind, her step-father's cult, from New Jersey to Libya, and her step-father Gregory is though insane, and how he wouldn't be the first cult leader to be insane. Well, he says "church leader" but it sounds like a cult. And Jonathan then lists off various killer cult leaders throughout the world and their deeds.
Also, among the various ills that Jonathon describes in the world, he mentions domestic terrorists who blew up a federal building in Oklahoma City because, like the hippies before them, they had decided the government was their enemy but unlike the hippies who had "lain on traintracks and sung in rank" these new "crewcut militants" had "killed our own people. By the hundreds." And I feel like this is a commentary from Rice herself.
Also, just saying: The world has ALWAYS sucked, we're just more aware of it now because we're able to be aware of what's happening beyond our own town. I hope Azriel, who it turns out is VERY old, tells Jonathon this.
So yeah, Jonathon says he was running from all this, that the only way he could reach the world is a phone in his Jeep, so he's not a fool he's a scholar, he had a plan, he was prepared for this winter. Okay, thanks. He then spends a page telling us how he got a really bad fever, couldn't bolt the door, a whole lot of snow came in, and then so did Azriel at midnight. He assures us that Azriel didn't choose this time to be dramatic but "quite the contrary" which will always be a lie about any Rice character ever.
Jonathon says he's going to die. Azriel says he won't and gives him water, then picks up his papers from the snow-soaked floor and says this is "your precious work". Azriel takes off his cool coat, makes Jonathon broth and feeds it to him, bathes his face with cold water and then "bathed all of me" and puts him in fresh sheets. Azriel asks for some water for himself, which he drinks in "greedy gulps" and says that water is all needs since the "Stairway to Heaven had disappeared and left him stranded". He then introduces himself as Azriel and "They call me the Servant of the Bones , but I became a rebel ghost, a bitter and impudent genii."
Jonathon mentions that Azriel is muscular and has dark hair on his arms and the backs of his hands that make him appear "strong and vital". Holy shit, this is a RICE hero?! I am SHOCKED.
Azriel shows Jonathon the magazine cover with Gregory Belkin on it, and says "I killed that man."
Then, Azriel once more takes on the appearance of Gregory. "He wanted me to see it. He did it for me."
Azriel says this is how he looked on the day he (Azriel) chose to forfeit his powers, "to take on real flesh and real suffering" and that "I looked just like Gregory Belkin when I shot him."
He changes back to his regular self, his smile "secretive and seductive" but "not a happy smile" with "no humor or sweetness in it".
He said he thought he was going to die in that form, that Temple of Mind lies in ruins and that "the people will not die" that the women and children will not "breath the evil gas" and "I didn't die" either and is "Azriel once more."
Jonathon says he looks like a "living breathing man" and he doesn't understand how he can look like Gregory Belkin. Azriel says he is not a man but a ghost who can "wrap himself in the form he had when he was alive; and now he cannot make it go away" He questions why God did this to him, saying he has sinned and is no innocent "but why can't I die?"
Then he smiles and is "almost a boy" and says that perhaps God let him live so he could say Jonathon now, that he gave him his "old flesh back" so that he could make this mountain trek. Jonathon says perhaps, and Azriel tells him to rest now, that his forehead was cool. He says if Jonathon sees him turn into "that man" again, it's because he's trying to measure the difficulty of each time. He says it used to be easy for him to change shape or make illusions for whatever sorcerer called him from the bones as his master. But now it's hard for him to look like anything but the young man he once was "when it started. When I bought their lies. When I became a ghost and not the martyr they promised.
Jon (I'm calling him Jon now, it's easier to type over and over) says he'd be dead without Az (likewise, calling him Az now) and Az agrees, but says "I had my foot on the Ladder to Heaven, I was on it this time, I tell you, when I made this choice, and I thought it was all over, the temple destroyed, the Stairway might come down for me again. The Hasidim are pure and innocent. They are good. But battles they must leave to monsters like me."
I think Hasidim are Jews? Wiki says "Hasid" is a Jewish honorific used for exceptional respect. I think I recall Rice saying this book was a tribute to Jewish people but I'm not sure. It hasn't come up yet, but Azriel is indeed a Jew. I am very ignorant of Jewish people, culture, and history, however, so I won't be in a good position to judge her portrayal of these things if they come up. After her racism in Blackwood though, I don't have the highest hopes, however good her intentions might be.
Jonathon then remembers "fragments" of a "lunatic plan" pertaining to Gregory Belkin. He says there was "a beautiful girl" and Azriel says yes, Esther Belkin, and shows the magazine's interior to Jon. Within is "the famous photograph" of Esther lying on the stretcher on Fifth Avenue before being placed in the ambulance, just before she died. In the blurry background, he realizes Azriel is there, and points him out. Azriel doesn't answer this. He seems distracted and says what we already know: "She died there. Esther, his daughter."
Jon tells Az that he knew Esther, from when the Temple had still been new and controversial rather than "indefatigable" and that she was a "good student, serious and modest and alert." Azriel says "She was a sweet, kind girl, wasn't she?" and Jonathon agrees that she was, saying she was "very unlike her stepfather"
Azriel points to himself in the picture and says that "the Servant of the Bones" was indeed there, that he shall never know who called him, perhaps it was the "dark horrible beauty of her death." Yeah, I mean sure women are murdered every day, but they're not all sweet modest flowers like Esther, so they don't get genii ghosts, that must be it.
He talks about how "you see now, you feel now" that he is solid, and how God has "wrapped me in my old flesh" and is making harder and harder for him to vanish and return, to dissemble and reassemble from thin air. "What is to become of me, Jonathon? As I grow stronger and stronger in this seeming human form, I fear I can't die. I will never."
There's about a page of putting around, like Az bringing Jon his slippers and Jon showing Az how to make cowboy coffee, and we learn that Az can't eat food since he's not human.
Az is wearing a white shirt and black pants and he has dark chest hair "thick beneath his open collar." This is a...very atypical Anne Rice protagonist, goddamn. A dude with MUSCLES and BODY HAIR, what the FUCK? I'm almost disappointed I can't poke fun at her usual preference for LH-style pretty boys. Maybe that's only how she likes her male vampires, not her men in general, and I just never knew because I really only remembered the vampires? Either way, it's nice she's branching out, even if only a little. Not that there's anything wrong with having a preference, just it's noticeable when that's the only person allowed to be a vampire, be important, etc.
Azriel wonders aloud if he will never be "nefesh" which is explained as a Hebrew word meaning "body and soul together".
Azriel explains that spirits can drink water and they can also drink "the scents of sacrifice" which is why in ancient times there were burnt offerings and incense and smoke rising from altars and such for them.
They look at the picture of Esther some more. Jonathon asks if Gregory killed Esther, Azriel says yes. Jon explains to the reader how three men had killed Esther with ice picks and run away into the crowd without anyone knowing what they'd done. Then they had been found murdered with the same ice picks, and no one connected the two incidents til blood tests revealed Esther's blood was also on the ice picks. Jon says he supposes that was part of Gregory's plan, to have the hitmen done away with as well, but Azriel says no, that he killed them. He says that Esther saw him through the window of the ambulance before she died, and she spoke his name. Jon says she was the one who called him then, but Azriel says "No, she was no sorceress; she didn't know the words. She didn't have the bones."
Speaking of bones, Jonathan mentions to us how Az has strong bones in his forehead and jaw. Once again, atypical look for a Rice hero. He also mentions his dark curling lashes and his dark curling hair, the latter of which he's been mentioning A LOT, I just haven't been mentioning it since it's unimportant, but it is very repetitive. Jon definitely notices a lot about Azriel's looks, especially the hair, and it's bringing back some memories of a thought I had later in the book when I first read it---"Straight men don't think about each other like this, pretty sure."
Not that Jon is necessarily straight, I guess. Hell, it's Rice, all men are bisexual.
Azriel points out that Jon is now cured of his fever, and Jon asks him if he can record Az's words, which Az is delighted about. Jon says he will, that he has a machine that will record every word. Azriel says he knows of such things, that "the Servant of the Bones" was never an "addlebrained spirit." He says he is a "strong spirit" and "what the Chaldeans called a genii" and that when he is brought forth, he automatically knows all the language and ways of the world at the time "all I need to know to serve my Master." Jon asks to let him turn on the recorder.
He does so, and begins by saying that Azriel appears to be only twenty years old, with lustrous hair that would be the envy of any woman (Azriel responds that they like to touch it) and hair on his chest/arms and...OLIVE SKIN?! A Ricean hero that isn't pasty pale?! HOLY TOLEDO! This is different! I mean, Azriel has VERY brown skin in the comic adaptation of this book, but I didn't remember if she ever actually described him as such. I mean, "olive" is a far cry from the tone he's drawn with in the comic, but still, that's a whole lot darker than anyone else Rice has ever done a book about, I think.
Jon says that Az saved his life and he trusts him, even though he doesn't know why he should (uh? cuz he saved your life?) since he's seen him become another man, how he'll think that's a dream later, as he will seeing Az appear and disappear. I don't remember that part, I guess it got lost in a lot of the clutter. Speaking of clutter, nothing important happens for the rest of this page, let alone starting the story.
Next page, Azriel says he'll sometimes speak in Aramaic or Persian or Hebrew or Greek or Latin, so if that happens just remind him to come back to English. He says a genii speaks the language of the Master he must serve, and he is Master here so he has chosen the language of English.
More nothing.
And then, last words of the chapter, "He began."
"The meaning of The Vampire Chronicles is still unfolding for me, and is as much connected to God as to the Devil, as much connected to pleasure as to pain. That the books are entertainment seems a given, and for that I'm grateful. That they can be seen as a religious journey is also clear. I am immersed in the questions, and praying for the answers. Lestat, c'est moi. I want you to love all of my characters. I am, in the writing of these and other novels, as ambitious as Dickens. I want everybody to cry when Claudia dies, just like they did for Little Nell."
With that said, let's begin another Rice tale, this time not one of her vampire books, nor her witch chronicles, but a stand-alone novel about an entirely different sort of supernatural creature, one that seems to be of her own invention from what I can tell.
"Servant of the Bones" was published in 1996. So, after the debut of the Vampire Chronicles, but before Blackwood Farm.
It is prefaced with "This book is dedicated to GOD"
...hoo boy. So I guess this is after she re-discovered religion. I wonder if it's written before or after "Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt" (for those that don't know, that's her published Jesus fanfic) Lemme check...nope, Out of Egypt was actually written in 2005, just before Blackwood Farm! That...explains a lot about Blackwood Farm. And makes me surprised it wasn't MORE preachy throughout.
For the record, I'm not opposed to religion, or religious people, or religious people putting their faith into their books. After all, I think we all want to promote values we consider positive through our fiction, whether it's diversity or care for the environment or strong women or whatever. I would want my work to reflect certain values of mine if possible, so I would be a hypocrite to say others work can't reflect theirs. Just...in some cases (and this applies to cases where I agree with the values too) it's not done well. And Blackwood Farm isn't giving me too much hope for Servant of the Bones. I have read SotB before, I just can't remember anything on this topic. I just remember it being sexist.
But, I'm pre-judging it at this point. Instead, how about let's dive in with fresh eyes and give it a fair chance?
SERVANT OF THE BONES: PROEM
We start with Psalm 137, which I'm not bothering to read, let alone transcribe, but it's about Babylon and Jerusalem and stuff. We then get to the "proem" (another word for preface, which confused me) in which the first sentence is:
"Murdered. Her hair was black and so were her eyes."
The unidentified first-person narrator tells us how this murder happened on Fifth Avenue and that he saw it "soundlessly" on the television screen on the news. The girl's name is Esther and had once been a student in his class, though he doesn't say what that class is. Her father, Gregory Belkin, is the head of a worldwide New Age temple and they have loads of money. Esther was "rich and lovely to behold" and she was a "flower of a girl" and a "doe of a girl" who asked her questions "so timidly" and was "kind, humble, ever-listening, and sweet, yes, very sweet."
So, let me spoil something here for you. There are only three female characters in this book. There is an evil witch, there is Esther's mother that the hero has sex with, and there is dead Esther, who is only ever talked about as oh so sweet and pretty and pure.
I think you see the problem here. As a friend of mine put it, that's literally the three kinds of women allowed to exist in stories -.-
The narrator says he "remembered Esther pretty well" and for some reason not explained, he finds her death and her father's subsequent "delusions" to be "ironic". I'm not sure what's ironic about that, but perhaps we shall find out.
"I never tried to understand the whole story." and forgot about her, her murder and her father. Then "It was time to stop teaching for awhile" and he went away to the snowy mountains to "write my book" without having so much as prayed for Esther's memory "but I am a historian and not a praying man" because those have something to do with each other I guess?
"In the mountains, I learnt everything. Her death came to me, vivid and lush with meaning, through the words of another."
This is the last line of the pref---I mean proem. This is not a bad start at all. We don't know the narrator's gender yet by the way, I just say "he" because I already know it.
Next we move on the Part One, which is prefaced by a poem by Rice's own husband, who was still alive at this time (he passed in 2002) For those unaware, he was a poet who published several collections and won the Edgar Allen Poe award for one of them. I have no sense of poetry so I can't really say if he's any good. But this one is called "The Bones of Woe" and it is about golden bones. It was written originally in 1975, and I wonder if Rice was inspired by it? Because, as you shall see, that imagery ends up being rather important.
Chapter 1 of Part One is our still-mysterious narrator telling us that "This is Azriel's tale as he told it to me, as he begged me to hear witness and record his words." and that Azriel chose the name "Jonathon" for the narrator when he "appeared in my open doorway and saved my life"
So, like Interview and Blackwood, this is a person telling a story of their long life to another person. We shall see if it's more like the former or the latter. As a note on this type of framing device, I recently revisited "Wuthering Heights" via audiobook. Bronte uses the same tactic for most of the book, with the housekeeper Nellie relaying much of the WH tale to the visiting Mr. Lockwood. But, it makes a good deal more sense there. First, it's not all done in one sitting. In fact, at one point Nellie insists it's getting too damn late, and Lockwood asks that she persists. He also wants her to put all the details in there. Second, he's got good reason to want to know---the first time, he's just curious about the oddities of his landlord and his family, and gets sucked in to the story when Nellie begins. The second time, he's ill in bed with literally nothing else to do out on the isolated heath. The third time, he's by chance returned to WH after fleeing it (when he found out from Nellie's story what a dickbag Heathcliff is) and naturally wants to know how things have ultimately turned out. It's quite a bit more believable to me than Lestat being like "well I kill all other vampires in my territory but you're so super special and exceptional" at Quinn. I can buy Lestat being intrigued by the issue of Goblin, but not in Quinn himself. Certainly not enough for that fucking ordeal.
But back to the actual book---he says that this Azriel "call me Jonathon" which I assume is a typo for "called me Jonathon", I think Rice had well ditched her editor at this point. Though Azriel has chosen this name for the narrator on his own, the narrator tells us that Jonathon is indeed one of the names he was given at birth, but not one that appears on any of his book jackets. But then he thinks it doesn't matter what name that Azriel gives his scribe, only that someone writes down what he has to say. He tells us that Azriel knew who he was, has read all his works, knows his style and reputation and outlook. He wonders if perhaps Azriel admired that even though he (Jonathon) is 65 years old but still writes "day and night like a young man, with no intentions of retiring from the school where I taught" and thus it was no "haphazard choice" that led this Azriel to climb the "steep forested mountains, in the snow, on foot" with nothing in his hand but a magazine.
Jonathon then describes Azriel to us. He is a kind-looking young man who has long curling black hair, huge black eyes, a small thick nose, thick prominent brows, and a large cherub's mouth. He is wearing "one of those double-tiered and flaring winter coats that only the tall of stature and romantic of heart can wear with aplomb or the requisite charming indifference". This coat "now and then became too large for him" because his appearance changes to match that of the man on the magazine cover that he holds. This is something that Jonathon sees "before I knew who he was, or that I was going to live, or that the fever had broken."
Jonathon explains to us he's not eccentric or self-destructive, he didn't come to the mountains to die, just to work on his book. It takes him a paragraph to say this. He then goes on to explain everything he keeps in this house. I don't want to recap it because it's so dull but let me give you a sample of what I had to suffer through:
- Bottled water for drinking
- Oil and kerosene
- Batteries
- A small tape recorder
- A laptop and spare computers "all small and powerful beyond any understanding I ever hope to acquire"
- Yellow legal pads
- Fine point pens with black ink
- Books everywhere, with a duplicate of every text he consulted, plus some poetry books "for ecstasy"
- Yams, apples, chicken broth, and other simple foods
This wouldn't be a big deal to read about. It's not a big list. But it all takes paragraphs. Seven paragraphs. SEVEN. It takes seven paragraphs to relay all this in detail. I get setting a scene, but this is painful, and it's made worse by the way Jonathon's narrative style jumps around. This is probably meant to indicate his fevered state, which is fair enough, but going from one sentence about a guy being A GODDAMN SHAPESHIFTER to seven paragraphs of simple supplies that likely will never be relevant again is...not fun.
One of these paragraphs is devoted to talking about WHY he brought simple foods. You see, he says he is tired of the "rich food" of New York, of the "crowded fashionable restaurants" and "glittering party buffets" and even the "wonderful" meals served to him by his own colleagues. I wonder if Rice thinks that this is the only food available in New York? Has she never heard of just getting a bagel or a hot dog? Or how about a farmer's market, where you can get your own fresh veggies and fish and what-all? How much more simple can you get? I just...I hate traveling, I hate cities, but the food in New York City always sounds great to me in terms of sheer diversity, so this whole "oh I'm living on yams and chicken broth in the mountains cuz I got tired of FANCY RICH PEOPLE FOOD" is so weird to me. I guess what he means is that's why he brought only simple food with him, and otherwise might have brought some more complex ingredients, but the way it's phrased I'm just like "...so just eat something else oh my god". Which. He is I guess.
Anyway.
He then tells us how "the world I left behind seemed just a little more mad than usual." He then spends about two pages describing various disasters around the world. Starving children and disease in Africa, a famous athlete accused of killing his wife, bombs and Jews and Arabs in Jerusalem, remnants of the Soviet Union making war in the Ukraine, the Bosnians and Serbs in the Balkans, and the death of Esther Belkin. He says that after her death, caches of assault weapons and gases and explosives had been found in all the Temples of the Mind, her step-father's cult, from New Jersey to Libya, and her step-father Gregory is though insane, and how he wouldn't be the first cult leader to be insane. Well, he says "church leader" but it sounds like a cult. And Jonathan then lists off various killer cult leaders throughout the world and their deeds.
Also, among the various ills that Jonathon describes in the world, he mentions domestic terrorists who blew up a federal building in Oklahoma City because, like the hippies before them, they had decided the government was their enemy but unlike the hippies who had "lain on traintracks and sung in rank" these new "crewcut militants" had "killed our own people. By the hundreds." And I feel like this is a commentary from Rice herself.
Also, just saying: The world has ALWAYS sucked, we're just more aware of it now because we're able to be aware of what's happening beyond our own town. I hope Azriel, who it turns out is VERY old, tells Jonathon this.
So yeah, Jonathon says he was running from all this, that the only way he could reach the world is a phone in his Jeep, so he's not a fool he's a scholar, he had a plan, he was prepared for this winter. Okay, thanks. He then spends a page telling us how he got a really bad fever, couldn't bolt the door, a whole lot of snow came in, and then so did Azriel at midnight. He assures us that Azriel didn't choose this time to be dramatic but "quite the contrary" which will always be a lie about any Rice character ever.
Jonathon says he's going to die. Azriel says he won't and gives him water, then picks up his papers from the snow-soaked floor and says this is "your precious work". Azriel takes off his cool coat, makes Jonathon broth and feeds it to him, bathes his face with cold water and then "bathed all of me" and puts him in fresh sheets. Azriel asks for some water for himself, which he drinks in "greedy gulps" and says that water is all needs since the "Stairway to Heaven had disappeared and left him stranded". He then introduces himself as Azriel and "They call me the Servant of the Bones , but I became a rebel ghost, a bitter and impudent genii."
Jonathon mentions that Azriel is muscular and has dark hair on his arms and the backs of his hands that make him appear "strong and vital". Holy shit, this is a RICE hero?! I am SHOCKED.
Azriel shows Jonathon the magazine cover with Gregory Belkin on it, and says "I killed that man."
Then, Azriel once more takes on the appearance of Gregory. "He wanted me to see it. He did it for me."
Azriel says this is how he looked on the day he (Azriel) chose to forfeit his powers, "to take on real flesh and real suffering" and that "I looked just like Gregory Belkin when I shot him."
He changes back to his regular self, his smile "secretive and seductive" but "not a happy smile" with "no humor or sweetness in it".
He said he thought he was going to die in that form, that Temple of Mind lies in ruins and that "the people will not die" that the women and children will not "breath the evil gas" and "I didn't die" either and is "Azriel once more."
Jonathon says he looks like a "living breathing man" and he doesn't understand how he can look like Gregory Belkin. Azriel says he is not a man but a ghost who can "wrap himself in the form he had when he was alive; and now he cannot make it go away" He questions why God did this to him, saying he has sinned and is no innocent "but why can't I die?"
Then he smiles and is "almost a boy" and says that perhaps God let him live so he could say Jonathon now, that he gave him his "old flesh back" so that he could make this mountain trek. Jonathon says perhaps, and Azriel tells him to rest now, that his forehead was cool. He says if Jonathon sees him turn into "that man" again, it's because he's trying to measure the difficulty of each time. He says it used to be easy for him to change shape or make illusions for whatever sorcerer called him from the bones as his master. But now it's hard for him to look like anything but the young man he once was "when it started. When I bought their lies. When I became a ghost and not the martyr they promised.
Jon (I'm calling him Jon now, it's easier to type over and over) says he'd be dead without Az (likewise, calling him Az now) and Az agrees, but says "I had my foot on the Ladder to Heaven, I was on it this time, I tell you, when I made this choice, and I thought it was all over, the temple destroyed, the Stairway might come down for me again. The Hasidim are pure and innocent. They are good. But battles they must leave to monsters like me."
I think Hasidim are Jews? Wiki says "Hasid" is a Jewish honorific used for exceptional respect. I think I recall Rice saying this book was a tribute to Jewish people but I'm not sure. It hasn't come up yet, but Azriel is indeed a Jew. I am very ignorant of Jewish people, culture, and history, however, so I won't be in a good position to judge her portrayal of these things if they come up. After her racism in Blackwood though, I don't have the highest hopes, however good her intentions might be.
Jonathon then remembers "fragments" of a "lunatic plan" pertaining to Gregory Belkin. He says there was "a beautiful girl" and Azriel says yes, Esther Belkin, and shows the magazine's interior to Jon. Within is "the famous photograph" of Esther lying on the stretcher on Fifth Avenue before being placed in the ambulance, just before she died. In the blurry background, he realizes Azriel is there, and points him out. Azriel doesn't answer this. He seems distracted and says what we already know: "She died there. Esther, his daughter."
Jon tells Az that he knew Esther, from when the Temple had still been new and controversial rather than "indefatigable" and that she was a "good student, serious and modest and alert." Azriel says "She was a sweet, kind girl, wasn't she?" and Jonathon agrees that she was, saying she was "very unlike her stepfather"
Azriel points to himself in the picture and says that "the Servant of the Bones" was indeed there, that he shall never know who called him, perhaps it was the "dark horrible beauty of her death." Yeah, I mean sure women are murdered every day, but they're not all sweet modest flowers like Esther, so they don't get genii ghosts, that must be it.
He talks about how "you see now, you feel now" that he is solid, and how God has "wrapped me in my old flesh" and is making harder and harder for him to vanish and return, to dissemble and reassemble from thin air. "What is to become of me, Jonathon? As I grow stronger and stronger in this seeming human form, I fear I can't die. I will never."
There's about a page of putting around, like Az bringing Jon his slippers and Jon showing Az how to make cowboy coffee, and we learn that Az can't eat food since he's not human.
Az is wearing a white shirt and black pants and he has dark chest hair "thick beneath his open collar." This is a...very atypical Anne Rice protagonist, goddamn. A dude with MUSCLES and BODY HAIR, what the FUCK? I'm almost disappointed I can't poke fun at her usual preference for LH-style pretty boys. Maybe that's only how she likes her male vampires, not her men in general, and I just never knew because I really only remembered the vampires? Either way, it's nice she's branching out, even if only a little. Not that there's anything wrong with having a preference, just it's noticeable when that's the only person allowed to be a vampire, be important, etc.
Azriel wonders aloud if he will never be "nefesh" which is explained as a Hebrew word meaning "body and soul together".
Azriel explains that spirits can drink water and they can also drink "the scents of sacrifice" which is why in ancient times there were burnt offerings and incense and smoke rising from altars and such for them.
They look at the picture of Esther some more. Jonathon asks if Gregory killed Esther, Azriel says yes. Jon explains to the reader how three men had killed Esther with ice picks and run away into the crowd without anyone knowing what they'd done. Then they had been found murdered with the same ice picks, and no one connected the two incidents til blood tests revealed Esther's blood was also on the ice picks. Jon says he supposes that was part of Gregory's plan, to have the hitmen done away with as well, but Azriel says no, that he killed them. He says that Esther saw him through the window of the ambulance before she died, and she spoke his name. Jon says she was the one who called him then, but Azriel says "No, she was no sorceress; she didn't know the words. She didn't have the bones."
Speaking of bones, Jonathan mentions to us how Az has strong bones in his forehead and jaw. Once again, atypical look for a Rice hero. He also mentions his dark curling lashes and his dark curling hair, the latter of which he's been mentioning A LOT, I just haven't been mentioning it since it's unimportant, but it is very repetitive. Jon definitely notices a lot about Azriel's looks, especially the hair, and it's bringing back some memories of a thought I had later in the book when I first read it---"Straight men don't think about each other like this, pretty sure."
Not that Jon is necessarily straight, I guess. Hell, it's Rice, all men are bisexual.
Azriel points out that Jon is now cured of his fever, and Jon asks him if he can record Az's words, which Az is delighted about. Jon says he will, that he has a machine that will record every word. Azriel says he knows of such things, that "the Servant of the Bones" was never an "addlebrained spirit." He says he is a "strong spirit" and "what the Chaldeans called a genii" and that when he is brought forth, he automatically knows all the language and ways of the world at the time "all I need to know to serve my Master." Jon asks to let him turn on the recorder.
He does so, and begins by saying that Azriel appears to be only twenty years old, with lustrous hair that would be the envy of any woman (Azriel responds that they like to touch it) and hair on his chest/arms and...OLIVE SKIN?! A Ricean hero that isn't pasty pale?! HOLY TOLEDO! This is different! I mean, Azriel has VERY brown skin in the comic adaptation of this book, but I didn't remember if she ever actually described him as such. I mean, "olive" is a far cry from the tone he's drawn with in the comic, but still, that's a whole lot darker than anyone else Rice has ever done a book about, I think.
Jon says that Az saved his life and he trusts him, even though he doesn't know why he should (uh? cuz he saved your life?) since he's seen him become another man, how he'll think that's a dream later, as he will seeing Az appear and disappear. I don't remember that part, I guess it got lost in a lot of the clutter. Speaking of clutter, nothing important happens for the rest of this page, let alone starting the story.
Next page, Azriel says he'll sometimes speak in Aramaic or Persian or Hebrew or Greek or Latin, so if that happens just remind him to come back to English. He says a genii speaks the language of the Master he must serve, and he is Master here so he has chosen the language of English.
More nothing.
And then, last words of the chapter, "He began."
