When Reuben Golding, a young reporter on assignment, arrives at a secluded mansion on a bluff high above the Pacific, it’s at the behest of the home’s enigmatic female owner. She quickly seduces him, but their idyllic night is shattered by violence when the man is inexplicably attacked—bitten—by a beast he cannot see in the rural darkness. It will set in motion a terrifying yet seductive transformation that will propel Reuben into a mysterious new world and raise profound questions. Why has he been given the wolf gift? What is its true nature--good or evil? And are there others out there like him?
The Wolf Gift
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Description de l'ouvrage
--Ce texte fait référence à l'édition
Broché
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Extrait
I
Reuben was a tall man, well over six feet, with brown curly hair and deep-set blue eyes. “Sunshine Boy” was his nickname and he hated it; so he tended to repress what the world called an irresistible smile. But he was a little too happy right now to put on his studious expression, and try to look older than his twenty-three years.
He was walking up a steep hill in the fierce ocean wind with an exotic and elegant older woman named Marchent Nideck and he really loved all she was saying about the big house on the cliff. She was lean with a narrow beautifully sculpted face, and that kind of yellow hair that never fades. She wore it straight back from her forehead in a soft wavy swinging bob that curled under just above her shoulders. He loved the picture she made in her long brown knit dress and high polished brown boots.
He was doing a story for the San Francisco Observer on the giant house and her hopes of selling it now that the estate had at last been settled, and her great-uncle Felix Nideck had been declared officially dead. The man had been gone for twenty years, but his will had only just been opened, and the house had been left to Marchent, his niece.
They’d been walking the forested slopes of the property since Reuben arrived, visiting a ramshackle old guesthouse and the ruin of a barn. They’d followed old roads and old paths lost in the brush, and now and then come out on a rocky ledge above the cold iron-colored Pacific, only to duck back quickly into the sheltered and damp world of gnarled oak and bracken.
Reuben wasn’t dressed for this, really. He’d driven north in his usual “uniform” of worsted-wool blue blazer over a thin cashmere sweater, and gray slacks. But at least he had a scarf for his neck that he’d pulled from the glove compartment. And he really didn’t mind the biting cold.
The huge old house was wintry with deep slate roofs and diamond-pane windows. It was built of rough-faced stone, and had countless chimneys rising from its steep gables, and a sprawling conservatory on the west side, all white iron and glass. Reuben loved it. He’d loved it in the photographs online but nothing had prepared him for its solemn grandeur.
He’d grown up in an old house on San Francisco’s Russian Hill, and spent a lot of time in the impressive old homes of Presidio Heights, and the suburbs of San Francisco, including Berkeley, where he’d gone to school, and Hillsborough, where his late grandfather’s half-timber mansion had been the holiday gathering place for many a year. But nothing he had ever seen could compare to the Nideck family home.
The sheer scale of this place, stranded as it was in its own park, suggested another world.
“The real thing,” he’d said under his breath the moment he’d seen it. “Look at those slate roofs, and those must be copper gutters.” Lush green vines covered over half the immense structure, reaching all the way to the highest windows, and he’d sat in his car for a long moment, kind of pleasantly astonished and a little worshipful, dreaming of owning a place like this someday when he was a famous writer and the world beat too broad a path to his door.
This was turning out to be just a glorious afternoon.
It had hurt him to see the guesthouse dilapidated and unlivable. But Marchent assured him the big house was in good repair.
He could have listened to her talk forever. Her accent wasn’t British exactly, or Boston or New York. But it was unique, the accent of a child of the world, and it gave her words a lovely preciseness and silvery ring.
“Oh, I know it’s beautiful. I know it’s like no place else on the California coast. I know. I know. But I have no choice but to get rid of all of it,” she explained. “There comes a time when a house owns you and you know you have to get free of it, and go on with the rest of your life.” Marchent wanted to travel again. She confessed she’d spent precious little time here since Uncle Felix disappeared. She was headed down to South America as soon as the property was sold.
“It breaks my heart,” Reuben said. That was too damn personal for a reporter, wasn’t it? But he couldn’t stop himself. And who said he had to be a dispassionate witness? “This is irreplaceable, Marchent. But I’ll write the best story I can on the place. I’ll do my best to bring you a buyer, and I can’t believe it will take that long.”
What he didn’t say was I wish I could buy this place myself. And he’d been thinking about that very possibility ever since he’d first glimpsed the gables through the trees.
“I’m so glad the paper sent you, of all people,” she said. “You’re passionate and I like that so very much.”
For one moment, he thought, Yes, I’m passionate and I want this house, and why not, and when will an opportunity like this ever come again? But then he thought of his mother and of Celeste, his petite brown-eyed girlfriend, the rising star in the district attorney’s office, and how they’d laugh at the idea, and the thought went cold.
“What’s wrong with you, Reuben, what’s the matter?” asked Marchent. “You had the strangest look in your eye.”
“Thoughts,” he said, tapping his temple. “I’m writing the piece in my head. ‘Architectural jewel on the Mendocino coast, first time on the market since it was built.’ ”
“Sounds good,” she said. There was that faint accent again, of a citizen of the world.
“I’d give the house a name if I bought it,” said Reuben, “you know, something that captured the essence of it. Nideck Point.”
“Aren’t you the young poet,” she said. “I knew it when I saw you. And I like the pieces you’ve written for your paper. They have a distinct character. But you’re writing a novel, aren’t you? Any young reporter your age should be writing a novel. I’d be ashamed of you if you weren’t.”
“Oh, that’s music to my ears,” he confessed. She was so beautiful when she smiled, all the fine lines of her face seemingly so eloquent and pretty. “My father told me last week that a man of my age has absolutely nothing to say. He’s a professor, burnt out, I might add. He’s been revising his ‘Collected Poems’ for ten years, since he retired.” Talking too much, talking too much about himself, not good at all.
His father might actually love this place, he thought. Yes, Phil Golding was in fact a poet and he would surely love it, and he might even say so to Reuben’s mother who would scoff at the whole idea. Dr. Grace Golding was the practical one and the architect of their lives. She was the one who’d gotten Reuben his job at the San Francisco Observer, when his only qualification was a master’s in English literature and yearly world travel since birth.
Grace had been proud of his recent investigative pieces, but she’d cautioned that this “real estate story” was a waste of his time.
“There you go again, dreaming,” Marchent said. She put her arm around him and actually kissed him on the cheek as she laughed. He was startled, caught unawares by the soft pressure of her breasts against him and the subtle scent of a rich perfume.
“Actually, I haven’t accomplished one single thing in my life yet,” he said with an ease that shocked him. “My mother’s a brilliant surgeon; my big brother’s a priest. My mother’s father was an international real estate broker by the time he was my age. But I’m a nothing and a nobody, actually. I’ve only been with the paper six months. I should have come with a warning label. But believe me, I’ll make this a story you’ll love.”
“Rubbish,” she said. “Your editor told me your story on the Greenleaf murder led to the arrest of the killer. You are the most charming and self-effacing boy.”
He struggled not to blush. Why was he admitting all these things to this woman? Seldom if ever did he make self-deprecating statements. Yet he felt some immediate connection with her he couldn’t explain.
“That Greenleaf story took less than a day to write,” he murmured. “Half of what I turned up on the suspect never saw print at all.”
She had a twinkle in her eye. “Tell me—how old are you, Reuben? I’m thirty-eight. How is that for total honesty? Do you know many women who volunteer that they’re thirty-eight?”
“You don’t look it,” he said. And he meant it. What he wanted to say was You’re rather perfect, if you ask me. “I’m twenty-three,” he confessed.
“Twenty-three? You’re just a boy.”
Of course. “Sunshine Boy,” as his girlfriend Celeste always called him. “Little Boy,” according to his big brother, Fr. Jim. And “Baby Boy,” according to his mother, who still called him that in front of people. Only his dad consistently called him Reuben and saw only him when their eyes met. Dad, you should see this house! Talk about a place for writing, talk about a getaway, talk about a landscape for a creative mind.
He shoved his freezing hands in his pockets and tried to ignore the sting of the wind in his eyes. They were making their way back up to the promise of hot coffee and a fire.
“And so tall for that age,” she said. “I think you’re uncommonly sensitive, Reuben, to appreciate this rather cold and grim corner... --Ce texte fait référence à l'édition Broché .
Reuben was a tall man, well over six feet, with brown curly hair and deep-set blue eyes. “Sunshine Boy” was his nickname and he hated it; so he tended to repress what the world called an irresistible smile. But he was a little too happy right now to put on his studious expression, and try to look older than his twenty-three years.
He was walking up a steep hill in the fierce ocean wind with an exotic and elegant older woman named Marchent Nideck and he really loved all she was saying about the big house on the cliff. She was lean with a narrow beautifully sculpted face, and that kind of yellow hair that never fades. She wore it straight back from her forehead in a soft wavy swinging bob that curled under just above her shoulders. He loved the picture she made in her long brown knit dress and high polished brown boots.
He was doing a story for the San Francisco Observer on the giant house and her hopes of selling it now that the estate had at last been settled, and her great-uncle Felix Nideck had been declared officially dead. The man had been gone for twenty years, but his will had only just been opened, and the house had been left to Marchent, his niece.
They’d been walking the forested slopes of the property since Reuben arrived, visiting a ramshackle old guesthouse and the ruin of a barn. They’d followed old roads and old paths lost in the brush, and now and then come out on a rocky ledge above the cold iron-colored Pacific, only to duck back quickly into the sheltered and damp world of gnarled oak and bracken.
Reuben wasn’t dressed for this, really. He’d driven north in his usual “uniform” of worsted-wool blue blazer over a thin cashmere sweater, and gray slacks. But at least he had a scarf for his neck that he’d pulled from the glove compartment. And he really didn’t mind the biting cold.
The huge old house was wintry with deep slate roofs and diamond-pane windows. It was built of rough-faced stone, and had countless chimneys rising from its steep gables, and a sprawling conservatory on the west side, all white iron and glass. Reuben loved it. He’d loved it in the photographs online but nothing had prepared him for its solemn grandeur.
He’d grown up in an old house on San Francisco’s Russian Hill, and spent a lot of time in the impressive old homes of Presidio Heights, and the suburbs of San Francisco, including Berkeley, where he’d gone to school, and Hillsborough, where his late grandfather’s half-timber mansion had been the holiday gathering place for many a year. But nothing he had ever seen could compare to the Nideck family home.
The sheer scale of this place, stranded as it was in its own park, suggested another world.
“The real thing,” he’d said under his breath the moment he’d seen it. “Look at those slate roofs, and those must be copper gutters.” Lush green vines covered over half the immense structure, reaching all the way to the highest windows, and he’d sat in his car for a long moment, kind of pleasantly astonished and a little worshipful, dreaming of owning a place like this someday when he was a famous writer and the world beat too broad a path to his door.
This was turning out to be just a glorious afternoon.
It had hurt him to see the guesthouse dilapidated and unlivable. But Marchent assured him the big house was in good repair.
He could have listened to her talk forever. Her accent wasn’t British exactly, or Boston or New York. But it was unique, the accent of a child of the world, and it gave her words a lovely preciseness and silvery ring.
“Oh, I know it’s beautiful. I know it’s like no place else on the California coast. I know. I know. But I have no choice but to get rid of all of it,” she explained. “There comes a time when a house owns you and you know you have to get free of it, and go on with the rest of your life.” Marchent wanted to travel again. She confessed she’d spent precious little time here since Uncle Felix disappeared. She was headed down to South America as soon as the property was sold.
“It breaks my heart,” Reuben said. That was too damn personal for a reporter, wasn’t it? But he couldn’t stop himself. And who said he had to be a dispassionate witness? “This is irreplaceable, Marchent. But I’ll write the best story I can on the place. I’ll do my best to bring you a buyer, and I can’t believe it will take that long.”
What he didn’t say was I wish I could buy this place myself. And he’d been thinking about that very possibility ever since he’d first glimpsed the gables through the trees.
“I’m so glad the paper sent you, of all people,” she said. “You’re passionate and I like that so very much.”
For one moment, he thought, Yes, I’m passionate and I want this house, and why not, and when will an opportunity like this ever come again? But then he thought of his mother and of Celeste, his petite brown-eyed girlfriend, the rising star in the district attorney’s office, and how they’d laugh at the idea, and the thought went cold.
“What’s wrong with you, Reuben, what’s the matter?” asked Marchent. “You had the strangest look in your eye.”
“Thoughts,” he said, tapping his temple. “I’m writing the piece in my head. ‘Architectural jewel on the Mendocino coast, first time on the market since it was built.’ ”
“Sounds good,” she said. There was that faint accent again, of a citizen of the world.
“I’d give the house a name if I bought it,” said Reuben, “you know, something that captured the essence of it. Nideck Point.”
“Aren’t you the young poet,” she said. “I knew it when I saw you. And I like the pieces you’ve written for your paper. They have a distinct character. But you’re writing a novel, aren’t you? Any young reporter your age should be writing a novel. I’d be ashamed of you if you weren’t.”
“Oh, that’s music to my ears,” he confessed. She was so beautiful when she smiled, all the fine lines of her face seemingly so eloquent and pretty. “My father told me last week that a man of my age has absolutely nothing to say. He’s a professor, burnt out, I might add. He’s been revising his ‘Collected Poems’ for ten years, since he retired.” Talking too much, talking too much about himself, not good at all.
His father might actually love this place, he thought. Yes, Phil Golding was in fact a poet and he would surely love it, and he might even say so to Reuben’s mother who would scoff at the whole idea. Dr. Grace Golding was the practical one and the architect of their lives. She was the one who’d gotten Reuben his job at the San Francisco Observer, when his only qualification was a master’s in English literature and yearly world travel since birth.
Grace had been proud of his recent investigative pieces, but she’d cautioned that this “real estate story” was a waste of his time.
“There you go again, dreaming,” Marchent said. She put her arm around him and actually kissed him on the cheek as she laughed. He was startled, caught unawares by the soft pressure of her breasts against him and the subtle scent of a rich perfume.
“Actually, I haven’t accomplished one single thing in my life yet,” he said with an ease that shocked him. “My mother’s a brilliant surgeon; my big brother’s a priest. My mother’s father was an international real estate broker by the time he was my age. But I’m a nothing and a nobody, actually. I’ve only been with the paper six months. I should have come with a warning label. But believe me, I’ll make this a story you’ll love.”
“Rubbish,” she said. “Your editor told me your story on the Greenleaf murder led to the arrest of the killer. You are the most charming and self-effacing boy.”
He struggled not to blush. Why was he admitting all these things to this woman? Seldom if ever did he make self-deprecating statements. Yet he felt some immediate connection with her he couldn’t explain.
“That Greenleaf story took less than a day to write,” he murmured. “Half of what I turned up on the suspect never saw print at all.”
She had a twinkle in her eye. “Tell me—how old are you, Reuben? I’m thirty-eight. How is that for total honesty? Do you know many women who volunteer that they’re thirty-eight?”
“You don’t look it,” he said. And he meant it. What he wanted to say was You’re rather perfect, if you ask me. “I’m twenty-three,” he confessed.
“Twenty-three? You’re just a boy.”
Of course. “Sunshine Boy,” as his girlfriend Celeste always called him. “Little Boy,” according to his big brother, Fr. Jim. And “Baby Boy,” according to his mother, who still called him that in front of people. Only his dad consistently called him Reuben and saw only him when their eyes met. Dad, you should see this house! Talk about a place for writing, talk about a getaway, talk about a landscape for a creative mind.
He shoved his freezing hands in his pockets and tried to ignore the sting of the wind in his eyes. They were making their way back up to the promise of hot coffee and a fire.
“And so tall for that age,” she said. “I think you’re uncommonly sensitive, Reuben, to appreciate this rather cold and grim corner... --Ce texte fait référence à l'édition Broché .
Revue de presse
“Vintage Anne Rice—a lushly written, gothic … metaphysical tale. This time, with werewolves.” —The Wall Street Journal
“I want to howl at the moon over this. . . . Rice’s style [is] as solid and engaging as anything she has written since her early vampire chronicle fiction.” —Alan Cheuse, The Boston Globe
“A fast-paced, heady romp that ranks with [Rice’s] best…. Feisty and terrific fun.” —Joy Tipping, Dallas Morning News
“Intoxicating.” —USA Today
“A delectable cocktail of old-fashioned lost-race adventure, shape-shifting and suspense, brightened by enticing hints of a secret history.” —Elizabeth Hand, The Washington Post
“One part Beauty and the Beast love story, one part meditation on morality and immortality, and one part superman tale…. Rice deepens and gives nuance to classic werewolf lore.” —The Times-Picayune (New Orleans)
“An entertaining tale of good vs. evil.” —St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Evolves from a fantastical romp into an engrossing thriller.” —San Francisco Chronicle
“Rice’s classic concerns regarding good and evil and shifting views of reality play out wonderfully in what will surely please fans and newcomers alike.” —Publishers Weekly
“The strange history of the Nideck family will jump off the page and enter the readers’ nightmares as Rice has found a new gothic saga to sink her teeth into.” —Bookreporter
“The queen of gothic lit, the maestro of the monstrous and the diva of the devious . . . has returned to her roots.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer
“The best Rice has written since … Interview with the Vampire. . . . Brilliant. . . .Wit-filled, languid and vibrant, brainy and snarling.” —The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
“Highly entertaining.” —The Washington Times
“Written with compelling modernity . . . The Wolf Gift is a strong—and welcome—return to the monster mythology that made Anne Rice famous.” —Shelf Awareness
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1 internautes sur 1 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile
Par IB
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Encore une réussite pour Anne Rice!
Le livre est prenant (je l'ai fini d'une traite) et change des histoires habituelles de vampires.
Anne Rice explore la légende des loups garous en y mettant sa touche d'originalité : réflexions sur les comportements humains, les relations entre les gens et le mal et le bien.
L'histoire se tient bien et on a hâte de découvrir le chapitre d'après.
Bref, je recommande! Autant pour les fans des chroniques des vampires que pour ceux qui ont envie de découvrir Anne Rice
Attention par contre : il n'y a pas encore de traductions sur le marché (le livre vient de sortir) et le livre est en anglais.
Le livre est prenant (je l'ai fini d'une traite) et change des histoires habituelles de vampires.
Anne Rice explore la légende des loups garous en y mettant sa touche d'originalité : réflexions sur les comportements humains, les relations entre les gens et le mal et le bien.
L'histoire se tient bien et on a hâte de découvrir le chapitre d'après.
Bref, je recommande! Autant pour les fans des chroniques des vampires que pour ceux qui ont envie de découvrir Anne Rice
Attention par contre : il n'y a pas encore de traductions sur le marché (le livre vient de sortir) et le livre est en anglais.
2 internautes sur 3 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile
Format:Relié|Achat authentifié par Amazon
After a few years in more or less blind alley writing, particularly the unfinished life of Jesus and the interesting but too clean Seraphim stories, Anne Rice basically seems to be not angelic at all and angels are not her real stuff.
Apparently she does not want to go back to witches and vampires that she more or less terminated or brought to a close by merging Lestat de Lioncourt and the Mayfair family. She then had to work with the third big horror myth in western culture she had not dealt with at all, viz. werewolves. So naturally she moves into that field of creativity for what should be a rather long trip.
She has to change the myth to make it palatable since the werewolves are by far the worst monsters in our horror-folklore.
So she relegates the moon cycle that Stephen King liked so much to the garbage pail and she enables werewolves to propagate by passing over to new members-to-be the wolf gift or Chrism, a term that is borrowed from the Christian tradition. In my Doubleday's The Jerusalem Bible, what they call the Chrism is described as follows in the Catholic New Jerusalem Bible in Exodus 30:22-33
"22 Yahweh spoke further to Moses and said, 23 'Take the finest spices: five hundred shekels of fresh myrrh, half as much (two hundred and fifty shekels) of fragrant cinnamon, two hundred and fifty shekels of scented reed [identified by some as calamus and others as cannabis, due to its name in its original Hebrew, kaneh bosem plural of Kaneh-bos], 24 five hundred shekels (reckoning by the sanctuary shekel) of cassia, and one hin of olive oil. 25 You will make this into a holy anointing oil, such a blend as the perfumer might make; this will be a holy anointing oil. 26 With it you will anoint the Tent of Meeting and the ark of the Testimony, 27 the table and all its accessories, the lamp-stand and its accessories, the altar of incense, 28 the altar of burnt offerings and all its accessories, and the basin with its stand, 29 consecrating them, so that they will be especially holy and whatever touches them will become holy. 30 You will also anoint Aaron and his sons and consecrate them to be priests in my service. 31 You will then speak to the Israelites and say, "This anointing oil will be holy for you for all your generations to come. 32 It must not be used for anointing the human body, nor may you make any of the same mixture. It is a holy thing; you will regard it as holy. 33 Anyone who makes up the same oil or uses it on an unauthorised person will be outlawed from his people."
It gives to this dimension of Anne Rice's novel some kind of sacred dimension with a typical Old Testament menace from God himself, one more "Thou Shalt not", and yet she explains the origin of these beings that she calls Morphenkinder, the Children of Morpheus, and Morpheus is difficult to define in Greek mythology. He is the God of Dreams, the son of Nyx, the Night, and Ovid presents him as one of the numerous sons of Hypnos and three are important: Morpheus, who excels in presenting human images; Icelos or Phobetor, who presents images of beasts, birds and serpents; and Phantasos, who presents images of earth, rock, water and wood. Morphenkinder were born from one human who got literally impregnated with the natural power of a now extinct population of West Africa to turn into beasts when attacked. This first Morphenkind is one of the characters of the novel. He has little to do with the eponymous character of The Matrix series.
Then Anne Rice needs to set the story in the limbs and body of a newly created Morphenkind, in fact two newly created Morphenkinder. The creative moment of the first one is very dramatic indeed since it involves the transferring of a great real estate and woodland property from the sole heiress of a man who disappeared twenty years ago to a young reporter who she has just had a transient sexual episode with, and within minutes after that transfer she will be killed by her own two brothers, junkies with family financial means, themselves killed by a Morphenkind protecting the heiress and the property. That Morphenkind will also attack our main hero, Reuben, but Morphenkinder cannot attack innocent people and then he will leave Reuben wounded but not dead. And the Chrism will have been transferred. The second new-born Morphenkind is a young man Reuben saves from sure death in the hand of gay-bashers but by mistake or due to some inexperienced sloppiness he bites the young man.
This will call back the band of originally six Morphenkinder reduced to five due to the death of one in some not so distant past in the hands of some crazy Soviet sub- or supernormal doctors trying to capture the Chrism for some kind of perverted military reasons. The five survivors are Margon Sperver, Baron Thibault, Felix Nideck, Sergei Gorlagon and Frank Vandover. The dead one is Reynolds Wagner. These five will join the two new fledglings and Reuben's girl friend Laura and live in the estate that was transmitted to reuben at the beginning in some kind of coven.
She introduces many other changes in the folkloric myth to fit her project in some kind of believable or credible pattern. The change into Morphenkind form happens in the evening and recedes in the morning, but it is not connected to the moon phases and it can be, after a few weeks, controlled and thus brought up on demand or blocked. They can hear the voices of people who are under some kind of attack and whose lives are endangered. Then they kill and feast on the criminals who are attacking the person or persons that are attacked. They are evil-destroyers.
This of course, in San Francisco and northern California generates a positive panic among people who see the Man Wolf, as Anne Rice calls him to avoid I guess the direct allusion to Freud's Wolfman, as a savior and a good character, though his mode of action is monstrous: dismembering his victims and eating them raw, if he has time. She describes that panic and the way the two ex-Soviet doctors are using that panic to mobilize the security forces of California and the USA to capture the two new-born Morphenkinder to take them to some kind of secret underground and illegal laboratory.
This will eventually and spectacularly fail but you will have to get into the novel to get details.
The general idea is that what she calls the pluripotent progenitor cells, or maybe stem cells, are activated by this Chrism so that the change into a Morphenkind becomes possible. But this Chrism is uncapturable because any sample taken from a live Morphenkind follows the same trail as the body of a dead Morphenkind. They disappear in thin air.
At that level the book can become extremely funny and even hilarious within this dramatic situation. It is comical to see how the media, doctors and other responsible people in the medical field or in the security forces react and in fact in front of a phenomenon they don't understand are satisfied by a simple explanation that covers up the main elements but looks logical provided the paranormal phenomena disappear from public view. Willy nilly they all accept some kind of a modus vivendi compromise that let the Morphenkinder free to prosper provide it no longer is in the public eye of the local western public opinion. If you want to be a happy Morphenkind, you must live well hidden behind an appearance of normalcy.
Anne Rice deals with doctors again and she shows the two extremes, and these are the only two extremes. On one side those who use medicine to fulfill some clandestine military project and are only interested in the supernatural cases that may appear here and there in society, hence the paranormal obsessive desire to instrumentalize. On the other hand those who do not consider the comfort of the patient in a life that would be guaranteed as normal, but only the fulfillment of some kind of protocol or procedure duly established and accepted by the medical body as a whole, hence medical harassment. On one side the test-tube patient and on the other side the medically obsessive desire to cure. On one side those who want to get some kind of profit from the patient and on the other hand those who want to verify and stick to their medical protocol of proper treatment of the patient.
The last element which is very typical of American literature is the fact that the main character, Reuben, has a brother Jim who is a Catholic priest and these two brothers are linked in that secret of Reuben being a Morphenkind because of the confession Reuben imposed onto his Priest of a brother. The two brothers are so American and ever present in so many works of fiction that we can wonder about the relations between these two brothers and all the brothers in series like Supernatural, or in the numerous novels by Stephen King, or John Steinbeck. This brother situation is amplified by the fact that Morphenkinder call one another brothers and they can have a normal procreative activity, hence the interest of the couple Reuben-Laura, who may eventually found a real Morphenkind family.
We are expecting the subsequent volumes of the stories of each particular Morphenkind in the past and of them all in the present. Many volumes will come out of this new nursery, or is it hatchery?
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU
Apparently she does not want to go back to witches and vampires that she more or less terminated or brought to a close by merging Lestat de Lioncourt and the Mayfair family. She then had to work with the third big horror myth in western culture she had not dealt with at all, viz. werewolves. So naturally she moves into that field of creativity for what should be a rather long trip.
She has to change the myth to make it palatable since the werewolves are by far the worst monsters in our horror-folklore.
So she relegates the moon cycle that Stephen King liked so much to the garbage pail and she enables werewolves to propagate by passing over to new members-to-be the wolf gift or Chrism, a term that is borrowed from the Christian tradition. In my Doubleday's The Jerusalem Bible, what they call the Chrism is described as follows in the Catholic New Jerusalem Bible in Exodus 30:22-33
"22 Yahweh spoke further to Moses and said, 23 'Take the finest spices: five hundred shekels of fresh myrrh, half as much (two hundred and fifty shekels) of fragrant cinnamon, two hundred and fifty shekels of scented reed [identified by some as calamus and others as cannabis, due to its name in its original Hebrew, kaneh bosem plural of Kaneh-bos], 24 five hundred shekels (reckoning by the sanctuary shekel) of cassia, and one hin of olive oil. 25 You will make this into a holy anointing oil, such a blend as the perfumer might make; this will be a holy anointing oil. 26 With it you will anoint the Tent of Meeting and the ark of the Testimony, 27 the table and all its accessories, the lamp-stand and its accessories, the altar of incense, 28 the altar of burnt offerings and all its accessories, and the basin with its stand, 29 consecrating them, so that they will be especially holy and whatever touches them will become holy. 30 You will also anoint Aaron and his sons and consecrate them to be priests in my service. 31 You will then speak to the Israelites and say, "This anointing oil will be holy for you for all your generations to come. 32 It must not be used for anointing the human body, nor may you make any of the same mixture. It is a holy thing; you will regard it as holy. 33 Anyone who makes up the same oil or uses it on an unauthorised person will be outlawed from his people."
It gives to this dimension of Anne Rice's novel some kind of sacred dimension with a typical Old Testament menace from God himself, one more "Thou Shalt not", and yet she explains the origin of these beings that she calls Morphenkinder, the Children of Morpheus, and Morpheus is difficult to define in Greek mythology. He is the God of Dreams, the son of Nyx, the Night, and Ovid presents him as one of the numerous sons of Hypnos and three are important: Morpheus, who excels in presenting human images; Icelos or Phobetor, who presents images of beasts, birds and serpents; and Phantasos, who presents images of earth, rock, water and wood. Morphenkinder were born from one human who got literally impregnated with the natural power of a now extinct population of West Africa to turn into beasts when attacked. This first Morphenkind is one of the characters of the novel. He has little to do with the eponymous character of The Matrix series.
Then Anne Rice needs to set the story in the limbs and body of a newly created Morphenkind, in fact two newly created Morphenkinder. The creative moment of the first one is very dramatic indeed since it involves the transferring of a great real estate and woodland property from the sole heiress of a man who disappeared twenty years ago to a young reporter who she has just had a transient sexual episode with, and within minutes after that transfer she will be killed by her own two brothers, junkies with family financial means, themselves killed by a Morphenkind protecting the heiress and the property. That Morphenkind will also attack our main hero, Reuben, but Morphenkinder cannot attack innocent people and then he will leave Reuben wounded but not dead. And the Chrism will have been transferred. The second new-born Morphenkind is a young man Reuben saves from sure death in the hand of gay-bashers but by mistake or due to some inexperienced sloppiness he bites the young man.
This will call back the band of originally six Morphenkinder reduced to five due to the death of one in some not so distant past in the hands of some crazy Soviet sub- or supernormal doctors trying to capture the Chrism for some kind of perverted military reasons. The five survivors are Margon Sperver, Baron Thibault, Felix Nideck, Sergei Gorlagon and Frank Vandover. The dead one is Reynolds Wagner. These five will join the two new fledglings and Reuben's girl friend Laura and live in the estate that was transmitted to reuben at the beginning in some kind of coven.
She introduces many other changes in the folkloric myth to fit her project in some kind of believable or credible pattern. The change into Morphenkind form happens in the evening and recedes in the morning, but it is not connected to the moon phases and it can be, after a few weeks, controlled and thus brought up on demand or blocked. They can hear the voices of people who are under some kind of attack and whose lives are endangered. Then they kill and feast on the criminals who are attacking the person or persons that are attacked. They are evil-destroyers.
This of course, in San Francisco and northern California generates a positive panic among people who see the Man Wolf, as Anne Rice calls him to avoid I guess the direct allusion to Freud's Wolfman, as a savior and a good character, though his mode of action is monstrous: dismembering his victims and eating them raw, if he has time. She describes that panic and the way the two ex-Soviet doctors are using that panic to mobilize the security forces of California and the USA to capture the two new-born Morphenkinder to take them to some kind of secret underground and illegal laboratory.
This will eventually and spectacularly fail but you will have to get into the novel to get details.
The general idea is that what she calls the pluripotent progenitor cells, or maybe stem cells, are activated by this Chrism so that the change into a Morphenkind becomes possible. But this Chrism is uncapturable because any sample taken from a live Morphenkind follows the same trail as the body of a dead Morphenkind. They disappear in thin air.
At that level the book can become extremely funny and even hilarious within this dramatic situation. It is comical to see how the media, doctors and other responsible people in the medical field or in the security forces react and in fact in front of a phenomenon they don't understand are satisfied by a simple explanation that covers up the main elements but looks logical provided the paranormal phenomena disappear from public view. Willy nilly they all accept some kind of a modus vivendi compromise that let the Morphenkinder free to prosper provide it no longer is in the public eye of the local western public opinion. If you want to be a happy Morphenkind, you must live well hidden behind an appearance of normalcy.
Anne Rice deals with doctors again and she shows the two extremes, and these are the only two extremes. On one side those who use medicine to fulfill some clandestine military project and are only interested in the supernatural cases that may appear here and there in society, hence the paranormal obsessive desire to instrumentalize. On the other hand those who do not consider the comfort of the patient in a life that would be guaranteed as normal, but only the fulfillment of some kind of protocol or procedure duly established and accepted by the medical body as a whole, hence medical harassment. On one side the test-tube patient and on the other side the medically obsessive desire to cure. On one side those who want to get some kind of profit from the patient and on the other hand those who want to verify and stick to their medical protocol of proper treatment of the patient.
The last element which is very typical of American literature is the fact that the main character, Reuben, has a brother Jim who is a Catholic priest and these two brothers are linked in that secret of Reuben being a Morphenkind because of the confession Reuben imposed onto his Priest of a brother. The two brothers are so American and ever present in so many works of fiction that we can wonder about the relations between these two brothers and all the brothers in series like Supernatural, or in the numerous novels by Stephen King, or John Steinbeck. This brother situation is amplified by the fact that Morphenkinder call one another brothers and they can have a normal procreative activity, hence the interest of the couple Reuben-Laura, who may eventually found a real Morphenkind family.
We are expecting the subsequent volumes of the stories of each particular Morphenkind in the past and of them all in the present. Many volumes will come out of this new nursery, or is it hatchery?
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU
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"...that both the brutal world and the spiritual world are sources of truth..."
29 janvier 2012
Par Biblioholic Beth
- Publié sur Amazon.com
Format:Relié|Commentaire Amazon Vine™
(De quoi s'agit-il?)
It has been years since I've read an Anne Rice novel, and I was initially hesitant about this one. However, the premise sounded interesting, so I ordered it anyway just out of curiosity. I'm very glad that I did. I started this book day before yesterday, but late in the evening , and went to bed only a couple of chapters in. I picked it up again yesterday afternoon - and by the time I realized that it was far past my bedtime, I was almost finished and NEEDED to see how it ended.
Reuben is a fledgling reporter in San Francisco, the youngest son of a fairly well-to-do family. He heads up to Mendocino County to do a story about an old house with a lot of history being sold. He finds himself falling in love with the place, but wakes during the night to hear his host being attacked. As he goes to defend her, he is attacked himself, and then mysteriously saved. During his recovery, he finds that he is...changing. He is becoming what he always assumed was a werewolf. But as he learns more about himself and his new abilities, he has to decide whether what is has been given is actually a curse - or whether it is truly a gift.
The Wolf Gift is not your typical werewolf story - it turns the genre on its head in more than one way. There is a strong thread of Good vs. Evil within the story, but the parts are not necessarily played by those you would expect. How does one know true Evil? Can something seen as evil actually be a servant of Good? Tied to the Good and Evil debate is a strong exploration of the existence of God, and our expectations of right and wrong.
However. This is not a heavy-handed religion book. This is an excellent novel with a fascinating and fast-paced story where part of the story includes a couple of strong themes woven throughout that make the story stronger rather than detracting from it.
Having not read an Anne Rice novel in years, I now find myself hoping that there might be a sequel in the works to continue this fascinating story. I don't know that another one could be as strong and do justice to this first one, but the characters are wonderful, and the whole novel is just so compelling, that I would love to read more.
Reuben is a fledgling reporter in San Francisco, the youngest son of a fairly well-to-do family. He heads up to Mendocino County to do a story about an old house with a lot of history being sold. He finds himself falling in love with the place, but wakes during the night to hear his host being attacked. As he goes to defend her, he is attacked himself, and then mysteriously saved. During his recovery, he finds that he is...changing. He is becoming what he always assumed was a werewolf. But as he learns more about himself and his new abilities, he has to decide whether what is has been given is actually a curse - or whether it is truly a gift.
The Wolf Gift is not your typical werewolf story - it turns the genre on its head in more than one way. There is a strong thread of Good vs. Evil within the story, but the parts are not necessarily played by those you would expect. How does one know true Evil? Can something seen as evil actually be a servant of Good? Tied to the Good and Evil debate is a strong exploration of the existence of God, and our expectations of right and wrong.
However. This is not a heavy-handed religion book. This is an excellent novel with a fascinating and fast-paced story where part of the story includes a couple of strong themes woven throughout that make the story stronger rather than detracting from it.
Having not read an Anne Rice novel in years, I now find myself hoping that there might be a sequel in the works to continue this fascinating story. I don't know that another one could be as strong and do justice to this first one, but the characters are wonderful, and the whole novel is just so compelling, that I would love to read more.
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5.0 étoiles sur 5
Wolf Gift puts the Man in Wolfman
10 mars 2012
Par Sumiko Saulson
- Publié sur Amazon.com
Format:Relié|Achat authentifié par Amazon
Anne Rice's latest offering, "The Wolf Gift," marks her long awaited return to the Gothic Horror genre in which her popular Mayfair Witch and Vampire Chronicles reside, bringing the ancient werewolf myth, with certain strange new twists, into modern times. "The Wolf Gift" weaves a tale of complex moral questions, stark violence and monstrous brutality against a hauntingly picturesque Northern California.
Charmingly, in the Wolf Gift Ms. Rice has created her most eloquent tribute to the writers of the 1800s, those who wrote older Werewolf stories to which her "Distinguished Gentleman" sometimes refer. She sets the story not in summer, but in the perpetually rainy and overcast Bay Area of Wintertime, evoking images of Victorian Gothic Novels with their London weather. She paints her forests with damp under brush and rolling fogs, her architecture - especially the increasingly mysterious mansion at Nideck Point in Mendocino - with secret places, trapped doors, and the same kind of detailed and loving brush which caused Gothic Horror to be named for its Gothic architecture.
But below all of this is a modern take on the coming-of-age story. Set in the present, its protagonist is very unlike Interview with the Vampire's Louis, who had and lost a wife and family by the age of 25: Reuben is the modern boy-man; still unsure of who he is at the age of 23, and completely unable to break away from the expectations of a brilliant, overbearing mother. Intelligent and creative, but naive and sheltered, two years out of college, he is still having trouble defending starting out on a career path of his own choosing, and is still living at home with his parents. Even his girlfriend seems to be someone chosen to please his family. In a story that is peppered with contemporary technological elements such as Reuben's beloved iPhone; no device is as modern as Reuben himself, picture-perfect example of Generation Y and the American trend towards extended adolescence. Mr. Golding repeatedly protests his family (and girlfriend's) nicknames of Baby Boy, Little Boy, and Sunshine Boy, but despite his protestations, he is all of these things.
As a result, we have here, a story of a man-boy who becomes a man-wolf, and every element of Reuben's transformation: the erotic nature of the change, the overwhelming urge to protect the innocent through horrifically brutal acts; becomes an allegory for masculinity and the roles that have been taken away from generations of infantilized men such as Reuben: it is only later in the novel, when the Man Wolf Reuben begins to ask himself if any woman could ever find his original self, who he then describes as "vapid", as attractive. He struggles with something common for many young men: learning to balance what is dangerous and powerful in masculinity with what is gentle, and protective, and learning to view himself as a strong man in the eyes of a partner - not just a sweet boy in the eyes of a mother.
All of this folds into a romantic tale beautifully evocative of one of the most erotic of the Greco-Roman myths: the Tale of Eros and Psyche. Like Eros, Reuben is a young man dominated by his powerful mother (Venus), who seeks to break away and does so in falling in love with a beautiful woman who his mother treats as a competitor, rather than a daughter in law. In Reuben's case, his mother only wants him to develop a relationship with a woman very like herself, and who assists in her continued control over his destiny. She has no desire to allow her son to move out, grow up or become a man.
In every way, being bitten by a werewolf is the vehicle not only for Reuben's transformation from human into Morphenkind, but from boy into man in this powerfully brutal and erotic tale.
Charmingly, in the Wolf Gift Ms. Rice has created her most eloquent tribute to the writers of the 1800s, those who wrote older Werewolf stories to which her "Distinguished Gentleman" sometimes refer. She sets the story not in summer, but in the perpetually rainy and overcast Bay Area of Wintertime, evoking images of Victorian Gothic Novels with their London weather. She paints her forests with damp under brush and rolling fogs, her architecture - especially the increasingly mysterious mansion at Nideck Point in Mendocino - with secret places, trapped doors, and the same kind of detailed and loving brush which caused Gothic Horror to be named for its Gothic architecture.
But below all of this is a modern take on the coming-of-age story. Set in the present, its protagonist is very unlike Interview with the Vampire's Louis, who had and lost a wife and family by the age of 25: Reuben is the modern boy-man; still unsure of who he is at the age of 23, and completely unable to break away from the expectations of a brilliant, overbearing mother. Intelligent and creative, but naive and sheltered, two years out of college, he is still having trouble defending starting out on a career path of his own choosing, and is still living at home with his parents. Even his girlfriend seems to be someone chosen to please his family. In a story that is peppered with contemporary technological elements such as Reuben's beloved iPhone; no device is as modern as Reuben himself, picture-perfect example of Generation Y and the American trend towards extended adolescence. Mr. Golding repeatedly protests his family (and girlfriend's) nicknames of Baby Boy, Little Boy, and Sunshine Boy, but despite his protestations, he is all of these things.
As a result, we have here, a story of a man-boy who becomes a man-wolf, and every element of Reuben's transformation: the erotic nature of the change, the overwhelming urge to protect the innocent through horrifically brutal acts; becomes an allegory for masculinity and the roles that have been taken away from generations of infantilized men such as Reuben: it is only later in the novel, when the Man Wolf Reuben begins to ask himself if any woman could ever find his original self, who he then describes as "vapid", as attractive. He struggles with something common for many young men: learning to balance what is dangerous and powerful in masculinity with what is gentle, and protective, and learning to view himself as a strong man in the eyes of a partner - not just a sweet boy in the eyes of a mother.
All of this folds into a romantic tale beautifully evocative of one of the most erotic of the Greco-Roman myths: the Tale of Eros and Psyche. Like Eros, Reuben is a young man dominated by his powerful mother (Venus), who seeks to break away and does so in falling in love with a beautiful woman who his mother treats as a competitor, rather than a daughter in law. In Reuben's case, his mother only wants him to develop a relationship with a woman very like herself, and who assists in her continued control over his destiny. She has no desire to allow her son to move out, grow up or become a man.
In every way, being bitten by a werewolf is the vehicle not only for Reuben's transformation from human into Morphenkind, but from boy into man in this powerfully brutal and erotic tale.
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5.0 étoiles sur 5
Existentialist in wolf's clothing
14 février 2012
Par M. Galishoff
- Publié sur Amazon.com
Format:Relié
"The Wolf Gift" is Anne Rice's her debut return to the supernatural genre that made her a household name. At one level it is the story of the making of a "wolf-man" and the impact upon the lives of individuals and the society of modern day San-Francisco. At a deeper level it is a timeless tale used as a setting by the author to ask age old questions about mankind, history, society and our limited self-understanding.
Reuben Golding is a young man of independent means and accomplished parents. He is gifted, intelligent and worldly yet Reuben lives a life that lacks direction, passion and purpose. This is evident in his relationship with his intense goal-driven girlfriend and accomplished mother. He takes a job as a junior reported and is assigned the most mundane of all jobs, to report on an old mansion and property for sale deep in the ancient woods of the Northern California coast.
Reuben finds in this house a mysterious and beautiful woman, a mysterious and ancient family struck by tragedy and the priceless collection of ancient artifacts and writings left after the sudden and unexplained disappearance of the home's owner. In the massive collection of books, art and artifacts Rueben finds himself strongly drawn to the home and its mysterious beauty he is to interview. Rueben seems to sense that a purpose to his education and worldly travels, made possible by his family wealth, may be tied up in this home and resolves to be the purchaser.
The author uses the opening chapter as a composer a symphony, bringing together several parallel themes and voices that interweave in such a manner as to leave the reader a bit uneasy and disoriented despite the calm and serene beauty. As the reader is being introduced to the main characters and the setting, trying to become oriented to what is both attracting and overwhelming Rueben, a subtle tension is developed as reporter and beautiful heiress join in physical union.
The bliss is suddenly disrupted by a horrible attack leaving three dead and Reuben mortally wounded. The invaders kill the woman Marchent, but before they can finish off Reuben, they are literally torn apart by a strange powerful animal that seems to appear out of nowhere. The animal bites Reuben but for some reason allows him to live. Reuben is rescued and taken to the hospital to be cared for by his famous physician-mother and placed into the care of Ms. Rice's strange world.
Reuben makes a remarkable recovery and undergoes a physical metamorphosis that is apparent to all and defies the scientist's ability to explain. He changes from the inside as well, as emotions and feelings become more intense. Eventually, after discharge, one night he experiences the full transformation into a werewolf. He is overwhelmed as his senses, strength, power, empathy and sense of justice are heightened to equal his new abilities.
Reuben explores the city of his birth by night, effortlessly soaring over rooftops and trees, hearing the voices and smelling the scents all around him as a wild animal would. Yet there is something to these senses that has a moral and empathic imperative that far exceeds the human experience and his ability to understand. Transformed, thus, Reuben seems fully human and fully a new and wild animal trying to balance and control the extremes of both.
During his exploits, Reuben finds himself compulsively drawn to those victims of violence crying out unheard in the night and rescues them by tearing apart their attachers. After the bloody, horrible "feast" he is capable of the tenderest care of the innocent. After successive nights of dramatic rescues, including that of a large group of school children who are being tortured and killed by men awaiting ransom, the star of the wolf-man is born. There are witnesses and survivors of which Reuben is one.
What follows is Reuben's struggle to understand and control these changes, search for their meaning, survive the alienation and power it brings and deal with reality by day that he is a son, brother and friend that is becoming a source of worry to those he loves. He is drawn to the mysterious house, willed to him by the beautiful Marchent, trying to unlock its mysteries and his own.
Ms Rice uses the genre of the supernatural to explore the basic questions facing mankind. Who are we? What is the true meaning of human existence? Who lies behind the creation of this world and what is our place in it? What are good and evil? What are the limits of our knowledge? Are we really the pinnacle of creation or just another species awaiting time's evolutionary forces to work? Can tremendous power and an intense desire to right the wrong and protect the innocent be satisfied and actually achieve its goal in our world? Are our noblest thoughts, feelings and urges - love, empathy and reason - a gift or the product of evolution? Are they transcendent or are they rooted within the nature of our inner beast that also spawns evil, violence and hate?
"What has happened to me?" Kafka's Gregor Samsa asks himself upon awakening from a night of restless dreams and a strange transformation into a revolting pest that is weak and must be squashed out by his family and their lodgers. Gregor Samsa escapes his meaningless, alienated droll life of isolation and self-sacrifice by de-evolving into a helpless insect. Though Kafka's historical setting of the early modern age is long past, the same effects of our advancing society are felt by people of each generation. Our young people, flowering during an economic crisis, without work and purpose are as marginalized and stifled as Kafka's Gregor.
On the surface all mankind has achieved has made things better except that the ancient yearnings of the rational man remain unsettled. Unlike Kafka's pessimistic exploration of the existential and metaphysical issues of humanity, society and our world, Rice has a more optimistic view. Whereas Gregor's metamorphism is into powerlessness and a regression of evolution, Reuben's is one of empowerment and awakening. Gregor's alienation comes from his meaningless enslaving self-sacrifice to support his family whereas Reuben's comes from his lukewarmness to life rooted in one of luxury and infinite opportunities he does not grasp. Gregor experiences de-evolution into a helpless bug squashed by a world rejecting his human suffering. Reuben evolves and is transformed into something perhaps higher and more powerful than man can experience but none less dangerous to us.
Though Kafka and Rice decide to transform their heros into opposite things, they none-the-less share the same unanswered questions and leave the reader to think about them. Gregor dies as he lived and Reuben receives a gift of immortality and youth as he died. The question remains for readers of both if either depiction solves the moral, ethical, metaphysical and existential issues of mankind. Or are they better not solved by a human author?
Kafka and Rice make no great claims to the hidden truth and answer. They both shock us into reexamining ourselves, our premises, our views of humanity and the cosmos, and to awaken within us both the agony and ecstasy of being truly human.
When I received "The Wolf Gift" my receptionist, after reading on the back cover "The Queen of Horror is Back..." asked me if the book was scary. I replied "only if you think about what she has to say."
Truly, Ms. Rice has taken a genre so recently abused and elevated it to higher things. It is where she is at home, exploring her questions and taking her spiritual and intellectual journey. This is evidenced by the obvious wealth of research and knowledge displayed by the author. "Horror" is a misrepresentation of what Ms. Rice offers us. And if there is "horror" it lies within as we look into ourselves through these strange creatures and worlds the author has created. And she manages to do these things with grace, tact and sensitivity that reach readers of all backgrounds, ages and sophistication. That is the true gift.
* Reviewers Note: I received "The Wolf Gift" as a gift of love without the expectation of a review.
Reuben Golding is a young man of independent means and accomplished parents. He is gifted, intelligent and worldly yet Reuben lives a life that lacks direction, passion and purpose. This is evident in his relationship with his intense goal-driven girlfriend and accomplished mother. He takes a job as a junior reported and is assigned the most mundane of all jobs, to report on an old mansion and property for sale deep in the ancient woods of the Northern California coast.
Reuben finds in this house a mysterious and beautiful woman, a mysterious and ancient family struck by tragedy and the priceless collection of ancient artifacts and writings left after the sudden and unexplained disappearance of the home's owner. In the massive collection of books, art and artifacts Rueben finds himself strongly drawn to the home and its mysterious beauty he is to interview. Rueben seems to sense that a purpose to his education and worldly travels, made possible by his family wealth, may be tied up in this home and resolves to be the purchaser.
The author uses the opening chapter as a composer a symphony, bringing together several parallel themes and voices that interweave in such a manner as to leave the reader a bit uneasy and disoriented despite the calm and serene beauty. As the reader is being introduced to the main characters and the setting, trying to become oriented to what is both attracting and overwhelming Rueben, a subtle tension is developed as reporter and beautiful heiress join in physical union.
The bliss is suddenly disrupted by a horrible attack leaving three dead and Reuben mortally wounded. The invaders kill the woman Marchent, but before they can finish off Reuben, they are literally torn apart by a strange powerful animal that seems to appear out of nowhere. The animal bites Reuben but for some reason allows him to live. Reuben is rescued and taken to the hospital to be cared for by his famous physician-mother and placed into the care of Ms. Rice's strange world.
Reuben makes a remarkable recovery and undergoes a physical metamorphosis that is apparent to all and defies the scientist's ability to explain. He changes from the inside as well, as emotions and feelings become more intense. Eventually, after discharge, one night he experiences the full transformation into a werewolf. He is overwhelmed as his senses, strength, power, empathy and sense of justice are heightened to equal his new abilities.
Reuben explores the city of his birth by night, effortlessly soaring over rooftops and trees, hearing the voices and smelling the scents all around him as a wild animal would. Yet there is something to these senses that has a moral and empathic imperative that far exceeds the human experience and his ability to understand. Transformed, thus, Reuben seems fully human and fully a new and wild animal trying to balance and control the extremes of both.
During his exploits, Reuben finds himself compulsively drawn to those victims of violence crying out unheard in the night and rescues them by tearing apart their attachers. After the bloody, horrible "feast" he is capable of the tenderest care of the innocent. After successive nights of dramatic rescues, including that of a large group of school children who are being tortured and killed by men awaiting ransom, the star of the wolf-man is born. There are witnesses and survivors of which Reuben is one.
What follows is Reuben's struggle to understand and control these changes, search for their meaning, survive the alienation and power it brings and deal with reality by day that he is a son, brother and friend that is becoming a source of worry to those he loves. He is drawn to the mysterious house, willed to him by the beautiful Marchent, trying to unlock its mysteries and his own.
Ms Rice uses the genre of the supernatural to explore the basic questions facing mankind. Who are we? What is the true meaning of human existence? Who lies behind the creation of this world and what is our place in it? What are good and evil? What are the limits of our knowledge? Are we really the pinnacle of creation or just another species awaiting time's evolutionary forces to work? Can tremendous power and an intense desire to right the wrong and protect the innocent be satisfied and actually achieve its goal in our world? Are our noblest thoughts, feelings and urges - love, empathy and reason - a gift or the product of evolution? Are they transcendent or are they rooted within the nature of our inner beast that also spawns evil, violence and hate?
"What has happened to me?" Kafka's Gregor Samsa asks himself upon awakening from a night of restless dreams and a strange transformation into a revolting pest that is weak and must be squashed out by his family and their lodgers. Gregor Samsa escapes his meaningless, alienated droll life of isolation and self-sacrifice by de-evolving into a helpless insect. Though Kafka's historical setting of the early modern age is long past, the same effects of our advancing society are felt by people of each generation. Our young people, flowering during an economic crisis, without work and purpose are as marginalized and stifled as Kafka's Gregor.
On the surface all mankind has achieved has made things better except that the ancient yearnings of the rational man remain unsettled. Unlike Kafka's pessimistic exploration of the existential and metaphysical issues of humanity, society and our world, Rice has a more optimistic view. Whereas Gregor's metamorphism is into powerlessness and a regression of evolution, Reuben's is one of empowerment and awakening. Gregor's alienation comes from his meaningless enslaving self-sacrifice to support his family whereas Reuben's comes from his lukewarmness to life rooted in one of luxury and infinite opportunities he does not grasp. Gregor experiences de-evolution into a helpless bug squashed by a world rejecting his human suffering. Reuben evolves and is transformed into something perhaps higher and more powerful than man can experience but none less dangerous to us.
Though Kafka and Rice decide to transform their heros into opposite things, they none-the-less share the same unanswered questions and leave the reader to think about them. Gregor dies as he lived and Reuben receives a gift of immortality and youth as he died. The question remains for readers of both if either depiction solves the moral, ethical, metaphysical and existential issues of mankind. Or are they better not solved by a human author?
Kafka and Rice make no great claims to the hidden truth and answer. They both shock us into reexamining ourselves, our premises, our views of humanity and the cosmos, and to awaken within us both the agony and ecstasy of being truly human.
When I received "The Wolf Gift" my receptionist, after reading on the back cover "The Queen of Horror is Back..." asked me if the book was scary. I replied "only if you think about what she has to say."
Truly, Ms. Rice has taken a genre so recently abused and elevated it to higher things. It is where she is at home, exploring her questions and taking her spiritual and intellectual journey. This is evidenced by the obvious wealth of research and knowledge displayed by the author. "Horror" is a misrepresentation of what Ms. Rice offers us. And if there is "horror" it lies within as we look into ourselves through these strange creatures and worlds the author has created. And she manages to do these things with grace, tact and sensitivity that reach readers of all backgrounds, ages and sophistication. That is the true gift.
* Reviewers Note: I received "The Wolf Gift" as a gift of love without the expectation of a review.
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