Ann Rice Has Gone Crazy!!!!!!!!!
POSTED BY: Spookyjesus
UPDATED: Wednesday, September 29, 2004 09:34
VIEWED: 13397
PAGE 1 of 5
Since we're a bunch of people that have pimped the hell out of Amazon's reviews I was wondering what you guys make of this madness.
Here's the story as best I can figure. Ann wrote a crap book. People went onto Amazon and clicked the amount of stars they felt appropriate (i.e.1 or 2) and Amazon being Amazon the reviews weren't particularly balanced or what have you - they were just user comments.
One Day Ann pops onto amazon and decides to read her feedback. Ann's not happy and posts this....
"Seldom do I really answer those who criticize my work. In fact, the entire development of my career has been fueled by my ability to ignore denigrating and trivializing criticism as I realize my dreams and my goals. However there is something compelling about Amazon's willingness to publish just about anything, and the sheer outrageous stupidity of many things you've said here that actually touches my proletarian and Democratic soul. Also I use and enjoy Amazon and I do read the reviews of other people's books in many fields. In sum, I believe in what happens here. And so, I speak.
First off, let me say that this is addressed only to some of you, who have posted outrageously negative comments here, and not to all. You are interrogating this text from the wrong perspective. Indeed, you aren't even reading it. You are projecting your own limitations on it. And you are giving a whole new meaning to the words "wide readership." And you have strained my Dickensean principles to the max. I'm justifiably proud of being read by intellectual giants and waitresses in trailer parks,in fact, I love it, but who in the world are you?
Now to the book. Allow me to point out: nowhere in this text are you told that this is the last of the chronicles, nowhere are you promised curtain calls or a finale, nowhere are you told there will be a wrap-up of all the earlier material. The text tells you exactly what to expect. And it warns you specifically that if you did not enjoy Memnoch the Devil, you may not enjoy this book. This book is by and about a hero whom many of you have already rejected. And he tells you that you are likely to reject him again. And this book is most certainly written -- every word of it -- by me. If and when I can't write a book on my own, you'll know about it.
And no, I have no intention of allowing any editor ever to distort, cut, or otherwise mutilate sentences that I have edited and re-edited, and organized and polished myself. 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. For me, novel writing is a virtuoso performance. It is not a collaborative art.
Back to the novel itself: the character who tells the tale is my Lestat. I was with him more closely than I have ever been in this novel; his voice was as powerful for me as I've ever heard it. I experienced break through after break through as I walked with him, moved with him, saw through his eyes. What I ask of Lestat, Lestat unfailingly gives. For me, three hunting scenes, two which take place in hotels -- the lone woman waiting for the hit man, the slaughter at the pimp's party -- and the late night foray into the slums --stand with any similar scenes in all of the chronicles. They can be read aloud without a single hitch. Every word is in perfect place.
The short chapter in which Lestat describes his love for Rowan Mayfair was for me a totally realized poem. There are other such scenes in this book. You don't get all this? Fine. But I experienced an intimacy with the character in those scenes that shattered all prior restraints, and when one is writing one does have to continuously and courageously fight a destructive tendency to inhibition and restraint. Getting really close to the subject matter is the achievement of only great art. Now, if it doesn't appeal to you, fine. You don't enjoy it? Read somebody else.
But your stupid arrogant assumptions about me and what I am doing are slander. And you have used this site as if it were a p
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She doesn't sound crazy at all. Just incredibly pissed off.
I agree she shouldn't have vented in that forum, though. I'm sure there is a more appropriate place that she could have let her feelings be known.
I feel sorry for her. She obviously let the flamers really get to her.
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If that's crazy, sign me up.
I've read a few of her novels, and I don't find her bad at all, but I'm not really a fan. I can understand completely why some don't like her. I know some go out of their way to bash her work. This isn't a reaction to dislike - it's a reaction to rudeness. And it's far more articulate and pointed than those kind of people deserve, really (possibly more articulate than they can understand).
Pretentious? Arrogant? Quite possibly. But then, I imagine, so were the rude reviews.
EDIT - You know, it might be helpful to put up a link, so we could see for ourselves what you're talking about. Really, you need what she was reacting to to provide context. I'm just guessing here, and I hate guessing.
Radhil Trebors
Persona Under Construction
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Quote:
Originally posted by Spookyjesus:
I was wondering what you guys make of this madness.
actually the title of this thread indicates that you think that this blog shows she has recently gone crazy, but in fact she is no more or less crazy than she has ever been...
How many years ago did they make 'Interview With a Vampire' into a movie? Maybe you don't remember but she went so far as to take out a full page ad in the NYTimes to bitch and moan about the casting of Tom Cruise. Now I can understand her not wanting him, but in fact it was a VERY successful movie and she was forced to apologize over and over again for the ad.
And were you aware that for years now she has threatened to sue fans who write fanfic based on her work? These people aren't trying to sell her characters, they are just devoted fans who want to spend more time with the characters, and she threatens them with legal action....
So personally I'm pretty sure that Ann Rice is a bit unstable and quick to make the big public display of her anger.... But I still wouldn't bother to read that book that her own fans didn't enjoy!
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Quote:And you're welcome to your opinion. I think that she responded in kind to people who were being rude and offensive. She wasn't complaining about people who didn't like the book, she was complaining about how people who didn't like the book were presenting that fact. It's one thing to say "I didn't like it at all." It's something completely different to say the things that people were saying about the book - and about her (which is completely inappropriate).
Originally posted by Spookyjesus:
I find the above to be really pretentious and not doing herself any favors. An artist shouldn't resort to the above to defend there art. If they honestly feel that they did there best work and that their creation was complete as they envisioned it that should be enough for them.
I find it messed up.
The impression I get from her message was that she's very tired of something that I am also tired of: rude people hiding behind the blanket of anonymity. People post hateful and rude reviews on Amazon with little care for the consequences of these reviews, as though it is somehow funny or something.
I'll stop there before I get into my own rant...
Rabit
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In the words of the great Kevin Smith, paraphrasing from Jay and Silent Bob, The Internet is tool where people can come together and share ideas, and instead they've used it to slag off movies and read what they believe are insider comments about scripts.
Its the same all over, people love the anonimity of the Internet, they can say whatever they want and hide behind names that make them sound cool. I find it amazing that Anne Rice has even bothered to reply. She doesnt write for the money anymore, she doesnt need it, and she is very popular, so why she bothers to read bad reviews is beyond me. I dont think she is mad, I think she is a bit silly to have bothered to respond to what are probably reviews made by people with the intelligence of boiled cabbage, or hormonal teenagers who think the world owes them everything and they know better than everyone else. She really shouldnt have bothered, it makes her look odd and it will incite more insults from those who feel slighted, and from others who want to try and drag her back into posting another response. Crazy, no. Odd, yes, if only for making all her vampires turn homo-erotic after a while for some reason. Weird.
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The original post on Amazon had no paragraph breaks - thank you, SpookyJesus for making it much more readable.
You would have thought that a best-selling author (of admittedly, fairly purple prose) would learn to use paragraph breaks.
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Jayne: "Know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I beat you with till you understand who's in command."
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Quote:
Originally posted by geordiesteve2003:
In the words of the great Kevin Smith, paraphrasing from Jay and Silent Bob, The Internet is tool where people can come together and share ideas, and instead they've used it to slag off movies and read what they believe are insider comments about scripts.
Its the same all over, people love the anonimity of the Internet, they can say whatever they want and hide behind names that make them sound cool. I find it amazing that Anne Rice has even bothered to reply. She doesnt write for the money anymore, she doesnt need it, and she is very popular, so why she bothers to read bad reviews is beyond me. I dont think she is mad, I think she is a bit silly to have bothered to respond to what are probably reviews made by people with the intelligence of boiled cabbage, or hormonal teenagers who think the world owes them everything and they know better than everyone else. She really shouldnt have bothered, it makes her look odd and it will incite more insults from those who feel slighted, and from others who want to try and drag her back into posting another response. Crazy, no. Odd, yes, if only for making all her vampires turn homo-erotic after a while for some reason. Weird.
The woman is weird. On the launch of, "Interview with a Vampire", she kicked up a fuss because it was in Horror and not in Literature apparently.
Also, I hear that she, on book tours, claims that her books will become the next great pieces of literature (in that she'll be regarded on a par with Steinbeck, Hemingway)
She's well... arrogant is kind, bat-crazy is true.
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Jayne: "Know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I beat you with till you understand who's in command."
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I've never read any Anne Rice. I've seen the Interview with the Vampire movie and it was okay, some interesting concepts there. Still, all in all, 'not my thing' comes to mind.
However, she comes off as really pretentious and arrogant. Now, I'm able to separate the creator from the creation- some of my favorite works are by people that hold views I really detest, or are egomaniacs. However, I really detest this kind of ego, where she seems to say that she considers her works absolute masterpieces, above criticism (that if you don't like it, it's either something that's a matter of taste, or you simply 'didn't get it', that every sentence is in perfect place and no editor should dare touch it!). If I were considering reading her novels, I might hesitate that much longer because of it. If you already think you're great, you're less likely to force yourself to be better.
(Back to Editors for a moment: If she said something like, 'It's really important to me that everything I write is my own words, not touched by anyone else, so even though it might not be the absolutely best way to put together a sentence, I don't want an editor telling me to change it', to me, that's absolutely fine, and her perogative. But to say that she doesn't _need_ an editor because her prose is the best it could be, a work of genius, then that's another entirely, and it's the latter that annoys me).
Star Pilot Grainger
"Remember, the enemy's gate is down."
LJ: http://www.livejournal.com/users/newnumber6
http://www.unreachablestar.net - Comics & SF News/Reviews/Opinions
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Quote:
Originally posted by StarPilotGrainger:
However, she comes off as really pretentious and arrogant.
I'll quote one phrase which is indicative of this:
"Every word is in perfect place."
Plus. If I recall correctly, she describes writing her novels as, "a virtuoso act... not an ensemble piece."
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Jayne: "Know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I beat you with till you understand who's in command."
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