Anne Rice, what are you ON?
Sep. 22nd, 2004 02:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
louiseluxI nearly fell off my chair in disbelief at Anne Rice's reaction to critical reviews of Blood Canticle on Amazon. She replies, in a big fat tantrum the like of which I have rarely seen, to the people who have posted 'outrageously negative' comments:
"You are interrogating this text from the wrong perspective. Indeed, you aren't even reading it. You are projecting your own limitations on it."
Sorry, you can't say that, Anne. You can't say that people are reading your books the wrong way, or that they should only read them with the correct perspective snapped firmly into place, like a set of swimming goggles.
"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."
No one is that good. Still, it gave me a badly needed laugh after a morning spent in a seminar on focus groups.
ETA: although it strikes me that laughing might not be entirely fair. On second reading her diatribe suggests that she's not quite right, somehow, mentally.
"You are interrogating this text from the wrong perspective. Indeed, you aren't even reading it. You are projecting your own limitations on it."
Sorry, you can't say that, Anne. You can't say that people are reading your books the wrong way, or that they should only read them with the correct perspective snapped firmly into place, like a set of swimming goggles.
"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."
No one is that good. Still, it gave me a badly needed laugh after a morning spent in a seminar on focus groups.
ETA: although it strikes me that laughing might not be entirely fair. On second reading her diatribe suggests that she's not quite right, somehow, mentally.
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no subject
Date: 2004-09-22 01:11 pm (UTC)It seems to have drawn overwhelming reactions for fans of many different fandoms and (thanks perhaps to LJ and similar public debate areas) many are not of Anne Rice's fandom.
To me the rant reads as either a very immature hissy fit or a way of lashing out at pent up frustration and pressure from countless different things.
It is a pity for her and for genuine fans of her work as this is undoubtly what she will be remembered for. Not her dead-tree works but an internet attack on people who were expressing their personal opinions on what the end of a favourite series.
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Date: 2004-09-23 03:54 am (UTC)