VAMPIRE ARMAND

By Anne Rice

Knopf

$26.95, 384 pp.

Reading, I've decided, should be like eating. Springing, perhaps, from a disappointment with my (heavy) course reading, I've realized that the best books are the ones of meat-and-potatoes substance, the ones that are not just read but consumed, the ones that leave you full to the point of belching. For all intents and purposes, a book of this sort is a very good book.

I had not even completed Anne Rice's The Vampire Armand before I had to push the book away as you might do to a meal you've started and are too full to finish. Several times I sat back in my chair with a full stomach and sighed gustily, and yet I wouldn't call the feeling one of satisfaction. It was, in fact, reminiscent of eating an entire chocolate cake, followed not by an expected satiety but rather by a too-sweet nausea. The Vampire Armand is such a dessert, so rich that one bite is an indulgence.

From the outset of Armand, it becomes evident just how fascinated Rice is by her subject. Rice bestows upon her novel one of the most complimentary gifts any writer can give--an image-rich setting. Couched in the velvet, vibrance and vixens of medieval Constantinople and Venice, Armand continues the vampire exposition that began with Interview with the Vampire. Figuring to a small degree in Interview (whose later film spawned my eighth-grade obsession with Brad Pitt) was Armand, the head of the Paris coven of vampires. How was it that Armand rose to such otherworldly prominence? Armand relates its title character's rise from slavery to vampirism under the tutelage of Marius, a beautiful and seemingly omnipotent predator long in the business of the undead. In both language and imagery, Rice skillfully immerses her reader in the world of vampirism, a realm of drawing rooms and bed chambers, sumptuous meals, perfumed sheets, unabashed seduction and lascivious blood thirst. The diction itself is formal almost to the point of stiffness; its linguistic archaism suits the nature of its time period and its subject, effectively transporting readers to the centers of both.

The consequence of Rice's turn of phrase here is a remarkably artful handling of sexual scenes. It appears that sleeping with nameless people of both genders is as essential to Armand's becoming a vampire as drinking blood. Armand's coming-of-age becomes a veritable Debbie Does Dallas as he screws his way across Europe. As subtle as Rice is in her sexual descriptions and as cheerfully dirty-minded as I am, however, I'm convinced that it was the baths between Marius and Armand, the sadomasochistic romps and the vampire-mortal orgy that made me put this book down numerous times with a pitching in my stomach. And yet, as you may be thinking, I returned to it, only to leave with the same results. Why? Simply put, it was fun. I devoured Armand and the sexual luxury that made it the dessert I previously described it to be. Though I knew I would come away disgusted and nauseous, I kept on reading myself into a stomachache.

There are, of course, perils to the sexual preoccupation that makes Armand so enjoyable, much of the disadvantage having to do with the evaluation of Rice as a serious writer. The Vampire Armand, I realized, has to be the literary equivalent of soft-core pornography. While none of the sex is gratuitous, it is still so prevalent that it overshadows the plot and weakens attempted interjections of the story amid the sex. Rice catches herself in a paradox--bringing readers in with the skillful language of her sex scenes and then losing their interest when she uses that writing for non-sexual descriptions. For the most part, sex wins over plot in terms of sheer frequency of occurrence. While it is doubtful that Armand might ever have found its way to the coffee tables of the literary jet-set, Rice further loses whatever respectable audience she might have by drenching her narrative in so much sex.

Parts of The Vampire Armand are truly treats to read. Dialogue aside, Rice's writing is surprisingly well-crafted--her characters are complex, her details are rich. It is the ultimate guilty pleasure, long on heaving bosoms and short on intellectual argument. This book left me full--full in an on-the-verge-of-vomiting way. Unfortunately, in appealing too heavily to the gospel of "sex sells," Rice destroys whatever critical exposure her actual writing might receive. Armand will either be condemned to the bowels of the Canon or, perhaps worse yet, become a favorite among the good-time patrons of "Playboy" and "Victoria's Secret," who actually do subscribe to both publications for the pictures.