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Of love and evil : the songs of the seraphim / Anne Rice.

By: Material type: TextTextSeries: Rice, Anne, Songs of the seraphim ; 2. | Rice, Anne, Songs of the seraphim ; Publication details: London : Chatto & Windus, 2010.Description: 171 pages ; 22 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9780701178185(pbk)
  • 9780099484202 (pbk.)
Subject(s): Genre/Form: Summary: Anne Rice's extraordinary new novel summons the world of fifteenth-century Rome: a city of beauty and terror, of art and sin. In this extraordinary setting Toby O'Dare, former government assassin, is called upon by the angel Malchiah, to solve a terrible crime of poisoning and to seek out the truth behind the presence of an earthbound restless spirit - a diabolical dybbuk - that is causing chaos in the city. Toby is plunged into the luscious world of the Italian Renaissance, sent to charm and calm this troublesome spirit. But he soon discovers himself in the midst of dark plots and surrounded by a darker and more dangerous threat as the veil of ecclesiastical terror closes in around him. As Toby once again embarks on a powerful journey of atonement, he is reconnected with his own past, with matters light and dark, fierce and tender, with the promise of salvation and with a deeper and richer vision of love.
Holdings
Item type Current library Collection Call number Copy number Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Fiction Davis (Central) Library Fiction Collection Fiction Collection RIC 2 Available T00509891
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Anne Rice's extraordinary new novel summons up for us the world of fifteenth-century Rome: of Michelangelo and Raphael, of the Holy Inquisition and of Leo X, second son of a Medici, holding forth on the papal throne . . . a city of domes and rooftop gardens and rising towers. And into this time, into this century, Toby O'Dare, former government assassin is summoned, by the angel Malchiah, to solve a terrible crime of poisoning and to search out the truth about a haunting by an earthbound restless spirit -- a diabolical dybbuk. In the fullness of the high Italian Renaissance, Toby is plunged into this rich age as a lutenist sent to charm and calm this troublesome spiri... He soon discovers himself in the midst of dark plots and counter-plots surrounded by a darker and more dangerous threat as the veil of ecclesiastical terror closes in around him .

As Toby once again embarks on a powerful journey of atonement, he is reconnected with his own past, with matters light and dark, fierce and tender, with the promise of salvation and with a deeper and richer vision of love.

Anne Rice's extraordinary new novel summons the world of fifteenth-century Rome: a city of beauty and terror, of art and sin. In this extraordinary setting Toby O'Dare, former government assassin, is called upon by the angel Malchiah, to solve a terrible crime of poisoning and to seek out the truth behind the presence of an earthbound restless spirit - a diabolical dybbuk - that is causing chaos in the city. Toby is plunged into the luscious world of the Italian Renaissance, sent to charm and calm this troublesome spirit. But he soon discovers himself in the midst of dark plots and surrounded by a darker and more dangerous threat as the veil of ecclesiastical terror closes in around him. As Toby once again embarks on a powerful journey of atonement, he is reconnected with his own past, with matters light and dark, fierce and tender, with the promise of salvation and with a deeper and richer vision of love.

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Excerpt provided by Syndetics

Chapter One     I dreamed a dream of angels. I saw them and I heard them in a great and endless galactic night. I saw the lights that were these angels, flying here and there, in streaks of irresistible brilliance, and some as great as comets which seemed to draw so close the fire might devour me, and yet I felt no heat. I felt no danger. I felt no self.   I felt love around me in this vast and seamless realm of sound and light. I felt intimately and completely known. I felt beloved and held and part of all I saw and heard. And yet I knew I deserved nothing of it, nothing. And something akin to sadness swept me up and mingled my very essence with the voices who sang, because the voices were singing of me.   I heard the voice of Malchiah rise high and brilliant and immense as he said that I must now belong to him, that I must now go with him. That he had chosen me as his companion and I must do what he would have me do. How strong and brilliant was his voice rising higher and higher. Yet there came against him a smaller voice, tender, lustrous, that sang of my life on Earth and what I had to do; it sang of those who needed me and loved me; it sang of common things and common dreams, and pitted these with faultless courage against the great things which Malchiah sought to do.   Oh, that such a mingling of themes could be so very magnificent and this music should surround and enfold me as if it were a palpable and loving thing. I lay upon the breast of this music, and I heard Malchiah triumph as he claimed me, as he declared that I was his very own. The other voice was fading but not conceding. The other voice would never concede. The other voice had its own beauty and it would go on singing forever as it was singing now.   Other voices rose; or they had been there all the while. Other voices sang all around me and of me, and these voices vied with angelic voices as though answering them across a fathomless vault. It was a weave, these voices, angelic and other, and I knew suddenly that these were voices of people praying, praying for me. They were people who had prayed before and would pray after and in the far future and would always pray, and all these voices had to do with what I might become, of what I might be. Oh, sad, small soul that I was, and how very grand was it, this burning world in which I found myself, a world that makes the very word itself meaningless as all boundaries and all measures disappear.   There came to me the blessed knowledge that every living soul was the subject of this celebration, of this infinite and ceaseless chorus, that every soul was loved as I was loved, known now as I was known.   How could it not be? How could I, with all my failures, all my bitter losses, be the only one? Oh, no, the universe was filled with souls woven into this triumphant and glorious song.   And all were known and loved as I was known and loved. All were known as even their prayers for me became part of their own glorious unfolding within this endless and golden weave.   "Don't send me away. Don't send me back. But if you must, let me do your Will, let me do it with all my heart," I prayed, and I heard my own words become as fluid as the music that surrounded me and sustained me. I heard my own particular and certain voice. "I love You. I love You who made all things and gave us all things and for You I will do anything, I will do what it is You want of me. Malchiah, take me. Take me for Him. Let me do His will!"   Not a single word was lost in this great womb of love that surrounded me, this vast night that was as bright as day. For neither day nor night mattered here, and both were blended and all was perfect, and the prayers rising and rising, and overlapping, and the angels calling were all one firmament to which I completely surrendered, to which I completely belonged.   Something changed. Still I heard the plaintive voice of that angel pleading for me, reminding Malchiah of all that I was to do. And I heard Malchiah's gentle reproof and ultimate insistence, and I heard the prayers so thick and wondrous that it seemed I would never need a body again to live or love or think or feel.   Yet something changed. The scene shifted.   I saw the great rise of the Earth beneath me and I drifted downwards feeling a slow but certain and aching chill. Let me stay, I wanted to plead, but I didn't deserve to stay. It was not my time to stay, and I had to feel this inevitable separation. Yet what opened now before me wasn't the Earth of my expectations but vast fields of wheat blowing golden under a sky more vivid in the brightening sun than I had ever beheld. Everywhere I looked I saw the wildflowers, "the lilies of the field," and I saw their delicacy and their resilience as the force of the breeze bent them to and fro. This was the wealth of the Earth, the wealth of its blowing trees, the wealth of its gathering clouds.   "Dear God, never to be away from You, never to wrong You, never to fail You in faith or in heart," I whispered, "for this, all this You have given me, all this You have given us."   And there followed on my whisper an embrace so close, so total, that I wept with my whole soul.   The fields grew vague and large and a golden emptiness enveloped the world and I felt love embracing me, holding me, as if I were being cradled by it, and the flowers shifted and turned into masses of colors I couldn't describe. The very presence of colors we did not know struck me deep and rendered me helpless. Dear God, that You love us so very much.   Shapes were gone. Colors had detached themselves effortlessly from shapes, and the light itself was rolling now as if it were a soft and consuming smoke.   There appeared a corridor and I had the distinct impression, in words, that I had passed through it. And now, down the long corridor there came to me the tall slender figure of Malchiah, clothed as he always was, a graceful figure, like that of a young man.   I saw his soft dark hair, his oval face. I saw his simple dark suit with its narrow lines.   I saw his loving eyes, and then his slow and fluid smile. I saw him reach out to me with both arms.   "Beloved," he whispered. "I need you once again. I will need you countless times. I will need you till the end of time."   It seemed then the other voices sang from their hearts, in protest, in praise, I couldn't tell.   I wanted to hold him. I wanted to beg him to let me stay just a little while more with him here. Take me again into the realm of the lamps of Heaven. I wanted to cry. I had never known as a child how to cry. And now as an adult, I did it repeatedly, awake and in dreams.   Malchiah came on steadily as though the distance between us was far greater than I had supposed.   "You've only a couple of hours before they come," he said, "and you want to be ready."   I was awake.   The morning sun flooded the windows.   The noise of traffic rose from the streets.   I was in the Amistad Suite, in the Mission Inn, and I was sitting back against a nest of pillows, and Malchiah sat, collected and calm, in one of the wing chairs near the cold stone fireplace and he said again to me that Liona and my son would soon come. Excerpted from Of Love and Evil by Anne Rice All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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