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October 19, 2014 3:37 PM Subscribe
Completely off-topic, for some reason I was conflating Anne Rice with Poppy Z. Brite, which got me to thinking about Poppy Z. Brite, and so I wanted to see what she was up to, and it turns out that he is not up to much at all. Interesting stuff!
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:53 PM on October 19, 2014 [6 favorites]
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:53 PM on October 19, 2014 [6 favorites]
Yup, this is awesome.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 3:54 PM on October 19, 2014
posted by Potomac Avenue at 3:54 PM on October 19, 2014
I at least trust she's not interrogating any of the texts from the wrong perspective.
posted by kmz at 3:54 PM on October 19, 2014 [6 favorites]
posted by kmz at 3:54 PM on October 19, 2014 [6 favorites]
I love that Ann Rice acts like a normal person on the internet.
That's the best part, she actually acts nothing like most people. She's really thoughtful and positive! I wish I was Ann Rice.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 3:55 PM on October 19, 2014 [5 favorites]
That's the best part, she actually acts nothing like most people. She's really thoughtful and positive! I wish I was Ann Rice.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 3:55 PM on October 19, 2014 [5 favorites]
I like to pretend everyone is nice. That little act of daily self-delusion makes life on earth tolerable.
posted by latkes at 4:08 PM on October 19, 2014 [10 favorites]
posted by latkes at 4:08 PM on October 19, 2014 [10 favorites]
Earlier this year, I read a biography of George Eliot that Anne Rice highly recommended. I was amused to find that George Eliot apparently shared AR's feelings about critics (they interrogate from the wrong perspective).
posted by betweenthebars at 4:09 PM on October 19, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by betweenthebars at 4:09 PM on October 19, 2014 [1 favorite]
I at least trust she's not interrogating any of the texts from the wrong perspective.
I saw a reference to this the other day, laughed, realized that the thing I was laughing about had gone down in the distant past, and suddenly felt a thousand year old.
posted by showbiz_liz at 4:38 PM on October 19, 2014 [3 favorites]
I saw a reference to this the other day, laughed, realized that the thing I was laughing about had gone down in the distant past, and suddenly felt a thousand year old.
posted by showbiz_liz at 4:38 PM on October 19, 2014 [3 favorites]
Ha... there's a currently an image going around Tumblr talking about calling "Read More" 'under the cut' and hoo boy that brought up a whole lot of memories.
posted by kmz at 4:52 PM on October 19, 2014
posted by kmz at 4:52 PM on October 19, 2014
I read the first two Vampire books back in the early 80's as freshman in High School and was so in love with them that I actually wrote to her, something I hadn't done before or since (write to an author.) It was the absolute highlight of my teenage life when she actually took the time to write back. It wasn't a form letter either, it was a 2-page handwritten letter answering all my questions and asking her own. Classy, that one.
posted by crayon at 5:18 PM on October 19, 2014 [14 favorites]
posted by crayon at 5:18 PM on October 19, 2014 [14 favorites]
I love that Ann Rice acts like a normal person on the internet.
...a normal person who's into Victorian flagellation erotica. Although it explains her 5-stars for Gibson's Passion of Christ.
posted by ennui.bz at 5:37 PM on October 19, 2014 [5 favorites]
...a normal person who's into Victorian flagellation erotica. Although it explains her 5-stars for Gibson's Passion of Christ.
posted by ennui.bz at 5:37 PM on October 19, 2014 [5 favorites]
Wow, that was great! I read the first three vampire books and I remember loving them. I also liked how the paperbacks with their wrinkled but coordinating spines looked sitting together on my bookshelf. I guess it's time to have digital copies and reread some old favorites and maybe go deeper into the series. In any event, Anne Rice seems awesome. A refreshing tonic to the catfish author craziness post!
posted by danabanana at 5:45 PM on October 19, 2014
posted by danabanana at 5:45 PM on October 19, 2014
I love that Ann Rice acts like a normal person on the internet.
Yeah I guess this is normal.
posted by Brocktoon at 8:00 PM on October 19, 2014 [2 favorites]
Yeah I guess this is normal.
posted by Brocktoon at 8:00 PM on October 19, 2014 [2 favorites]
I couldn't tell whether this was ironic or not, especially this bit: "As I read forward chronologically, a lot of the reviews became — like her novels — longer, which I was happy about, because I am captivated by her words." In the end I had to conclude that no, this lady is sincere. She really digs Anne Rice. And Wuthering Heights (shudder).
I loved the first three vampire books, which for me are the canon: Interview, Lestat and Queen of the Damned. After that, they went a bit off. Some were still okay. I think I gave up after Pandora, well before the hissy fit about how an editor will no longer touch her precious words. That was the nail in the coffin when I heard about it, and for me explained a lot about why her work had gone downhill.
It's nice that she's so positive in her reviews, though. I mightn't care for her work anymore, but it's good that she has an army of devoted fans. Everyone should.
posted by Athanassiel at 8:38 PM on October 19, 2014
I loved the first three vampire books, which for me are the canon: Interview, Lestat and Queen of the Damned. After that, they went a bit off. Some were still okay. I think I gave up after Pandora, well before the hissy fit about how an editor will no longer touch her precious words. That was the nail in the coffin when I heard about it, and for me explained a lot about why her work had gone downhill.
It's nice that she's so positive in her reviews, though. I mightn't care for her work anymore, but it's good that she has an army of devoted fans. Everyone should.
posted by Athanassiel at 8:38 PM on October 19, 2014
Not to derail from Anne Rice, but it seems Amazon reviews are becoming something of a literary form. For example, Bay Area avant-garde writer and poet Kevin Killian is a stunningly prolific reviewer whose reviews range in style and tone from sincere and insightful to comically absurd.
posted by treepour at 9:16 PM on October 19, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by treepour at 9:16 PM on October 19, 2014 [2 favorites]
Newt Gingrich also writes see a lot of amazon review s. He likes pulpy novels and historical fiction and sticks to recreational reading.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 11:13 PM on October 19, 2014
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 11:13 PM on October 19, 2014
Anne Rice is forever pigeonholed in my brain as a very weird, cranky (see already-referenced 2004 debacle) author of vampire novels and Victorian S&M erotica, so I am both surprised and charmed by this article. I don't know why, but the image of Anne Rice putting in a DVD of Benny and Joon or Little Women when the world just becomes too much is quite delightful to me.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 1:13 AM on October 20, 2014
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 1:13 AM on October 20, 2014
Man, that was great. Like the author, I devoured Ann Rice, reading some books multiple times, until I was suddenly and totally finished and haven't picked one up since.
Wow, I'm not alone. Being done with Anne Rice was like falling off a cliff. Made the mistake of watching Interview recently. My God did that movie fail in every conceivable way.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 5:01 AM on October 20, 2014
Wow, I'm not alone. Being done with Anne Rice was like falling off a cliff. Made the mistake of watching Interview recently. My God did that movie fail in every conceivable way.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 5:01 AM on October 20, 2014
Somebody needs to do an FPP on the feud between Anne Rice and Popeye's chicken mogul Al Copeland which started because she thought the restaurant he built on St. Charles Avenue was tacky. The New York Times mentions it here but doesn't really get into the absurdity of the city's two most prominent ciitzens spewing vile at one another over the subject of taste in architecture.
posted by bukvich at 6:50 AM on October 20, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by bukvich at 6:50 AM on October 20, 2014 [1 favorite]
Oh, I miss Poppy Z. Brite. His journal entries from the time of Katrina were heartwrenching. It makes me sad to think he gave up writing, but I guess he'd be the world's greatest expert on what's the best thing for him.
posted by BibiRose at 6:59 AM on October 20, 2014
posted by BibiRose at 6:59 AM on October 20, 2014
turbid dahlia: for some reason I was conflating Anne Rice with Poppy Z. Brite
What I find super-weird about that is not the apparently total lack of reason for the conflation, but that I did exactly the same thing for a long period of time.
posted by lodurr at 7:18 AM on October 20, 2014
What I find super-weird about that is not the apparently total lack of reason for the conflation, but that I did exactly the same thing for a long period of time.
posted by lodurr at 7:18 AM on October 20, 2014
I agree that critics tend to 'interrogate from the wrong perspective', though I can't honestly say I agree with Ann Rice about that since I don't know what she meant. But I find that critics aren't usually very adept at adopting the reader's perspective, and often not very adept at telling when they're unaware of their own.
It's not their job to adopt the writer's perspective and to the extent that they do so, I think it's not good 'criticism.'
posted by lodurr at 7:22 AM on October 20, 2014
It's not their job to adopt the writer's perspective and to the extent that they do so, I think it's not good 'criticism.'
posted by lodurr at 7:22 AM on October 20, 2014
I'm baffled by the tendency of half the posters here to call her "Ann Rice" and the rest to use "Anne Rice". Is this just my own cultural illiteracy, did I miss some meme where we refuse to spell her name the way she prefers? Or is this just honest error?
posted by elizilla at 7:59 AM on October 20, 2014
posted by elizilla at 7:59 AM on October 20, 2014
No, you missed the meme where we (including me) are too lazy to look it up.
posted by lodurr at 8:26 AM on October 20, 2014
posted by lodurr at 8:26 AM on October 20, 2014
> "...a normal person who's into Victorian flagellation erotica."
Um. Is that ... not normal?
posted by kyrademon at 10:04 AM on October 20, 2014 [2 favorites]
Um. Is that ... not normal?
posted by kyrademon at 10:04 AM on October 20, 2014 [2 favorites]
So she liked the movie of Interview, but did she like the movie of Lestat?
posted by Obscure Reference at 10:12 AM on October 20, 2014
posted by Obscure Reference at 10:12 AM on October 20, 2014
>> It wasn't a form letter either, it was a 2-page handwritten letter answering all my questions and asking her own. Classy, that one.
On his episode of 'The Nerdist Writer's Panel' Bryan Fuller talks about calling Anne Rice when he was thirteen. Starts about 37 minutes into the episode.
posted by the_artificer at 10:19 AM on October 20, 2014 [1 favorite]
On his episode of 'The Nerdist Writer's Panel' Bryan Fuller talks about calling Anne Rice when he was thirteen. Starts about 37 minutes into the episode.
posted by the_artificer at 10:19 AM on October 20, 2014 [1 favorite]
Pretty neat post, thanks for sharing!
Oh, and for the record, Interview with a Vampire was better as a movie than as a book.
posted by Vindaloo at 2:57 PM on October 20, 2014
Oh, and for the record, Interview with a Vampire was better as a movie than as a book.
posted by Vindaloo at 2:57 PM on October 20, 2014
oh my yes. but louis was still a nebbish, even played by pitt.
posted by lodurr at 7:07 PM on October 20, 2014
posted by lodurr at 7:07 PM on October 20, 2014
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They're great not just for goth teens but for precocious outsider teens in general and especially for queer (in the old-fashioned kinky sense) teens.
I love that Ann Rice acts like a normal person on the internet.
posted by latkes at 3:44 PM on October 19, 2014 [4 favorites]