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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

Interview with Baby Jesus - Anne Rice writes a novel of Christ as a child.

19:47 / 25.10.05

After 25 novels of vampirism and other "gothic" themes, Rice has returned to the catholic church and now may be going the Mel Gibson route.

Instead of bloodsuckers she writes stories about little Jesus giving life to clay birds and studying in Alexandria.

Is this just weird? Could this be successful? Would you actually read it?

Full article here.

Keith, like a scientist

20:02 / 25.10.05

Astounding.

20:51 / 25.10.05

'Jesu, as a youth,
To Alexandria came
Where the men went with boys
And the girls did the same.

Where was peacocks and temples
And beautiful things
Magick and learning
And soft, sighing strings.

Beautiful Jesus
How hard to return
To crappy old Isreal
Where the sun always burns

Most beautiful Jesu,
With his long golden hair
He would die in Golgotha
It was really not fair.

Oh Jesus, sweet Jesus
I wouldn't mention it twice,
But is this, for the author,
The last roll of the dice?'

I don't know about anyone else, but if I was an active god form, still worshiped all round the world for whatever reason, for better or worse, I'd now be thinking very hard about ways to make sure that Ann Rice could never, ever, hear surf music again.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

21:02 / 25.10.05

On the bright side, at least she's shut up about the fucking vampires.

A fall of geckos

21:04 / 25.10.05

It looks like she's working fairly directly from some of the New Testament Apocrypha, which I'd normally find interesting. These always seemed to me to be the missing part of the JC Origin Story. Christ as a kid coming to grips with his cool and confusing powers.

It'd be good to see a modern version of these, but I haven't got much confidence in Ann Rice as a writer. I enjoyed Interview With A Vampire when I first read it. This was at about the time the second in the series was published, so I picked that up and thought it was ok but a lot less tightly written. The third book was a mass of purple prose, as has been the case with anything else of her's that I've tried. I appreciate that she's trying for a particular effect - attempting to overload the imaginative senses to create an atmosphere of decadence - but this just doesn't work for me.

I might pick this up out of curiosity. If she starts playing games with the writing style (such as appropriating a more biblical style) I'd be much more interested.

21:18 / 25.10.05

Has anybody read Anne Rice's rebuke of criticism on Amazon.com? She comes off as a crazy person. No joke.

I think Anne Rice should be simply ignored. I don't think she has anything interesting to say about anything. The Goth kids want their vampires? Watch any movie nowadays, where vampires are sexy tortured souls without any interests other than fucking. I know this idea comes from Rice, or at least her intrepretation of it is the most popular, but really, who gives shit? Rice's texts are simply cliched teenage malaise.

But on the other hand, I would love to see Rice's intrepretation of JC as a sexy, leather-wearing satyr.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

21:28 / 25.10.05

(In a spooky coincidence, I'm currently watching a documentary about a guy who killed his best mate after allegedly becoming obsessed with the movie Queen Of The Damned. To be honest, that film made me want to kill as well, but only people involved in its production).

I vaguely enjoyed Interview With The Vampire- I was about 19 or 20 at the time, and I can remember thinking "man, I'd have loved this when I was 16".

22:10 / 25.10.05

I too watched that documentary Stoatie and was horrified, though more by hearing the accents of my birthplace than anything else.

This Anne Rice devlopment doesn't surprise me much. Memnoch was the last thing of hers I struggled through and it was full of biblical rehash. The miracle of the Veil of Veronica at the Sixth Station of the Cross was written to death there in her customarty clunky prose. I enjoyed the first couple of Louis / Lestat books and struggled on through the next few, hoping for the best, but 'twas not to be. Her historical inaccuracies offended the pedant in me since they were so glaring and might easily have been caught with the tiniest bit of research.

Revisiting the Gospels will be perfect from her point of view and some of her old audience may slavishly follow her but it's hard to see this appealing to the US Christian market unless her homoeroticism has been binned too.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

07:31 / 26.10.05

I would mind less if she stops printing her husband's godawful poetry in it.

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18:15 / 26.10.05

My dad brought home a copy of this new Anne Rice book about a month ago. I flipped through it but didn't find much to like. I will admit I liked the first 3 Vampire novels she did, and I do really like her witch trilogy, but the rest.... avoid!

Oh well, at least she has a hot son.

Forced into this conversation

16:00 / 27.10.05

You know, when I read the abstract... for a second I thought Anne Rice writes about Big Baby Jesus!

Whoa!

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

20:09 / 27.10.05

Kind of (well, actually, completely) off-topic, but the question "Was Jesus a vampire?" asked in the topic can be answered by JG Eccarius's novel The Last Days Of Christ The Vampire, which I seem to remember being quite fun, though heavy on the problems with most "anarcho-punk lit" (for want of a better term)- heavy on the ideology and enthusiasm, not quite so heavy on the readability of the prose. As I say, though, I seem to remember it was immensely enjoyable.

13:32 / 28.10.05

It'll be an interesting read I think. At least she'll put some passion into it. Though I lost heart with Anne after starting and not finishing Menoch the Devil.

The Gospel of Anne?

ONLY NICE THINGS

20:54 / 28.10.05

jesus as vampire is also covered in the Grant Morrison/Mark Milalr run of Vampirella, for what it's worth. It's a pretty clear identification, which makes the Christ=Vampire=t3h Ghey thing potentially a locus of some real oddness, which I suspect Rice will largely not recognise.