Rue Royale: Lestats Coven

TITLE

Violin

PUBLISHED

1997

AUTHOR

Anne Rice

PAGE COUNT

289 PAGES

PUBLISHER

Chatto & Windus Limited

ISBN

0-7011-6520-0

CRAIG'S RATING

PLOT

In this powerful confessional novel the creator of Lestat and Azriel conjures up another ghost from the pantheon of the undead: the mesmeric and dangerous Stefan - part incubus, part inspiration. The nineteenth-century violinist appears on the street corner in twentieth-century New Orleans, to haunt Triana as she grieves for the death of her husband. Like Anne Rice herself, Triana is one of four sisters of a Catholic family, she is in her fifties, her alcoholic mother died when she was fourteen, and her own daughter has died tragically of leukemia.

Stefan takes Triana back to Vienna in the early 1800s, where Beethoven was his teacher. In possession of Stefan's precious Stradivarius, Triana herself becomes an international virtuoso and superstar - but always haunted by the fear that her gift may be illusory.

Like a glorious orchestral symphony, different themes and medoldies, moods and movements, surge and combined. The painful, shocking memories of a mother's death and a daughter's fatal illness; the passionate, uneasy relationship between four sisters; the surreal, edgy life of a wealthy superstar - all these vibrate in counterpoint to a savage, glittering tale of violence and music in nineteenth-century Vienna. In the shifting power struggle between Triana and Stefan, we see the artist in thrall to the muse and the muse of the mercy of the artist, as the narrative swells to a searing climax in modern-day Rio de Janeiro.

Inspired by the passion and the genius of Beethoven, Anne Rice exorcizes in this triumphant novel the ghosts of a modern heroine, and plays out the tragedies and ambiguities of an extraordinary life.

CRAIG'S REVIEW

I really don't know what happened to Anne during 1997 - 1998 because I have noticed a pattern in her work during this period that her work wasn't up to her usual standard i.e. Pandora and The Vampire Armand where also average novels, yet out of the three this is the worst. I really found it hard to finish this book as it wasn't that good. The plot was practically non-existent; the book read like it was just collection of ideas written down and not an actual story. I found Triana annoying, petty, and also selfish.

You can see some of the story coincides with Anne's own life with the alcoholic mother, the other sisters, and the unfortunate death of her own little girl. Maybe she should have done a self-biography instead of Violin as Violin is pretty bad as is not a credit to Anne Rice as she is a legend in her own right.

If I had to give you piece of advice about this book in one word it would be "Avoid".


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