Where was this offer eight books ago?

Stung by negative reviews, Anne Rice tells the folks who posted Blood Canticle critiques on Amazon.com that they're welcome to mail her a request for a full refund.

So sayeth "Vampire Queen vs. Amazon," (Toronto Star, Sep 22, 04), an article with a headline that promises a much different type of story.

If you've got a half hour to kill, I suggest going to the Amazon.com page (linked from the book title above), because the whole thing has turned into what Internet scholars can title Exhibit A in the piece "Chum in the Waters: Why Celebrities Makes Their Fans Look Like Idiots Online." Rice's original review is too good not to post in its entirety below, but the much more salient news is this: fans are reporting that she gave out a false address in her post. Heh. Talk about a refund with strings attached.

And now, the Rice review. I've taken the liberty of inserting paragraph breaks where it made the most sense -- and I use "sense" in the loosest interpretation possible. If she's to be believed, it's the most editing she's been subjected to in years.

Seldom do I really answer those who criticize my work. In fact, the entire development of my career has been fueled by my ability to ignore denigrating and trivializing criticism as I realize my dreams and my goals. However there is something compelling about Amazon's willingness to publish just about anything, and the sheer outrageous stupidity of many things you've said here that actually touches my proletarian and Democratic soul. Also I use and enjoy Amazon and I do read the reviews of other people's books in many fields. In sum, I believe in what happens here. And so, I speak.

First off, let me say that this is addressed only to some of you, who have posted outrageously negative comments here, and not to all. You are interrogating this text from the wrong perspective. Indeed, you aren't even reading it. You are projecting your own limitations on it. And you are giving a whole new meaning to the words "wide readership." And you have strained my Dickensean principles to the max. I'm justifiably proud of being read by intellectual giants and waitresses in trailer parks,in fact, I love it, but who in the world are you?

Now to the book. Allow me to point out: nowhere in this text are you told that this is the last of the chronicles, nowhere are you promised curtain calls or a finale, nowhere are you told there will be a wrap-up of all the earlier material. The text tells you exactly what to expect. And it warns you specifically that if you did not enjoy Memnoch the Devil, you may not enjoy this book. This book is by and about a hero whom many of you have already rejected. And he tells you that you are likely to reject him again.

And this book is most certainly written -- every word of it -- by me. If and when I can't write a book on my own, you'll know about it. 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. It is not a collaborative art.

Back to the novel itself: the character who tells the tale is my Lestat. I was with him more closely than I have ever been in this novel; his voice was as powerful for me as I've ever heard it. I experienced break through after break through as I walked with him, moved with him, saw through his eyes. What I ask of Lestat, Lestat unfailingly gives.

For me, three hunting scenes, two which take place in hotels -- the lone woman waiting for the hit man, the slaughter at the pimp's party -- and the late night foray into the slums --stand with any similar scenes in all of the chronicles. They can be read aloud without a single hitch. Every word is in perfect place. The short chapter in which Lestat describes his love for Rowan Mayfair was for me a totally realized poem. There are other such scenes in this book.

You don't get all this? Fine. But I experienced an intimacy with the character in those scenes that shattered all prior restraints, and when one is writing one does have to continuously and courageously fight a destructive tendency to inhibition and restraint. Getting really close to the subject matter is the achievement of only great art.

Now, if it doesn't appeal to you, fine. You don't enjoy it? Read somebody else. But 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. I'll never challenge your democratic freedom to do so, and yes, I'm answering you, but for what it's worth, be assured of the utter contempt I feel for you, especially those of you who post anonymously (and perhaps repeatedly?) and how glad I am that this book is the last one in a series that has invited your hateful and ugly responses.

Now, to return to the narrative in question: Lestat's wanting to be a saint is a vision larded through and through with his characteristic vanity. It connects perfectly with his earlier ambitions to be an actor in Paris, a rock star in the modern age. If you can't see that, you aren't reading my work. In his conversation with the Pope he makes observations on the times which are in continuity with his observations on the late twentieth century in The Vampire Lestat, and in continuity with Marius' observations in that book and later in Queen of the Damned. The state of the world has always been an important theme in the chronicles. Lestat's comments matter. Every word he speaks is part of the achievement of this book. That Lestat renounced this saintly ambition within a matter of pages is plain enough for you to see. That he reverts to his old self is obvious, and that he intends to complete the tale of Blackwood Farm is also quite clear.

There are many other themes and patterns in this work that I might mention -- the interplay between St.Juan Diago and Lestat, the invisible creature who doesn't "exist" in the eyes of the world is a case in point. There is also the theme of the snare of Blackwood Farm, the place where a human existence becomes so beguiling that Lestat relinquishes his power as if to a spell. The entire relationship between Lestat and Uncle Julien is carefully worked out.

But I leave it to readers to discover how this complex and intricate novel establishes itself within a unique, if not unrivalled series of book. There are things to be said. And there is pleasure to be had.

And readers will say wonderful things about Blood Canticle and they already are. There are readers out there and plenty of them who cherish the individuality of each of the chronicles which you so flippantly condemn. They can and do talk circles around you. And I am warmed by their response. Their letters, the papers they write in school, our face to face exchanges on the road -- these things sustain me when I read the utter trash that you post.

But I feel I have said enough. If this reaches one reader who is curious about my work and shocked by the ugly reviews here, I've served my goals.

And Yo, you dude, the slang police! Lestat talks like I do. He always has and he always will. You really wouldn't much like being around either one of us. And you don't have to be.

If any of you want to say anything about all this by all means Email me at Anneobrienrice@mac.com. And if you want your money back for the book, send it to 1239 First Street, New Orleans, La, 70130. I'm not a coward about my real name or where I live. And yes, the Chronicles are no more! Thank God!

Given her revelation that she doesn't let editors anywhere near her deathless prose -- not really a surprise to anyone who's read her, but I suppose it's news to some -- I can only imagine what it must have been like for the Salon editor who worked with her in 96 on the "Servant of the Bones" diaries.

Comments

[Ely]

It appears that the review has now been taken down from Amazon. Maybe Ms. Rice should have remembered to "Think twice, post once"?

[Lisa]

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Well, then, I'm glad that I captured it for posterity. I only regret not taking screencaps too.

[Alexandra]

Oh thank you thank you for posting this! I thought it was gone for good. It's something of a revolution in the fanfiction world (which I sheepishly inhabit, because I decided I wasn't enough of a loser already) - a canon author using badfic-author excuses? "If you don't appreciate it, it's because you don't understand it," "It's MY story, so there!" and "Don't like it? Don't read it!" are whiny little defenses usually found in the Pit of Voles at fanfiction.net, home of 14-year old fangirls and little else.

It's sort of like the circle is complete, in some hideous way: the canon author has become the hyper-defensive badfic author, flinging the most overused excuses at anyone who defies her. This has got to be why Al Gore invented the internet.

[Amanda]

If you really want a screen capture, Google is still caching the review. There are, in fact, no reviews of the book between April 27th and September 23rd - her original review was posted September 6th. Further perusal of the Google cache (along with common sense) indicate that a massive hack job was done deleting a large group of posts.

[eulailyan_mikoto]

What a shame. You'd think at being the ripe old age of 63, she'd show a little more maturity than that.

[ginger]

The review is there, as are responses, and responses to the responses, but there's nothing between the April reviews and her comment Sept 6. It does indeed appear that some of the reviews were deleted, given that there are 216 today and there were 232 at the time of the Toronto Star piece. I even checked the Canadian website for Amazon and, nope.
I suspect, though, the deleted reviews were probably those that violated the review guidelines (no profanity, no spoilers.) But who can tell?