Memn the devil

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Memnoch the Devil (original title: Memnoch the Devil ) is a novel published in 1995 by the American writer Anne Rice . It is the fifth book from the Chronicle of the Vampires .

The narrative focuses on the protagonists' engagement with primary religious questions and new theological approaches.

Content of the vampire novel

The vampire Lestat de Liouncourt has been following the ruthless drug dealer and passionate art collector Roger for a long time until he finally drinks his blood. However, the ghost of his victim then appears to Lestat, who asks him to take care of his daughter Dora, a pious and popular television preacher .

At the same time, however, Lestat senses the presence of a powerful force that repeatedly approaches him. Now a figure reveals himself who calls himself Memnoch and claims to be the devil . This Lestat shows heaven , hell and the development of the universe. Here Memnoch explains the biblical story to him from his point of view, whereby some contradictions arise, and emphasizes that he is not the devil in the usual sense, but that his task in hell would be to lead the lost souls up to heaven. The devil now offers Lestat exactly this task.

During his trip with Memnoch, he continues to experience the Passion of Christ, is allowed to drink from the blood of Jesus and receives Veronica's handkerchief . However, Lestat turns away from Memnoch and tries to escape, losing his left eye.

Lestat then returns to New York and reports to the vampires Armand and David Talbot and Dora about his experiences. Both Dora and Armand, who wants to drink from Lestat because of the divine blood, are deeply touched by Lestat's story and by the handkerchief Veronica brought with her. Dora, however, steals the cloth to reveal it to the world and later founds a new Christian movement, whereupon Armand follows her and sacrifices himself to the sun.

Back in New Orleans , Lestat gets his eye back through Memnoch and shortly afterwards he is locked by Maharet in a cellar of the St. Elisabeth convent because he becomes aware of the devil's manipulation.

After a fortnight he is free again and is wandering the streets of New Orleans, asking the reader to believe his words and closing with the sentence: "So let me leave literature and go down in legend." Which leads to Rice repeatedly suggesting the end of the chronicle.

Narrative situation and time level

Again, Lestat takes on the narration of the plot from the first-person perspective and describes an almost linear and chronological stringent story, in which internal narratives are incorporated, especially during the trip with Memn . This internal narrative, which is shaped by Memnoch's explanations and representations of the origin, development and function of heaven and hell, provides the reader with the information necessary to understand the following actions and thus has a supporting function.

By taking over the narrator through Lestat, Rice is still able to show the reader the subjective perception of the events by the protagonist and thus to relativize the statements of Memno, which is supported by the isolated discrepancies within his representations.

Motifs

The devil, who makes a person a seemingly tempting and convincing offer, then demands something in return, and uses lies and temptation to emphasize his proposal, is a classic motif outside of religious literature and is still taken up in modern works.

Rice himself conceives a very complex and functional concept of this motif in the novel: Memnoch's external appearance is designed in three ways and includes the traditional image of the devil with black feathered wings and goat legs, his actual angelic figure and that of an inconspicuous man, in whose expression Lestat says now reflects wisdom, patience and composure (see p. 174). However, his outward appearance reflects both his intentions and his true nature and emotional world: on the one hand, he loves God, which is embodied in the angelic form, on the other hand, he has also developed affection for people, which is why he can assume a human form, and he continues to persecute his own goals, manipulates Lestat and inflicts violence on him, which corresponds to his appearance as a devil.

Thus Memnoch appears as a being difficult to define, whose behavior and appearance are always changeable and is not subject to any fixed principles, whereby Rice emphasizes the unbelievability of his person and his offer to Lestat and conceives the figure of Memnoch as a devil with underhand and insincere intentions . Nevertheless, he finally wins, because by taking with him the veil of Veronica and presenting it to the people, the number of believers who go straight to heaven increases, and thus Memnoch's real goal is that as many people as possible become God become aware, supported.

Furthermore, Rice creates parallels between Memnoch, who imparted knowledge to people during his time, and Prometheus , a figure in Greek mythology . Both act as cultural donors of humanity, which is why they are excluded and punished by the authorities. However, after years of pain and loneliness , Prometheus is freed by Heracles . Memnoch hopes for this fate from Lestat, who is supposed to take over his task, which would ultimately free him.

Religious dimensions

After the actual initiative topic of Memnoch the Devil , namely the handing over of his task in hell to Lestat as well as the discussion of religious questions that emerged at the time, was announced in Nachtmahr, a detailed and extensive discussion of theological topics and controversies now develops.

The cosmology presented by Rice combines both traditional Christian patterns of interpretation and new explanatory models based on natural science, and it adds additional aspects to the events from the New Testament :

God is a powerful being, whose creation was the earth (cf. Genesis ) and whom the angels serve, but God is still represented by Memn as fallible and not omniscient. Through evolution , people develop who have a soul and after death go into an intermediate world ( Sheol ), as well as spirits with human or non-human origin. Memnoch, an archangel , criticizes this divine plan and creates a physical form for himself, which is why he is banished by God. On earth, he teaches people knowledge and, like Prometheus, acts as a founder of human culture. God now allows him to look for souls predestined for heaven in Schoel, but is still repeatedly accused by Memn, which is why he has to leave heaven one more time. God himself now assumes an earthly form, in the form of Jesus Christ, whereby Memn also feels this sacrifice for humanity as inadequate. He is now assigned by God the task to rule over Schoel and the earth and to prepare the souls for heaven.

In her novel, Rice does not create completely new religious concepts, but rather reflects theological controversies and various interpretive approaches. Among other things, it already adopts the connection between divine creation and the principle of evolution designed by the Catholic theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin . Nevertheless, her work was heavily criticized, especially because of the religious design.

Reviews

The New York Times accused Rice of lack of maturity in her created characters, so the religious argument that the figure of Memn was too abstract and that Lestat's involvement in the conflict between God and the devil seemed too arbitrary.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung compares the trip of Lestat and Memnoch with a "[...] hair-raising historical-mythological review [...]" and accuses Rice of pursuing his own therapeutic purposes with her book.

Text output

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  1. ↑ See The Devil and Anne Rice. In Rolling Stone 712/713 (1995). Pp. 92-94, 97-98.
  2. ^ New York Times, July 23, 1995
  3. ^ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 153 (1998). P. 40

Secondary literature

  • Katherine Ramsland / Anne Rice. Prism of the Night, A Biography of Anne Rice . New York: Penguin, 1994.
  • Gary Hoppenstand / Ray B. Browne. The Gothic World of Anne Rice . Twayne Publishers, 1994.
  • Jennifer Smith. Anne Rice - A Critical Companion . Westport: Greenwood Press, 1996.
  • George E. Haggerty. "Anne Rice and the Queering of Culture". In: Novel: A Forum on Fiction 32.1, 1998, pp. 5-18.
  • Erwin Jänsch. “Softie-Vampire Lestat” in: Das Vampirlexikon , Munich: Knaur, 2000, pp. 232–239.
  • Rebecca Cordes. Anne Rice's "Vampire Chronicles" - Myth and History. Osnabrück: Der Andere Verlag, 2004.