The Works of Anne Rice

[ramonaq]

mrpancake said:

I really enjoyed Interview with a Vampire, but I HATED The Vampire Lestat, so I just gave up all together. I'm actually not into the genre, so I don't remember why I read it to begin with.

Huh, I think I liked The Vampire Lestat even better than Interview. But anything else of hers? Nope. Can't do it.

[Deleted]

What was the one in which Lestat went into heaven and talked to angels and then was drinking menstrual blood upon his return? Horrible.

[Shanmac]

Memnoch the Devil. That's when I knew her writing had become irreversibly shitty. The menstrual blood part had me cringing for days.

For someone who writes so much about death, AR seems like she is incapable of dealing with it. Didn't her daughter's death inspire the character of Claudia? I think she went kind of nutty when that happened, but it seems like when her husband died, it pushed her off the deep end. Shame, because I enjoyed her early books immensely. I'm tempted to drag out my copy of IwtV and read it again. I wrote a paper on it in high school. I was such a dork.

[kore]

I wish I could have written about IWtV in High School.

Yes, the drinking of menstrual blood had me a little, no a lot, grossed out. The character was called Dora, right? That character was also a bit wonky.

[Deleted]

whitefalcon said:

What was the one in which Lestat went into heaven and talked to angels and then was drinking menstrual blood upon his return? Horrible.

Wait what?

I haven't read anything by her in a very good while. Nothing after The Witching Hour, in fact. In retrospect, it might have been a wise thing to do. And then I went on to read LKH and she, too, went crazy.

What's with these vampire genre authors?

Going back to the menstrual blood--What? What? To what purpose does it serve other than to gross out the readers?

[Deleted]

Yup. If i remember correctly he comes out of some trance where he has been in heaven learnig about the fallen angels, that god is false or something, and is weak. So Dora, who is on her period gets lapped up.

Yes. *shudders* She must have forgotten her meds that day.

Didn't Anne have bypass surgery too?

I read she became some sort of born again "Christian Catholic", like the "other Catholics" have been raiding graveyards and burning black candles these days.

[biondetta]

Memnoch was the one that first really disappointed me; so much so, I guess, that I blanked out that whole scene! I enjoyed Tale of the Body Thief for certain elements of the story that I thought presented some interesting ideas, but it was definitely weaker than the previous books. I really enjoyed Queen of the Damned, with Interview being my second favorite, and Lestat being my third favorite. I think she lost her way (or had gone as far as she could go) with the vampire books after Queen. Witching Hour was probably her last good book, at least for me. Lasher had moments, but not enough. Everything from there on out became too over the top or just plain awful.

Of course, I was also a teenager when I was reading these books. I'm afraid to go back and reread any of the ones I liked back then, because I suspect I'd be annoyed with them all now. If I don't reread them, I can pretend like the ones that I liked were actually good.

[chiqui]

Didn't Anne have bypass surgery too?

I think it was gastric bypass surgery, to control her weight after she had become diabetic.

[pomegranate]

Gah, this thread is giving me awful flashbacks to Violin when her husband died and she didn't tell anyone for two days. Describing his rigor mortise and then the leaking fluids was just awful. It was that book that put me off of Anne Rice for good, I think I actually said the words, "Fuck this shit, I'm done!"

I agree that while I enjoyed her books in high school, I would never want to reread them now. It would be like reading my journals from when I was 14.

[biondetta]

Gah, this thread is giving me awful flashbacks to Violin when her husband died and she didn't tell anyone for two days. Describing his rigor mortise and then the leaking fluids was just awful.

Yeesh! I have a copy of that book, but I never really got past the first few pages. Now I'm glad I didn't!