Servant of the Bones
By Anne Rice
Knopf, 400 pages, $26
Anne Rice’s last novel, “Memnoch the Devil,” in which she reworked the Creation, took a commitment from the reader comparable to actually finishing “One Hundred Years of Solitude.” You sit down determined, but somewhere you hear children playing and you’re gone.
“Servant of the Bones,” however, can be read at a clip. It tells the story of the spirit Azriel, tracing his experiences from the time Cyrus of Persia conquered Babylon to modern days in New York. For Rice, the story line is remarkably direct.
The novel opens on a snowy night in upstate New York, where Azriel makes an unannounced visit to his favorite author. The unnamed writer might doubt Azriel’s claims about himself if it weren’t for the fact, which Azriel demonstrates, that he can change his appearance at will and also evaporate into thin air. He’s the real thing. A genuine genie.
Azriel says he has quite a story to tell. And he does. As a young Hebrew scribe in Babylonia, Azriel was living a good life until he was coerced into a suicidal act in return for his people’s freedom. Azriel bore a resemblance to a certain Babylonian god, and he agreed to have his body covered with gold and then parade before the populace with Cyrus. If the false god was seen accepting Cyrus, then so must Babylonia.
As the mineral hardened, death seemed certain. But a necromancer condemned him, much against his will, to eternal life. He must serve whoever is in possession of his golden bones throughout time.
Rice tells Azriel’s story through the centuries in a hit-or-miss fashion, here a master, there a master, but the real point is his appearance in the New York of the ’90s. There he pits himself against Gregory Belkin, leader of the worldwide cult Temple of the Mind.
Suddenly the book has a plot. Belkin’s evil plan is to annihilate all but the Western world by unleashing a fatal virus at selected sites. Azriel’s mission, which he chooses to accept, is to stop him. His plan, as it evolves, involves having sex with Belkin’s dying wife, as well as many costume changes.
Yes, it sounds silly as heck. But there’s some fun to be had here.