The Queen of the Damned by Anne RiceMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
My last reading session was 77 minutes. I finished reading this book for the second time in my life on Wednesday, December 28, 2022 at 3:10 p.m.
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I got this book from Savers (I don’t remember which one) for $2.99! This feels like a new book even though I found it in a thrift store.
There are also some beautiful illustrations in this book too! 🖤
“Maybe the old ones are right. I refer now to the true immortals—the blood drinkers who've survived the millennia—who say that none of us really changes over time; we only become more fully what we are” (6).
This quote was on Goodreads under the TVL title. It’s written under the wrong book title! Oh no! I wish that I could fix that mistake on their website :/
“And by the way, when these other characters think or say of me that I am beautiful or irresistible, etc., don't think I put these words in their heads. I didn't! It's what was told to me after, or what I drew out of their minds with infallible telepathic power; I wouldn't lie about that or anything else. I can't help being a gorgeous fiend. It's just the card I drew. The bastard monster who made me what I am picked me on account of my good looks. That's the long and short of it. And accidents like that occur all the time” (8).
XD
“The truth is, I hate not being the first person narrator all the way through!” (8).
I hate that too, Lestat! XD :(
“Alas, my being the James Bond of vampires isn't the whole issue” (8).
“So until we meet again, I am thinking of you always; I love you; I wish you were here … in my arms” (9).
Oh dear! Me? OMG! *blushes* 😊🤭
“‘Lestat, you are the damnedest creature!’ he whispered under his breath. ‘You are a brat prince.’ He gave a little private laugh” (16).
Marius!
“An organ poured out the passionate Toccata and Fugue of Bach, beneath a babble of conversation and violent riffs of drunken laughter” (18).
“If the mind can find no meaning, then the senses give it. Live for this, wretched being that you are” (69).
“Then one scene in particular became Armand's favorite: the dwarfs on a broken-down stage in Castelleone singing ‘Me and My Shadow’ for Napoleon really sent Armand out of his mind. He lost all supernatural composure and became utterly human, laughing till the tears rose in his eyes” (93).
I mean it was kind of funny but … XD
“Often Armand had been in the room some time before Daniel awakened. The coffee would be perking, the music going—Vivaldi or honky-tonk piano, as Armand loved both equally—and Armand would be pacing, ready for Daniel to get up.
‘Come, lover, we’re going to the ballet tonight. I want to see Baryshnikov” (94).
According to reddit, this is Jacob Anderson’s favorite chapter! I’m just after finishing reading this chapter and I can see why it’s his favorite.
“No one is listening.
Now you may sing the selfsong,
as the bird does, not for territory
or dominance,
but for self-enlargement.
Let something
come from nothing.
…
STAN RICE
from ‘Texas Suite’
Body of Work (1983)” (Chapter 5: Khayman, My Khayman, 115).
“The rock and roll, he liked that too. He liked all music. He liked the Vampire Lestat singing ‘Requiem for the Marquise.’ He didn't pay attention to the words much. It was the melancholy, and the dark undertone of drums and cymbals. Made him want to dance” (116).
“Oh, yes, much to like all around him always—the violin music of Bartók” (116).
“Ye gods!” (125).
The first “ye gods” I have seen in The Vampire Chronicles thus far! Ye gods! Khayman is the first to say this! XD I love it!!!!
“‘Let the spirits witness: for theirs is the knowledge of the future—both what it would be, and what I will: You are the Queen of the Damned, that's what you are! Evil is your only destiny. But at your greatest hour, it is I who will defeat you. Look well on my face. It is I who will bring you down’” (130).
You tell her, Khayman! XD
“Good memories, those conversations. And the soft mellow light of the library, the delicious smells of the old leather and parchment, of the candles and the blazing fire” (149).
“He'd brought films with him from Japan and Italy, and they'd had a splendid time watching these. Kwaidan, in particular, had been quite impressive, though frightening. And the Italian Juliet of the Spirits had made Jesse break into tears” (151).
“Never was Jesse invited back to the house in the Sonoma forest” (155).
Jesse also mentioned the Redwood forest, so it’s in this place.
“‘The Temptation of Amadeo’ by Marius” (169).
Source: https://sheepskeleton.tumblr.com/post/167912616270/the-temptation-of-amadeo-commission-for
This is my favorite fanart of this painting.
“But Jesse had wanted this assignment.
On the way to the airport, David had asked her why. ‘If you really can't accept what I'm telling you, then why do you want to investigate the book?’
She'd taken her time in answering. ‘There is something obscene about this novel. It makes the lives of these beings seem attractive. You don't realize it at first; it's a nightmare and you can't get out of it. Then all of a sudden you're comfortable there. You want to remain. Even the tragedy of Claudia isn't really a deterrent’” (172).
Jesse gets it!
“And then that harpsichord from somewhere, someone playing Chopin now, the Minute Waltz, with the same dazzling skill she'd heard before” (176).
* I think that Part 1: The Road To The Vampire Lestat: Chapter 6: The Story of Jesse, The Great Family, and the Talamasca might be my favorite chapter in this book. I love the character of Jesse! I love that she grew up in New York in a townhouse! How wonderful that must have been!
“What had he seen in Armand's face? A sudden flare of humor, lust? Armand had hurried him along the dirty stained pavements, past the bars, the cafés, the stores crowded with stinking old clothes, the fancy clubs with their gilded letters on the greasy plate glass and overhead fans stirring the fumes with gilded wooden blades, while the potted ferns died a slow death in the heat and the semidarkness. Past the first little children—‘Trick or treat!’—in their taffeta and glitter costumes.
Armand had stopped, at once surrounded by tiny upturned faces covered in store bought masks, plastic spooks, ghouls, witches; a lovely warm light had filled his brown eyes; with both hands he'd dropped shiny silver dollars in their little candy sacks, then taken Daniel by the arm and led him on.
‘I love it well enough the way you turned out,’ he had whispered with a sudden irrepressible smile, the warmth still there. ‘You're my firstborn,’ he'd said. Was there a catch in his throat, a sudden glancing from right to left as if he'd found himself cornered?” (193-194).
That’s so cute that it makes me want to cry! 🥹
It’s just so cute to imagine Armand giving out coins to children on All Hallow’s Eve!
And when Armand got all sentimental with Daniel, with his firstborn, got me all teary eyed lol THAT SMILEEEE
“Louis, the watcher, the patient one, was there on account of love pure and simple. The two had found each other only last night, and theirs had been an extraordinary reunion. Louis would go where Lestat led him. Louis would perish if Lestat perished. But their fears and hopes for this night were heartbreakingly human” (196).
♡
“He felt giddy, on the verge of madness” (199).
I feel that way too, Daniel! XD
“Lestat embraced his companion Louis, and they kissed on the mouth, as the mortal musicians put their arms around both of them” (204).
💓 So sweet!
* I wonder if there’s a list of all of Lestat’s songs and lyrics somewhere.
“Jesse felt her heart knocking again as she stared up at him, at the rocking of his hips, the tight cloth of the black pants revealing the powerful muscles of his thighs” (215).
Lol BITCH ME TOO! DA FUQ! XD *blushes*
“With both hands pressed down hard on the wood, she sprang up and over on her belly and onto her feet. She ran right towards the dancing figure whose eyes suddenly looked into hers.
‘Yes, you! You!’ she cried out. In the corner of her eye was the approaching guard. She threw her full weight at the Vampire Lestat. Shutting her eyes, she locked her arms around his waist. She felt the cold shock of his silky chest against her face, she tasted the blood suddenly on her lip!
‘Oh, God, real!’ she whispered. Her heart was going to burst, but she hung on. Yes, Mael's skin, like this, and Maharet's skin, like this, and all of them. Yes, this! Real, not human. Always. And it was all here in her arms and she knew and it was too late for them to stop her now!
Her left hand went up, and caught a thick tangle of his hair, and as she opened her eyes, she saw him smiling down at her, saw the poreless gleaming white skin, and the tiny fang teeth.
‘You devil!’ she whispered. She was laughing like a mad woman, crying and laughing.
‘Love you, Jessica,’ he whispered back at her, smiling at her as if he were teasing her, the wet blond hair tumbling down into his eyes.
Astonished, she felt his arm around her, and then he lifted her on his hip, swinging her in a circle. The screaming musicians were a blur; the lights were violent streaks of white, red. She was moaning; but she kept looking up at him, at his eyes, yes, real. Desperately she hung on, for it seemed he meant to throw her high into the air over the heads of the crowd. And then as he set her down and bowed his head, his hair falling against her cheek, she felt his mouth close on hers.
The throbbing music went dim as if she'd been plunged into the sea. She felt him breathe into her, sigh against her, his smooth fingers sliding up her neck. Her breasts were pressed against the beat of his heart; and a voice was speaking to her, purely, the way a voice had long ago, a voice that knew her, a voice that understood her questions and knew how they must be answered.
Evil, Jesse. As you have always known.
Hands pulled her back. Human hands. She was being separated from him. She screamed.
Bewildered, he stared at her. He was reaching deep, deep into his dreams for something he only faintly remembered. The funeral feast; the red-haired twins kneeling on either side of the altar. But it was no more than a split second; then gone; he was baffled; his smile flashed again, impersonal, like one of the lights that were constantly blinding her. ‘Beautiful Jesse!’ he said, his hand lifted as if in farewell. They were carrying her backwards away from him, off the stage.
She was laughing when they set her down.
Her white shirt was smeared with blood. Her hands were covered with it—pale streaks of salty blood. She felt she knew the taste of it. She threw back her head and laughed; and it was so curious not to be able to hear it, only to feel it, to feel the shudder running through her, to know she was crying and laughing at the same time. The guard said something rough to her, something crude, threatening. But that didn't matter” (216-217).
I think that this scene is my favorite scene in this book! I loved it so much because I want to do that with Lestat too! XD *fangirls really hard*
“She lifted her hand again and licked at the salt and the blood. Her body trembled, vibrated, the way it so often did on the verge of sleep. A soft delicious tremor that meant that dreams were coming. She licked at the blood again and closed her eyes
…
The taste of the blood was on the tip of her tongue. It seemed she was going to cry again, and it was a perfectly fine thing to do. For the moment, there was no past or present, no necessity, and all the world was changed, from the simplest things to the grandest. She was floating, as if in the center of the most seductive state of peace and acceptance that she had ever known” (217).
OMG ME TOO, JESSE! I would have tasted that glorious blood too! XDDDD <33333
“Daniel laughed and laughed. Imagine Lestat allowing such a thing to happen.
Daniel laughed in their spiteful faces. Pallid as orchids, these vicious souls who filled the hall with their simmering outrage, their envy, their greed. You would have thought they hated Lestat if for no other reason than his flamboyant beauty” (222).
LOL! Fuckin’ Daniel’s me too! XDDDDD
“His soaring tenor seemed to leave his body utterly as he recounted his defeats, his resurrections, the thirst inside him which no measure of blood could ever quench. ‘Am I not the devil in you all!’ he cried, not to the moonflower monsters in the crowd but to the mortals who adored him” (223).
I like that: moonflower monsters.
* After reading Jesse’s section on page 215 I am really pissed off at whomever hurt Jesse! I have a feeling it wasn’t Khayman because he wanted no harm. I think it must have been one of the other vampires with the scythe. Fuck! I hate them so much right now! Here Jesse was just trying to find some peace and quiet after that amazing moment with Lestat and then someone has to go and ruin everything! >:(
“He and his fledgling, Daniel, had come safely again to the mansion where they would sleep beneath the cellar floor unmolested. Groggily the young one danced through the large and sumptuous rooms, his mind full of Lestat's songs and rhythms. Armand stared out into the night, his youthful face as impassive as before” (229).
Awww that’s so cute! Daniel dancing to Lestat’s songs like nothing happened while Armand is all dramatic like XD
“In the mansion on the hill, Daniel slit the throat of a wriggling rat and let its blood flow into a crystal glass. ‘Lestat's trick,’ he said studying it in the light. Armand sat still by the fire, watching the red jewel of blood in the glass as Daniel lifted it to his lips lovingly” (230).
I love that Daniel admires Lestat so! <3
“There isn't a thing made that doesn't fight for life, even when there is no real justification. I wanted to live; I always had” (251).
“The emotions he felt were suddenly as bittersweet as music, the blended orchestral melodies of recent centuries, the tragic strains of Brahms or Shostakovich which he had come to love” (257).
“He felt the longing for Armand again like music, like Bartók's violin phrases played in a remote and safe place where there was all the time in the world to hear” (263).
“He tried to reason, but he couldn't. Hatred poisoned him” (264).
“Under the arches of Notre Dame de Paris I heard the priests singing, ‘Salve Regina’” (294).
“She embraced me; and suddenly I wanted the blood again. It was all I could think of, even though I was resisting it; even though I was weeping at the pure weakness of my will. I wanted it. I wanted her and I couldn't fight it; yet my old fantasies came back to me, those long ago visions in which I imagined myself waking her, and taking her with me through the opera houses, and the museums and the symphony halls, through the great capitals and their storehouses of all things beautiful and imperishable that men and women had made over the centuries, artifacts that transcended all evil, all wrongs, all fallibility of the individual soul” (382).
I liked it when Simon Vance read the last paragraph that’s below on page 383 and the "...all things beautiful..." bit. I loved that performance!!!
“Here; the warm Caribbean breeze; her hands moving up my back; her fingers slipping through my hair. The nectar flowing into me again, flooding my heart. And her lips on my throat finally; the sudden stab of her teeth through my flesh. Yes! As it had been in the shrine, so long ago, yes! Her blood and my blood. And the deafening thunder of her heart, yes! And it was ecstasy and yet I couldn't yield; I couldn't do it; and she knew it” (383).
*swoons* XD
“‘But I tell you, it is the soul of humankind which moves towards perfection over the centuries, the human race which learns with each passing year how better to love and forgive. I am anchored to the past by chains I cannot break” (403).
A very wise Maharet quote.
“I could see that Gabrielle was about to speak. I tried to give her a silent signal to be quiet, but she ignored me.
‘All right, the effects are obvious,’ she said. ‘But when you speak in terms of wholesale extermination, then questions of peace become ridiculous. You're abandoning one half of the world's population. If men and women were born without arms and legs, this might be a peaceful world as well’” (423).
lol XD
“The tension was unbearable. The blood sweat was breaking out on my body. I could see the panic all around. Louis had bowed his head and covered his face with his hands. Only the young Daniel seemed hopelessly enraptured. And Armand merely gazed at Akasha as if it were all out of his hands” (432).
Lol I can see Daniel just staring and eating popcorn so casually XD He’d be like, “Woah, dude!” Ahahahahaha
“White rooms filled with gorgeous Persian carpets and endlessly intriguing paintings—Matisse, Monet, Picasso, Giotto, Geri-cault. One could spend a century merely looking at the paintings; Armand was constantly changing them, shifting their positions, bringing up some new treasure from the cellar, slipping in little sketches here and there” (444).
“Then I'd poured it into the computer, while she sat watching, thinking, staring at the dark gray velvet curtains, and the Venetian clock; and the cool colors of the Morandi on the wall” (444).
“Immediately I locked myself in this little suite of tastefully appointed rooms; couches, carpet, the pale pastel paintings of Piero della Francesca; computer on the table; the music of Vivaldi pouring from tiny speakers hidden in the papered walls. Private stairway to the cellar, where in the steel-lined crypt the coffin waited: black lacquer; brass handles; a match and the stub of a candle; lining stitched with white lace” (448).
<3
“‘You will obey the rules, won't you?’ he asked suddenly. Mixture of menace and sarcasm. And maybe a little affection, too.
‘Of course!’ Again I shrugged. ‘What are they, by the way? I've forgotten. Oh, we don't make any new vampires; we do not wander off without a trace; we cover up the kill.’
‘You are an imp, Lestat, you know it? A brat’” (454).
<3
“Armand still playing chess with Khayman and losing. Daniel lay under the earphones listening to Bach, now and then glancing to the black and white board to see if a piece had been moved” (456).
So cute!
“‘Just one last place, and then wherever you wish. Back to the coven house, I should think. We don't have much time. Or maybe you can leave me to my meanderings, and I'll be back in a couple of nights.’
‘Can't we meander together?’
‘Yes,’ he said eagerly” (460).
<3
“He took my hand—what did it feel like now?—and led me down the narrow corridor between the oldest, the most venerable tombs; tombs that went back to the oldest time of the colony, when he and I had roamed the swamps together, the swamps that threatened to swallow everything, and I had fed on the blood of roustabouts and cutthroat thieves.
His tomb. I realized I was looking at his name engraved on the marble in a great slanting old-fashioned script.
Louis de Pointe du Lac
1766-1794
He rested against the tomb behind him, another one of those little temples, like his
own, with a peristyle roof.
‘I only wanted to see it again,’ he said. He reached out and touched the writing with his finger.
It had faded only slightly from the weather wearing at the surface of the stone. The dust and grime had made it all the clearer, darkening each letter and numeral. Was he thinking of what the world had been in those years?” (460-461).
“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” (461).
💓💓💓💓
“‘Louis, put yourself in my hands. Look, if I can't pull it off, you won't really be hurt. Well, not that much. Game? Make up your mind. I want to be off now.’
He didn't say anything. He was looking at me, and so affectionately that I could hardly stand it.
‘Yes or no.’
‘I'm probably going to regret this, but. . . .’
‘Agreed then.’ I reached out and placed my hands firmly on his arms and I lifted him high off his feet. He was flabbergasted, looking down at me. It was as if he weighed nothing. I set him down.
‘Mon Dieu,’ he whispered” (462).
Awww Louis said, « Mon Dieu » ! <3
“‘Yes, naturally. So I won't disabuse them of that morbid notion. Why would I? But the one who came to the concert—David Talbot, the older one—he fascinates me. I suppose I want to know…. But why say it? Time to go in and find out.’
‘Lestat!’
‘Louis!’ I said, mocking his tone” (465).
XD LOL OMG I love this!!
“‘You don't think you'll be back?’ he asked. ‘I think you will, whether I call or not.’
Another little surprise. A little stab of humiliation. I smiled at him in spite of myself. He was a very interesting man. ‘You silver-tongued British bastard,’ I said. ‘How dare you say that to me with such condescension? Maybe I should kill you right now.’
That did it. He was stunned. Covering it up rather well but I could still see it. And I knew how frightening I could look, especially when I smiled” (469).
XD lol I get it, Lestat! That was so rude! >:(
“The bitterness came again, and a great drowsy sadness suddenly that threatened to sweep my little triumph away. But I wouldn't let it. The night was too beautiful. And Louis's diatribe was becoming all the more heated and hilarious:
‘You're a perfect devil, Lestat!’ he was saying. ‘That's what you are! You are the devil himself!’
‘Yes, I know,’ I said, loving to look at him, to see the anger pumping him so full of life. ‘And I love to hear you say it, Louis. I need to hear you say it. I don't think anyone will ever say it quite like you do. Come on, say it again. I'm a perfect devil. Tell me how bad I am. It makes me feel so good!’” (471).
Awwww XD ♥️♥️♥️♥️
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