For you, my darlings, freedom to do what you like is the discovery of how unlikable what you like to do makes you. Not that that stops you doing what you like, since you like doing what you like more than you like liking what you do... [Lucifer]
Glen DuncanOnce you've stopped loving someone breaking his or her heart's just an unpleasant chore you have to get behind you. My God, you really don't love me anymore, do you? No matter your decency the victim's incredulity's potentially hilarious. You manage not to laugh.
Glen DuncanShe understood the genre constraints, the decencies were supposed to be observing. The morally cosy vision allows the embrace of monstrosity only as a reaction to suffering or as an act of rage against the Almighty. Vampire interviewee Louis is in despair at his brotherโs death when he accepts Lestatโs offer. Frankensteinโs creature is driven to violence by the violence done to him. Even Luciferโs rebellion emerges from the agony of injured price. The message is clear: By all means become an abominationโbut only while unhinged by grief or wrath.
Glen DuncanYes, Eden was beautiful- and if I had to squeeze through corporeal keyholes to crash it- so be it. (Hasnโt it bothered you, this part of the story, my being there, I mean? What was I doing there? โPresume not the ways of God to scan,โ youโve been told in umpteen variations, โthe proper study of Mankind is Man.โ Maybe so, but what, excuse me, was the Devil doing in Eden?) I took the forms of animals. I found I could. (Thatโs generally my reason for doing something, by the way, because I find I can.)
Glen Duncan