The low brow debacle.

October 24, 2005 7:37 AM

Meet Anne Rice, Christian novelist.
posted by plexi (68 comments total)

To point out the obvious:

Anne Rice has gone from writing about the undead to writing about the undead.
posted by Bugbread at 7:38 AM on October 24, 2005

Anne Rice, in her own words. That's not an author I'm interested in reading.
posted by cribcage at 7:42 AM on October 24, 2005

Is she going to manage to turn the New Testament into something homoerotic too?
posted by substrate at 7:43 AM on October 24, 2005

It wasn't before?
posted by Balisong at 7:45 AM on October 24, 2005

It's about time she wrote about something other than cannibalism and blood drinking. Oh.
posted by ColdChef at 7:47 AM on October 24, 2005

On the one hand, this move is not all that shocking. Rice loves ritual and tradition, even when it occurs in the interactions of vampires and witches. So it was probably evitable that Rice would turn her focus to face the ritual and tradition of her own life.

On the other hand, however, Rice has served as her own editor over the course of maybe the last two or three books, and it shows. As much as I would like to hope for the best in this exploration of Jesus Christ, I fear that her own pride will prevent her from enlisting another set of eyes before setting her work free.

Ironic, in a way.
posted by grabbingsand at 7:50 AM on October 24, 2005

Forgive her, for she has sinned.
posted by OmieWise at 7:51 AM on October 24, 2005

"It wasn't before?"

This is why I love MetaFilter.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 7:52 AM on October 24, 2005

She’s the Kevin Smith of literature, cribcage. Her books weren’t written for critics.

Is she going to manage to turn the New Testament into something homoerotic too?

Clive Barker might be a better writer for handling Saul of Tarses/Paul the Apostle.
posted by Smart Dalek at 7:56 AM on October 24, 2005

This is why I love MetaFilter.

Because of italics?
posted by srboisvert at 8:01 AM on October 24, 2005

Jesus and Vampires are two tags I wouldn't expect to see together in a post. I had forgotten all about that Amazon incident. Sometimes when people become famous, they go crazy. I think this is the case here. (Also, Balisong's comment was excellent.)
posted by chunking express at 8:02 AM on October 24, 2005

> Because of italics?

somehow i managed to notice on Mefi that there is such a thing as a caps lock day, but is there an italics day ?
posted by Substrata at 8:13 AM on October 24, 2005

I'm eagerly awaiting the sequel, Yeshua the Vampire King.
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:16 AM on October 24, 2005

somehow i managed to notice on Mefi that there is such a thing as a caps lock day, but is there an italics day ?
posted by Substrata at 11:13 AM EST on October 24 [!]

Somehow I find it ironic that "italics day" is spelled using boldface, but italics is used for caps lock day. Shouldn't it be "Italics Day" and "CAPS LOCK DAY"?
posted by unreason at 8:16 AM on October 24, 2005

I've told this story before, but it bears repeating: I once went to a party at Anne Rice's house in New Orleans. She was handing out rubber rats at the front door as people entered. That's when she was living in the refurbished orphanage. Drink and shame prevent me from remembering most details of that night. But I can relate that she is one creeeeeepy broad.
posted by ColdChef at 8:23 AM on October 24, 2005

Bob Dylan wrote very fine gospel music in his born again period, and I hope Ms. Rice does the same with her fiction.
posted by By The Grace of God at 8:25 AM on October 24, 2005

She was handing out rubber rats at the front door as people entered.

Hm. Sounds to me like she just used to have a sense of humor.
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:26 AM on October 24, 2005

This has been done before.
posted by sciurus at 8:27 AM on October 24, 2005

Her books weren’t written for critics.

I don't know what that's supposed to mean. If you're claiming that her Amazon tantrum was motivated by artistic snobbery, I'll answer that ninety-nine times out of a hundred, I'll come down on the side of artistic snobbery. Most critics are ignorant blowhards, and most fans are just ignorant. But that rambling conniption of hers had nothing to do with her critics, her fans, or even her books. If you can read that and think, "Now that's someone whose work I want to read," then I'm glad to say our tastes differ.
posted by cribcage at 8:27 AM on October 24, 2005

srboisvert: "Because of italics?"

Since <big> was taken away, it's the only fun we have left.
posted by Plutor at 8:29 AM on October 24, 2005

"It wasn't before?"

because when all you've got is a homo, everything is homoerotic.
posted by quonsar at 8:34 AM on October 24, 2005

Her mother named her Howard. That's enough to make any little girl grow up creepy.
posted by scratch at 8:41 AM on October 24, 2005

Wow, she really looks a lot older in that newsweek photograph.
posted by delmoi at 8:41 AM on October 24, 2005

cribcage: Like Smith, Rice gets defensive whenever the feedback turns negative. The Amazon screed was certainly over the top, but she had also scoffed at critical pans of The Mummy and Queen of the Damned, not unlike Smith’s rebuttals against slams upon Something About Mary and Dogma.
posted by Smart Dalek at 8:43 AM on October 24, 2005

is it any surprise that the url to the new book is "bs_b_christthelord"

just saying...
posted by HuronBob at 8:44 AM on October 24, 2005

Her books weren’t written for critics.

Or edited for reader comprehension. A second set of eyes on a work for editing purposes is a very important thing. There's a reason why book publishing has evolved in this direction, and Rice is ignoring that out of personal ego.
posted by Kickstart70 at 8:45 AM on October 24, 2005

She's doing the whole Led Zeppelin "it's got to be my Jesus" late-life-conversion-from-Satanism-in-last-ditch-attempt-to-escape-hell.
posted by scarabic at 8:47 AM on October 24, 2005

ror.

Her books were good for grade school summer-reading.
posted by wakko at 8:47 AM on October 24, 2005

Bob Dylan wrote very fine gospel music in his born again period, and I hope Ms. Rice does the same with her fiction.

Well, she said she returned to Catholicism, which isn't quite the same.

I'm agnostic, but have always thought that of the major religions, Catholicism had the best art.
posted by gsteff at 8:50 AM on October 24, 2005

I love me some italics.

Caveat: I read everything from trashy genre fiction to many (most?) of what are supposedly the greatest books ever written. Either I have no taste, or, as I prefer, I just let things be what they are and appreciate them for that. I don't expect Rice to be Milton.

But I say that last part because while most of her books have been unreadable for me, a few of them I've found very interesting and I think at her best she has an enviable je ne sais quoi and one book of hers I thought well of was Memnoch the Devil. Honestly, if she's become very devout and lost her macabre sensibilities, I expect everything interesting about her writing will be purged. On the other hand, if this is not the case, personally I would be very interested in reading an account of Christ with that sensibility.

What interested me most about her Vampire Chronicles, and of Lestat and Louis, were her earnest questions about the nature of Good and Evil and particularly the central problem of theology: the existence of Evil and its function. There is a great deal of fertile ground for this subject in an adventurous narrative the Christ's life itself—Rice writing on this subject before her devotion required her to do this out of a sense of duty might well be very interesting.

Of course, most of the lay Christian devout find the Problem of Evil to be so confounding they essentially deny its existence and either run in fear from it or deeply distrust anyone seriously engaging in it. In its own way, The Last Temptation of Christ was on this topic. The essential moral component of being human, from a Christian perepective, is our capacity for comprehension of and choice of evil—in that sense, Evil is clearly necessary and so an examination of Christ's humanity as intrinsic implicitly endorses the idea that Evil is necessary and, in a sense, tolerable by God.

One has to suspect that Rice's newly-renewed devotion is synonymous with a determined naivete, or even simplemindedness, as is so common with American Christians and the result is that she will deny her own capacity to write an intelligent and fascinating story on this topic. On the other hand, maybe I'm wrong about her.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 8:51 AM on October 24, 2005

Her books weren’t written for critics.

I was about to remark, "They aren't written for readers either", but on preview, Kickstart70 says it more eloquently.
posted by NemesisVex at 8:52 AM on October 24, 2005

" Jesus and Vampires are two tags I wouldn't expect to see together in a post."

Perhaps it's time to go out and rent Jesus Christ, Vampire Hunter!
posted by AccordionGuy at 9:02 AM on October 24, 2005

I can't wait for The Taming of Jesus Christ
posted by SiW at 9:03 AM on October 24, 2005

Her books were good for grade school summer-reading.

Yes. They were good to balance the wobbly leg of the table you did your summer reading on.
posted by tkchrist at 9:04 AM on October 24, 2005

By the bye, anyone got any good links to what I expect is some righteous indignation on the Goth front? LiveJournal must be smokin' with it today.
posted by AccordionGuy at 9:05 AM on October 24, 2005

A second set of eyes on a work for editing purposes is a very important thing. There's a reason why book publishing has evolved in this direction...

I'm afraid you're a couple decades out of date. Publishing once did evolve in that direction, but for some time it's been evolving away from it. Editing and proofreading cost money, and publishing, like everything else, is all about the money these days. I've seen horrible mistakes lately in books by reputable publishers who once would have slit their wrists rather than allow such shoddiness to go out over their imprint—but that was back when there were actual publishers, human beings who published books because they cared about them, rather than huge intermegacorps that want bigger profits every single quarter.
posted by languagehat at 9:05 AM on October 24, 2005

AccordionGuy: Sorry, you’ve been Jinxed.

And I should’ve linked to Penny arcade’s “not for critics” strip to avoid confusion.
posted by Smart Dalek at 9:10 AM on October 24, 2005

By the bye, anyone got any good links to what I expect is some righteous indignation on the Goth front?

Heh. I felt a great disturbance in the Livejournals, as if millions of goths suddenly cried out in angst and were suddenly silenced.
posted by unreason at 9:12 AM on October 24, 2005

Like Smith, Rice gets defensive whenever the feedback turns negative. The Amazon screed was certainly over the top, but she had also scoffed at critical pans of The Mummy and Queen of the Damned, not unlike Smith’s rebuttals against slams upon Something About Mary and Dogma.

I wasn't aware that Kevin Smith had anything to do with There's Something About Mary. Why would he feel compelled to respond to criticism of it?
posted by piratebowling at 9:15 AM on October 24, 2005

IIRC she has had some health problems...having to face your own mortality that way sometimes produces changes like this.

I'll be interested to see how this book turns out.
posted by konolia at 9:33 AM on October 24, 2005

I wasn't aware that Kevin Smith had anything to do with There's Something About Mary.

Chasing Amy, probably. I've seen folks make the same goof before.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:36 AM on October 24, 2005

not unlike Smith’s rebuttals against slams upon Something About Mary and Dogma.

Er, Dogma was Kevin Smith's, not There's Something About Mary.

And for the record, while I didn't like Dogma myself, most of the criticism of it focused mainly on it taking on Catholicism.

And where is Smith (over-)defensive? He's always seemed pretty jovial and self-effacing to me, like in the commercials for Jersey Girl.
posted by JHarris at 9:37 AM on October 24, 2005

To continue the slight derail about editing (or more properly its absence): I can try to understand where Rice is coming from when she writes "I fought a great battle to achieve a status where I did not have to put up with editors making demands on me," but if she's unable to see an editor as a potential ally, it's her loss, and to some extent, her readers'.
posted by alumshubby at 9:59 AM on October 24, 2005

Amazon entry & reviews & whatnot.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:25 AM on October 24, 2005

This will surely be a stretch for her audience to follow her on; when have goths ever embraced the surface details of anything religious or paganistic?
posted by Peter H at 10:49 AM on October 24, 2005

(laughing) it would be funny if Rice's influence on the goth set manages to make Jesus loin cloths and sandals suddenly fashionable to the previously pirate-shirt and heavy glooming crucifix-on-a-chain group.
posted by Peter H at 10:55 AM on October 24, 2005

I always thought she was stark-raving mad. Now it's confirmed.
posted by JeffK at 10:55 AM on October 24, 2005

Attacked by a vicious bully, seven-year-old Yeshua employs uncanny powers to drop his assailant onto the sand and then to bring him back to life.

Wow. Just...wow.
posted by bachelor#3 at 11:07 AM on October 24, 2005

Something Positive on Anne Rice's new direction.
posted by mrzarquon at 11:14 AM on October 24, 2005

I stopped reading her after Memnoch the Devil. It was funny, when I was reading it I thought it was good. Then afterwards I started to think about it and got pissed off at how horrible the book actually was.

Ah the magic of Greyhound, three days with no sleep makes any piece of garbage look more interesting.
posted by Talanvor at 11:17 AM on October 24, 2005

Has anyone else ever noticed how much her books seemed to be about clothes? I used to read her stuff on bus rides and the like when I was younger and always thought of it as entertaining pulp. But I picked up one of her later vampire books a couple years ago and threw it away after a two page discussion of the buttons a character was wearing on their coat. buttons.

Apparently being bitten by a vampire automatically turns you into a slave for crushed velvet and cameo buttons. Yeesh.

As for her writing a book about jesus, this suprises me not at all. First of all, her work was always rife with religious imagery and appeals to outside forces. Very obviously the product of someone who grew up in the embrace of some kind of church. Second of all, a lot of people who write about supernatural beings end up turning to the ones that are the most popular.

I'm sure it won't do as well as the vampire books, but what the hell does she care? She's living in an attic with servants to bring her food and wash her clothes. She's living the pampered, removed upper-class existence all her characters do. She can turn out whatever tripe is her fancy.
posted by lumpenprole at 11:30 AM on October 24, 2005

By the bye, anyone got any good links to what I expect is some righteous indignation on the Goth front? LiveJournal must be smokin' with it today.

Well, fandom_wank gave it some lovin' back in May...
posted by Katemonkey at 11:39 AM on October 24, 2005

Big sinners need big religion.
posted by Faze at 11:57 AM on October 24, 2005

Anybody remember the graphic novel Greenberg the Vampire? I have no idea where my copy is.
posted by bardic at 12:01 PM on October 24, 2005

After such a book, the only thing left for the author is to choose between the muzzle of a pistol and the foot of the cross.

Barbey d'Aurevilly on À rebours by J.K. Huysmans

À rebours was a aesthetically refined, decadentist novel. Huysmans wrote a novel on satanism after that en then continued to write only Catholic drivel...
posted by jouke at 12:11 PM on October 24, 2005

Hasn't The Last Days of Christ the Vampire already been written?
posted by maxsparber at 12:34 PM on October 24, 2005

On her son's website she says she's a staunch gay-marriage advocate. Is there some way we can arrange for all the world's religious homophobes to have openly gay sons who rush to their defence when they humiliate themselves by chucking insane hissy fits on Amazon?
posted by Soulfather at 12:43 PM on October 24, 2005

>>> Anybody remember the graphic novel Greenberg the Vampire?


Barely. But for about $13, you can replace your missing copy.
posted by grabbingsand at 3:02 PM on October 24, 2005

HEY, grabbingsand! It really is a small Internet! I am working my way up the tree of blog... now I'm metablogging!

Speaking of which: I felt a great disturbance in the Livejournals, as if millions of goths suddenly cried out in angst and were suddenly silenced. ROTFL!

Also the "Something Positive" cartoon.

As a recent New Orleans transplant, I got there just in time to hear Anne Rice was leaving. Must have been too much sin for her there.

I'm really, really torn. I used to love LeStat. I actually fell in love with her "soft-core" (have they read the Sleeping Beauty books? I must have missed something in the definition) porn, and recognized her writing style when I found the vampire chronicles.

I was also a teenager and goth before there was a goth, so cut me some slack, hmmmm?

I haven't read anything of hers for at least 12 years, and, although I only heard about the Amazon thing through rumors (thanks for that link to the whole thing) I pretty much thought, ok, no editors, hello Virginia Woolf club, I should avoid.

Which is a pity, because having a woman so in tune with psychosis, damnation and (at least by proxy) the thoughts of the eternal-lived, I really want to know what she does with this.

"Lord, if it be thy will, take this cup from me..."
posted by scyllacat at 3:20 PM on October 24, 2005

Vampires are very X-tian monsters. You don't find a vampire being repelled by the cross of david do you?

Incidently what would happen to a vampire if the drank the blood of someone who was HIV postive?
posted by edgeways at 3:40 PM on October 24, 2005

I think you mean star of David.
posted by konolia at 4:01 PM on October 24, 2005

C'mon, konolia, you know the cross of david! The one carried by Moses on his ark!
posted by Bugbread at 4:05 PM on October 24, 2005

The story of Jesus' early years has already been told pretty amusingly by Christopher Moore in Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal.

Which, although it didn't have any vampires, featured kung fu, Hindu gods, and Jesus repeatedly killing and resurrecting a lizard for the fun of it. It was a cute book.
posted by gurple at 4:35 PM on October 24, 2005

Yeah, I can't say I'm suprised by the Catholic turn. Roman Catholicism's all about the sumptuous robes, the resplendent, winged presences, and the torture imagery. It's a very good fit. I imagine that for her, it's rather like LARPing, only suffused with divine authority.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 5:19 PM on October 24, 2005

I fought a great battle to achieve a status where I did not have to put up with editors making demands on me, and I will never relinquish that status.

This is why it's a good thing most writers never make any money — because they are waaaaaay too likely to fall prey to situational narcissism.
posted by orange swan at 5:53 PM on October 24, 2005

Jesus' brother Bob better get a mention in her books. Poor sod.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:18 PM on October 24, 2005

According to the Wikipedia entry:
Her first novel in the genre is called CHRIST THE LORD: Out of Egypt and is the first in a trilogy that will chronicle the life of Christ.

Any truth to the rumor that part deux will be called "CHRIST! THE LORD: Look Busy"?
posted by rob511 at 8:40 PM on October 24, 2005

Some additional links on this:

Salon.com gives her new book “Christ The Lord: Out of Egypt” a positive review. This Newsweek article links to an audio excerpt and USA Today has one in print. BookPage interviewed her, as did BeliefNet and the San Diego Union Tribune.
posted by zarq at 7:49 AM on November 3, 2005