ANGEL TIME first rant of 2011

Hello, Lynnette here; a fan through and through. Wherever I go, I carry and take care with utmost zeal of a number of books that never leave my side:

• A King James Bible by God and all His inspired scribes, which comprise a kind of holy et all

Neil Gaiman's Sandman

and Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles,

which kinda gives me the right to be a self proclaimed connoisseur about any of these titles, their authors or people's interpretations on the subject matter. Yes, in other words this is a geek rant about Anne Rice's latest endeavour: ANGEL TIME.

I took my sweet time to approach Mrs. Rice's Christian writings. I did it most of all due to respect of the author perse. I promised I will not read Christian Rice while my mind still conjured certain pervasive images linked to her name. I waited, patiently, until Lestat no longer rose from the page, loud, flamboyant, beautiful and damned. I gave Ms. Rice some time and filled Lestat empty spaces with other characters, replaced Ms. Rice with other authors. I left the books on the side while I pursued my own need to have certain Theological questions answered, questions that lead to solidify my belief and teach others the need to understand - and accept without condition- the Jewish root of the Christian faith.

Finally, after all was read, I guess, and I found it no longer a challenge, and picked the book off the shelf. I really, really wanted to love ANGEL TIME, mostly because what ever little excerpts I got from angels on Rice's ROAD TO CANA promised that complete understanding of messenger and message conveyed, of creatures that although not human deal in the most intrusive of fashion in human affairs. And I use intrusive on a positive light, because it is the work of angels to interrupt the flow of human life with a touch of the divine, a missive that carries a directive from God Himself. Sometimes is a message of comfort, sometimes is a message of joy and sometimes, those times that make us all think about the short span our little lives cover in the scheme of eternity; a message of judgement.

Maybe my disappointment with the book derives from mislead expectations. The title, illustrations and synopsis made me believe this was first and foremost a book about angels. And I am so tired of angels being misrepresented, that I got really excited about Rice touching the subject. If there is someone who knows details is Rice. For years I counted on her to take me to places I've never been to, describe the texture and taste of wines that never touched my lips and spend hours I couldn't spare mystified by buttons.

So when all felt like a promise of angels, I expected non the less. I wanted angels of mercy, guardian angels, those beings who do not know the soul, for lack of one, yet can understand human feeling linked through the Spirit that imparts life to all. I wanted war scarred angels, archangels hardened by battle, wings stained crimson in the fray. I wanted Living Creatures to leave our imagination baffled, with heads that carry four countenances, extraordinary chimeras that burn like burnished bronze. I wanted cherubs, not the round faced babies that adorn souvenir bags and chocolate boxes; I wanted larger than life Protectors of Glory, willing to slice with Flaming Swords through anything that could even pretend to offend the seat of God with its sinful presence. I wanted Seraphim, so touched by the Presence that in order to appear to humans, even in vision or dream they must cover their face, for their countenance reflects the face of God like a mirror and their mere sight is death to those who dare look with naked eyes. And I wanted of course, Fallen Angels, delving in Chaos, plotting destruction, striving in their vanity to hold on to a semblance of beauty...

ANGEL TIME gave me nothing of the sort. The Angel on this novel, a Seraph called Malchiah, serves mostly as a plot device and no matter how cleverly used, it is what it is. Malchiah is the omnipresent narrator on a otherwise first person account. It is there to cheat for the reader in a sense, giving insights into characters lives that cannot be derived off their own accounts.

SPOILER AHEAD, JUST IN CASE:

The matter boils down to a Seraph recruiting an assassin to have him travel back in time and save a family of Jews about to be put to trial on the 13th century for crimes against Christians. There is no reason for the angel to choose an assassin for this task, a good stage actor might have pulled it off, after all, the one thing required of the angel's human companion is to partake of something an angel cannot; to concoct a lie- a pious, white lie, mind you, but a lie nevertheless.

I'm not puritanical when it comes to fiction- or lies, for that matter. Being on that particular character's shoes I would have lied through my teeth to prevent an injustice without thinking it twice. However, it would have been more of a challenge, a challenge for a writer of Rice's stature to solve this problem solely by angelic intervention. I would have given anything to see Michael, Guardian of all Jews both in Israel and the Diaspora wage one of those epic battles in behalf of the People so that whatever was bound in the airs would inevitably be bound on Earth; after all the best stage for innocence is truth.

It was a fun fast read, but that is not what I look for when I pick up a book by Anne Rice. I'm sorry, still, after all this years, all experience counted, I believe that Lestat is, of all her characters, the best Theologian, and that Rice's angels, are effective, touching and true when- as Rice once said- they "are going in another direction."