The more I think about it, the more significance I attach to Lestat's sending of gifts to his family. I think he desperately needed to salvage things there - like when he was all, "Hey, we have vineyards; we could revitalise the estate!" It's easy to read the problems in his family as being all about Lestat being unique and misunderstood/Gabrielle suffering the usual problems of women in that time, but I think the estate's having been allowed to decline is a sign that the rot went a lot deeper.
It's also interesting to flip things and imagine how that must have looked to the villagers, come the Revolution - they're getting by in whatever ways they can, while the lords take their greater wealth and security for granted so much that they can afford to run it down! Lestat hunted to keep his family alive, but it should never have come to that if they'd had a healthy estate (which would in turn have employed more people). I've got away from my point about the family, but you get the idea: there was a malaise there which Lestat, as part of his growth process, tried to break out of and fix in various ways, but finally had to leave altogether. I think that's very familiar to a lot of people from unhealthy family situations - as is his urge to give back to, and to raise up, what he's left behind.
I wonder how things would have worked out if his family had all escaped the Revolution. Would they all have come with his father and ended up with Lestat and Louis? Would that have stabilised the situation (giving Louis a substitute for the mortal family he was losing by degrees) or worsened it?
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Date: 2013-08-21 11:41 am (UTC)It's also interesting to flip things and imagine how that must have looked to the villagers, come the Revolution - they're getting by in whatever ways they can, while the lords take their greater wealth and security for granted so much that they can afford to run it down! Lestat hunted to keep his family alive, but it should never have come to that if they'd had a healthy estate (which would in turn have employed more people). I've got away from my point about the family, but you get the idea: there was a malaise there which Lestat, as part of his growth process, tried to break out of and fix in various ways, but finally had to leave altogether. I think that's very familiar to a lot of people from unhealthy family situations - as is his urge to give back to, and to raise up, what he's left behind.
I wonder how things would have worked out if his family had all escaped the Revolution. Would they all have come with his father and ended up with Lestat and Louis? Would that have stabilised the situation (giving Louis a substitute for the mortal family he was losing by degrees) or worsened it?