Street where the riches of ages are stowed...

[changeling]

Last night I went to Coffee Group, came back to my place with Steph, then we vamoosed over to her place (for those of you not in the know, Steph and I, though we live in the same city, live about 40k apart). Hung around for a bit; Hedda dropped over; Steph introduced me to the glories of bubble and squeak. Which is far less like porridge than I had always imagined, given the name. Bubble and squeak was also the meal that the jailer's daughter gave Toad in Wind and the Willows. Not that that's relevant or anything, I'm just saying.

Woke up at some ungodly hour this morning (numerous times). Tried to go to the lavatory, but managed to forget which side of the door the doorhandle was on. After some desperate scrabbling at the hinges, I got it right. Later had a meeting at uni to meet up with Geof, only to discover 1) the teachers were on strike, and 2) Geof wasn't there. Jess and I got our editorial intro written though. Mostly by me. If you buy a copy, the shit bits are by Jess. *whistles*

Have had complete lack of virtue tonight, and spent hours working on a coat I'm sewing rather than doing anything constructive (haha), or at least anything I'm supposed to be doing. Watched the second half of a Pertwee Dr Who episode before retiring to the family room to cut out more ruddy fabric & watch multiple episodes of Red Dwarf, then watch more of same with commentary. Then watched Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Forgot how much I loved the Portobello Road sequence. Was sole reason I was so disappointed with same when I stayed in London briefly in '99. Less because of the lack of street dancing and more because of the lack of nifty twisty streets and fabulous architecture. Also because both best friend and best friend's aunt abandoned me there and went home, unbeknownst to me, and I spent all of my money, the forty dollars Australian in my wallet, catching a London taxi back to Hammersmith. Had to walk the last way because there was a bridge that only allows foot traffic and buses to cross it in the way. Can't recall why it was so closed off.

In other news, Anne Rice is an idiot. "Your stupid arrogant assumptions about me and what I am doing are slander. And you have used this site as if it were a public urinal to publish falsehood and lies." Funny, I was always taught that what people are doing, by writing on Amazon, is libel, not slander. Slander's spoken. Unless I'm very much mistaken. Either way, I don't really care. Because I'd have to tip a full guzunder on my head to approach the same stupidity that Rice seems blessed with.

(Oh, god! Has anyone read through the first page of Blood Canticle, as previewable on Amazon? Because it's so hilariously bad.)

(And to end on a quote from Neil Gaiman, because it was too delicious not to: "I think Anne Rice going on Amazon and lambasting her critics was undoubtedly a very brave and satisfying thing for her to do, was every bit as sensible as kicking a tar baby, and, if ever I do something like that, please shoot me.")

Comments

[buhfly.livejournal.com]

I dunno who she thinks is Lestat right now, but it wasn't Lestat writing in the few pages of Blood Canticle I could choke down in the bookstore. *twitch*

I think she's unstable right now. Her husband's death hit her hard and I think she knows she has been writing sub par, starting with Pandora and now she's hit an uber defensive moment and done something she will most likely regret when her head's back together.

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

I read a page and a half and I couldn't stomach it.

I'm sure she is. But braincrazy isn't an excuse for bad art, really. And if she allowed people to edit her, rather than claiming to be infallible, she'd know this. So she doesn't want people tainting her vision? Fine. Request a very non-interventionist edit. Hell, even just a light copyedit! A *good* editor could do that easily. (I'm being trained in it right now. We stand to lose marks for being too interventionist.) At least that way your editor will tell you when you're fucking up, when you've used the wrong word (like gentile for genteel), when you've changed your character's description halfway through, only in a very careful and diplomatic way. And frankly her review only served to show how badly she needs an editor. Her grasp of the English language seems far from perfect.

I'm very sorry that she's passed through such trouble, but she's still being a prat. Like someone else (Gaiman?) said, this is the sort of thing that you bitch to your girlfriends about. This sort of public display is just not classy. She's kinda doing the three-year-old chucking a tanty because her mummy refused to buy her some sweets.

The other thing is, this is apparently not the first time she's pulled this sort of stunt. If I were on my home computer rather than at school on Macs without tabular browsing, I'd pull up the copy of an answering machine message she used to have recorded where she urged her fans to harass a reviewer who left her a bad review. It was linked on fandom_wank somewhere...I think it's on her website.

I do feel kinda sorry for her, in the same way I feel sorry for some other obnoxious people of my acquaintance. I mean, she can't be a very happy person in herself, even prior to her husband's death.

[buhfly.livejournal.com]

No, I agree, it isn't an excuse. It's just what I think is going on with her. I think she's always been arrogant, just this kind of behavior is outrageous. And I think it's escalating because she's unstable/defensive, etc.

Her work has been steadily suffering starting with Pandora (okay, or possibly Memnoch)* and up until Blackwood Farm it was a sort of torture to read them. Because it was the characters, but it was like she was losing them or something.

Then Blackwood Farm happened and it was terrible. It was exactly like someone's terrible Mary Sue fanfic. *twitch* that wasn't a sort of torture, that was PURE torture.

I'm babbling.

* I'll except Vittorio, simply because it was completely new Cs and therefore, a completely new tone was alright, somehow.

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

*nods* And as epicyclical said in her journal, the people who have reacted worst are her old fans.

I read Interview with the Vampire (a vampire? Can't remember) in year 7 or 8, and got halfway through a secondhand copy of Queen of the Damned I got at the library before giving it up as I hadn't read The Vampire Lestat. I heard so many negative comments from ex-fans of Rice that I never bothered to hunt down any more. One of my uni friends is going to lent me TVL soon, though.

*pets* I don't mind your babble at ALL.

[buhfly.livejournal.com]

Up until The Tale of the Body Thief, I was fine with it. TotBT gets into some heavy theological stuff and when I first read it (I think I was like 14?) it was kind of boring. I've re-read it since then and I like it more...but if one doesn't like theological discussions, one will hate it. Memnoch the Devil goes even further into that and it was sort of annoying because for three hundred years, Lestat was a committed athiest. That's part of why he ran off to Paris when he was young was because he flipped out when he had the idea that there is nothing after you die. He didn't believe in God.

Then all of a sudden, he does. Blah, blah, blah.

Starting with Pandora on, the writing is simply sub-par. The descriptions are not dense and in some cases, they are totally nonexistant. It takes me an average of two weeks to read an Anne Rice novel because I cannot process all the descriptions. I have to reread pages. Some people hate that, but I sort of like it. It's like immersion into the story.

I read Pandora in less than a day.

Meh. So all I'm saying is, if you're going to read them, stick with Interview With the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, Queen of the Damned (my favorite, btw), and MAYBE The Tale of the Body Thief and Memnoch the Devil. Everything else, it doesn't feel like the real histories of the characters (she's branching out into Pandora and Armand and Marius), it feels like she's making it up. And while I KNOW that's what she IS doing, it shouldn't FEEL like it.

However, if you want to read the best book she's ever written, I highly rec Cry to Heaven.

I hope you were serious when you said you don't mind my babble. *giggle*

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

I read The Name of the Rose. I don't mind GOOD theological debate. Particularly if I care about the story and the characters.

This whole "My dead husband was the inspiration for Lestat!" makes me very wary. Bit of a Gary-Stu, if you ask me. And I mistrust authors and/or characters who Get Religion and have to tell you in that way.

[I]t feels like she's making it up. And while I KNOW that's what she IS doing, it shouldn't FEEL like it.
Well, I'd disagree that a "good" author is "making it up" anyway. The reason I got stuck on the Shadow Boys was not because I couldn't think of something to happen, but because I didn't know what happened next. I think they are two different things.

I'll look it up. If I remember. *fisheh*

'Course I was. Duffer. *ruffles your hair*

[buhfly.livejournal.com]

Hey, she only started saying he was the inspiration for Lestat after he died. Do you really think she modeled Interview Lestat after her husband? He's an unredeemable bastard in that book. The only way she salvages it is by Lestat claiming Louis LIED. And then they bicker through the rest of the books over who was telling the truth. It was a brilliant plan.

I know. I do it, too, where you're waiting to "find out" what happens next. But there has to be some part of your brain that is coming up with it. So TECHNICALLY, you're making it up.

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

The only way she salvages it is by Lestat claiming Louis LIED.

...

You're fucking kidding me. That's totally lame. Because Louis = too obsessed with Truth, Beauty and his enormous ANGST to lie.


Yeah, technically. I still think there's a difference, if that makes sense.

[buhfly.livejournal.com]

It's done very well. Lestat thinks Louis' trauma made him see things in a skewed way. Blah, blah. Louis basically says, "No, you're that much of a prick, but I love you anyway."

Louis is annoying sometimes. The big pathetic baby. He's WEAK, as far as vamps go.

I'm tired.

*curls on*

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

*nods* That makes more sense. But still.

Eh, I agree. Not the sort of person I would necessarily get on with because sometimes you just want to slap him upside the head, but at least he has principles, and stuff.

TELL me about it. My particularly verbose insomniac of a best friend has been talking to me on the phone for the last four hours. And while that'd normally be fine, I'm TIRED. Plus I was kinda planning on doing stuff. Oh well.

*loffs*

[buhfly.livejournal.com]

He does have principles, and that's good, but it's like, "God, Louis, get over it." He's 300 years old or thereabouts, too. I think it's time he came to grips with the fact that he not only eats people, he doesn't even check to see if they're criminals first like Lestat.

Mostly because he's basically a human with eternal life. He has pretty much no mental powers and he's barely stronger/faster than a human.

Ew. Couldn't you say, "I love you, but I need to go pass out now"? *cuddlesup*

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

*nods* I don't really remember IwaV very well, as I read it once, nearly ten years ago...

I did, eventually. I was on the cordless and lying in my bed and almost falling asleep.

[buhfly.livejournal.com]

Haha. Have you ever fallen asleep on the phone before? I have. I felt bad.

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

Not yet. It'd be pretty funny, though.

[rincemaj.livejournal.com]

OK next time you have to warn me before you relate something like the bathroom door incident. That way I won't read it whilst drinking a glass of milk! =P

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

Heh, consider yourself warned for the whole of my blog. Just in case.

and it was the bedroom door. In my defence, Steph *does* have a whole lot of bags and coats and suchlike on it. Although I have been in there a billion times, so not so much of an excuse there.

[rincemaj.livejournal.com]

clearly you are just a plain ol' unco. ;)

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

Uncoordination has nothing to do with it, and ex-ballet girl, so I really am not. Has more to do with my fantastic ability to be up and moving before brain has rebooted.

[rincemaj.livejournal.com]

yeah yeah, all you females CLAIM to be former ballet girls... =P

my ex-housemate was a semi-pro dancer for 10 years and still managed to fall down the stairs twice in one week. So obviously dance training has nothing to do with avoiding clumsiness. QED. ;)

The question is, in your pre-reboot mode, do you groan like a zombie?

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

I was. I cannot vouch for any other females of your acquaintance, but I reached Grade 7 RAD. So neener. And I don't know many other ex-ballet people at all.

'Course, I also did gym during my formative years, but had to give it up for dance at the tender age of eight.

Nope. You're lucky to get eyes opening let alone such higher-brain functions as groans.

[rincemaj.livejournal.com]

btw, did you read Randy Milholland's take on the Anne Rice thing?

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

On his blog or on Something Positive? Because I haven't been reading my flist much recently (haven't been online much) so haven't read his journal, but I caught the Som*Pos when showing a friend the Rippy the razor comic from a month back (Remember: it's down the road, not across the street!)

[rincemaj.livejournal.com]

lol ya gotta love it

on the comic page, under the anne rice comic, he wrote a brief thing with his take on the Rice incident.

Also put a pretty good comment in his blog about it.

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

Shall check it out.