Review

Author(s): U. B. Carr Bower

Review by: U. B. Carr Bower
Source: The Antioch Review, Vol. 51, No. 1, Growing Up: Nurture or Neglect? (Winter, 1993), p.
150
Published by: Antioch Review Inc.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4612694
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150 The Antioch Review
Vampire,as well as in The Queen of
the Damned. In each of these works,
Rice portraysLestat as totally self-con-
fident, whether as the killer of wolves
outside his decaying manor house in
France, or as a theatricalentrepreneur
-the latter occupation reminding the
readerof Goethe's WilhelmMeister.
And Lestat's aplomb characterizesthe
blood-sucking rituals as well.
In the fourth book, however, an unset-
tling change occurs: Lestat determines
that he wants to be human again -
though only briefly. But as the body
thief reneges on his part of the agree-
ment, the seemingly always cagey
Lestat is horrified as he learns what it
is like to be imprisoned in a human
body. Rice adroitly utilizes Swiftian
imagery as Lestat recoils at experienc-
ing the most ordinaryof bodily func-
tions.
Provocative and inventive, Rice's con-
ception allows the readerto witness
anotheraspect of Lestat. Previously,
unencumberedby his humanity,he has
casually traveled throughcenturies and
crossed oceans. His adventureswere
characterizedby irreverenceand a
markedlack of guilt; indeed his favor-
ite epithet in any century is "Oh hell."
In previous works, he scoffs at braids
of garlic and crosses, those traditional
methods of thwartingvampires popu-
larized by Bram Stoker's Dracula.
As in her previous novels, Rice man-
ages to combine a riveting plot with
astute characteranalysis. Certainly
Body Thief can be considered a kind
of Bildungsromanas Lestat relearns
what it is to be human, but sadly con-
cludes, "I didn't want the weakness; I
didn't want the limitations."
- Suzann Bick
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Ian Hamilton Finlay: A Visual
Primer by Yves Abrioux. The M.I.T.
Press, 317 pp., $50.00. The second edi-
tion of this book has expanded its vi-
sual and scholarly content in the seven
years since its first publication in 1985,
which is only fitting to the artist's in-
tense activity during this period.
It is visually a most pleasing book,
again befitting the artist who wrote in
1970: "Beauty is the thing, Orderand
Beauty-in the honestest [sic] way,
given the possibilities of the time."
Finlay should not, however, be seen as
a visual artist;he himself would want
to be regardedprimarilyas a poet. Col-
laborationswith artisansand visual art-
ists have produced a handsome visual
arena for the poetry, but Finlay's writ-
ing is articulatingthe moment, the per-
son, the sign, the idea more than any
retinal image. The distinctive, self-ref-
erential atmospheresurroundingthese
issues is observed and described in a
cool, orderedway.
Abrioux charts Finlay's stand vis-a-vis
Europeanculture in an erudite manner
with justice paid to culturally historical
influences and conceptual orientations
fulfilling the demands of a primerwith
such concise, compact writing as to be
a most generous introduction.For
those interested in scholarship, he
opens many avenues not only apropos
of Finlay's work but on many notions
from the history of civilization. Al-
though Abrioux illuminates these av-
enues with the knowledge of a long as-
sociation with Finlay, they remain a
study of the poet's work outside the
context of other contemporarypoets or
conceptual artists.
- U.B. CarrBower