Fresh off telling her readers they have no business criticizing her work, and that she has moved beyond needing an editor, into a realm of literary perfection that others cannot even comprehend, let alone attain, Anne Rice is taking the next logical step. She’s writing an Autobiography of Jesus Christ.
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Where does the smack some sense into a pompous wench line start?
I personally have had many urges to tell off critics of my talent or my musical style in the past myself. I guess I feel only empathy for her.
What i mean by this is this, you work hard and long on things all days and nights are spent working on something, then in one sentence someone can try to unweave the web you have spun. I see that she went into great detail trying to support her opinion. I know that people have the right to their own opinion, but I don’t see a problem with someone trying to fight for their own either.
I don’t think anyone would blame you for telling your critics to take along walk off a short pier… on the other hand, if you wrote a lengthy screed explaining how your work was perfect, the pinnacle of musical prowess, practically the work of a god, I think you can understand why people might start laughing at you. It’s not the fact that she’s fighting for her work that people are mocking her for; it’s the unbelievable tone of arrogance and hubris with which she attacks her critics. Also, perhaps, the mere fact that as an internationaly bestselling author she still allows random internet hecklers to get to her… it seems a little insecure, for someone as established as her, to feel the need to defend herself against these people.
also…
I think there’s one fundamental difference between creating music and writing fiction: the need, in the latter, for a good editor. I suppose the role of producer might be a good analogue in the music world, but the difference is that if you’re good you can self-produce and still turn out a quality product. Whereas I’ve yet to see a writer who’s work wasn’t sharpened and refined by a good editor. As a writer, you’re just too close to the work to look at it objectively and understand how the audience is going to read it. The declaration by any author that they have no need for an editor is always deeply suspect in my eyes, and indicates that they’ve let the fame go to their head. It’s true that many authors spend years wrestling with editors who don’t understand their vision, but a top-notch editor is an author’s best friend. The ones who forget that… well, Rice is a good example of what happens. Her work has deteriorated and become increasingly self-indulgent in her later books.
I have to admit, while I think arabel did a lovely job of presenting her entry, that the majority of my sympathies lie with Anne Rice as well.
1. AR nowhere claims to be perfect – she claims not to need or want an editor. That means she knows how she wants it to be and doesn’t want someone messing up her vision of what she is trying to say – none of which suggests she thinks its perfect beyond the sense that it is perfectly and exactly what she means to do. Editors very very rarely really read the text for anything other than ultrafast algorithms of correctness – and frequently alter things too subtle to be caught in scanning and thereby diminish the work.
2. Her point about having supporters is valid. IMO so is the fact that most of her supporters have better writing skills than the detractors.
3. She has balls. That is her real address as far as I recall (we have a mutual friend).
4. The guy who posts claiming she genuinely intends to write an autobiography of christ posted without even creating an account and offered no link. I have no idea whether its true, a joke or wry comment he misread, or completely imaginary. Even if it is true, so what? Piers Anthony already wrote a partial bio of sorts of christ suggesting that a mishandled circumcision may have left Jesus particularly immune to sexual temptation, and an alternate version where jesus was specifically and luridly sexually active in a redefinition of giving the water of life. Dictating who can address perceptions of what christs life may have been like is nothing more than the modern equivalent of dictating who is allowed to read the bible – its a control method and I will not play ball.
5. Ditto re self-indulgent – the books and many of the characters are self-indulgent and luxurious. why would you even imagine the author doesn’t highly value her own pleasure and pursuits? would any of these works even be the same without that quality?
No, you cannot be serious.
Oh lawks. I’m scared to think about it.