It is 3:00 AM, I just finished “The Witching Hour,” by Anne Rice. I started the book months ago and I would like to say that life got complicated and I have now just found the time to finish it. That would be a lie, and quite bold faced as is. The fact is, the book was just hard for me to read, even after skipping 100 pages in the middle, which I know I will have to go back and pick up because I refuse to acknowledge my completion of the book.
I appreciate Anne Rice's ability to write from different perspectives. As I waded through the books center I remembered why I never finished reading, “The Thousand and One Nights.” Of course Rice takes the intermingling of stories to a new level as she shifts the perspectives and authors.
I am no literary critic, I never pretend to be, I desire one thing out any book I read, the ability to empathize with one or more characters in the book. I want to feel what they feel, I suppose when I read I become like Lasher in that I feed off of the characters in the book searching ever inward to find who I truly am. Of course when it comes to the consideration of being real, I will always default to the, “Velveteen Rabbit,” Sorry Anne.
Don't get me wrong, I love the depression of the book, and the hope buried in hopelessness, it works with my current life situation. I love the idea that Michael stands in the end as the Lasher he knew as a child. He has become, “That man.” I read Michael's peace in the face of losing the most , important things, I listen to his redaction of history, and encourage his unwillingness to even begin believing his loving wife would never return to him.
I worry though because I don't know if I want Lasher to get what he deserves. Even though all the hell he unleashed something echos very thoroughly through my cells that makes me ask, “Why am I angry at his patience, and steadfastness?”
I started reading this book living on Rowan Lane in Southaven Mississippi, tonight I am awake not knowing if I will even have an address tomorrow. I lie awake in hope that I do not, so I can chase a different kind of life, even if just for a few moments. I will reassert myself into some 5-7 day grind, it is my nature. Can I though find peace in the moment that tomorrow I will wake up late and then go to the gym to work out.
Most people tell me that all things happen for a reason, I don't know if I believe that in a cosmic sense, only a general one. I have yet to see evidence for it. I remember a woman asking me once about the reasoning behind her daughters death. I knew the reason, the doctors knew the reason, anyone with the capacity for logic knows the reason: Why did your daughter die? She ran across a busy intersection and no one can stop that fast.
This book performed the function I wished it to and I thank Mrs. Rice for taking the time to write such an in depth and thoughtful tome. The end evoked feeling. Sometimes I work hard not to feel, I am in one of those times. I left this book the same way I left, “The Gift of Asher Lev,” by Chaim Potok. I wanted to through the book though a wall. I sit on a friends couch at this ungodly hour and the second of the Mayfair Witches, “Lasher,” sits next to me. Who needs sleep, why not just start this next novel. It's only 625 pages, the first book was 1038.
Well, if it occurs to me I will check in with you again, and by you I mean the people I imagine read my blog. I don't know where I will be sleeping then, of course, it's okay I'm not sleeping now.
