I feel sorry for Anne Rice
Sep. 22nd, 2004 04:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
msagaraI don't know how many of you have seen the response she posted at amazon.com to reviews about her latest novel, Blood Canticle, but I'm assuming by this time many of you have -- because things like that tend to get around.
I read it with a kind of horrified fascination -- because, of course, it's the type of thing you think when you're very unhappy about a particularly nasty or incomprehensible review, which affects you say, when you're in the throes of PMS, etc.; the type of thing you might, in fact, grind out against a friend's shoulder in bitter frustration. Never the type of thing you post in public.
Otoh, she's always been a fairly public person, and she's not known for her lack of opinion about her work. How do I know this? Because I also visited her web site after I'd read her commentary. She's pretty clear about what she wants, and about how she views her own writing. And it's damn clear, reading her words there, that that lovely patina of detachment that writers are supposed to develop in public about their work and the comments or reactions it engenders? She hasn't. Ever.
Proof, of a sort, that you don't necessarily have to develop these calluses in order to be a million copy+ bestseller. Yes, that was a digression.
Do I agree with what she said? No. I don't think that people who didn't like it are clearly stupid or of lesser intellectual capacity. I think speculating on why the book didn't work -- that she was tramautized by the death of her husband and it affected her work, or that he must have been writing the other books because now he's dead and this one 'sucks' -- gives me some information about how seriously I should take the reviewer, and I understand why she might feel a sense of outrage at the implication that the words weren't hers. I think talking about the genius of one's own work is always teetering on the edge of wise (the wrong edge), but frankly, I've heard so many damn authors say the same things about their own work, either publicly or in chat rooms with a large number of people, that I guess it slides off the hard skin; it doesn't surprise me. It doesn't offend me.
What I find somewhat bewildering is the hostility that the counter engendered. She is clearly emotionally invested in her work to such a degree that she can't detach once the book has gone out of her hands; she's done something inadvisable and even publicly embarrassing (to herself), but I understand the source of the reaction because she's demonstrably not capable of not taking it personally; the work is what she has.
Do I advise anyone else to do this? Not on your damn life. And I would be eternally grateful to anyone who stopped me from doing something equally ill-advised; that's what spouses are for, poor sods.
The anger and scorn and derision and general cruelty that arose in response to her comments? I understand that less well. I don't understand that it comes from the same place; there's obviously no one with that same visceral attachment, that same inability to let go, because it's not their work. Yes, it's published. Yes, it's now open to public commentary, and yes people on Amazon have every right to post their opinions; I'm not arguing against that.
It's the reviews, if you will, of her response to the reviews that I find almost creepy. Or mob-like. Or something. It's like, "Okay, she's down and she's exposed a very stupid vulnerability, so let's all get together and kick her and giggle." I understand bonding exercises, and things that draw a group together in fun -- but this kind of fun is not my kind of fun. There's not a lot of malice in her words, that I can see; a lot of rage and obvious pain, but not a lot of malice; she's right there, in her words. She's completely exposed. There's a sh*tload of malice coming from other people, and it doesn't seem to come from a place of pain.
A better way to put this: She's not knowingly lying. She didn't knowingly turn out a bad book. She's not misinforming others to their detriment. Will the book make money for her? Yes, but not in a scam-artist way. I can understand a group assembling around any of these other things, because it seems to me to serve a purpose. Not entirely getting the purpose served here. (And Graydon, if you're reading this and you attempt to tell me this is some value of poor insecurity management, we'll have words <wry g>.)
My reaction to Rice's post is, as I said, a certain horrified fascination; it's like watching something implode. Or worse. But I'm wincing at it. If she came into my store tomorrow and screamed her head off, using more or less the same words? I'd grind my teeth and say nothing, and feel sorry for her because of the obvious cracks in the façade; but I'd be thinking, while I did it, there but for the grace of something-or-other go I. You build a lot of walls in this business, and it's like watching a car accident when they come down in this particular fashion.
I'm not immune to disaster scenes. I'm probably a lesser person because of this. I have to go and look. Why? Because obviously I'm stupid. And I have an edge. Just not that much of one.
I read it with a kind of horrified fascination -- because, of course, it's the type of thing you think when you're very unhappy about a particularly nasty or incomprehensible review, which affects you say, when you're in the throes of PMS, etc.; the type of thing you might, in fact, grind out against a friend's shoulder in bitter frustration. Never the type of thing you post in public.
Otoh, she's always been a fairly public person, and she's not known for her lack of opinion about her work. How do I know this? Because I also visited her web site after I'd read her commentary. She's pretty clear about what she wants, and about how she views her own writing. And it's damn clear, reading her words there, that that lovely patina of detachment that writers are supposed to develop in public about their work and the comments or reactions it engenders? She hasn't. Ever.
Proof, of a sort, that you don't necessarily have to develop these calluses in order to be a million copy+ bestseller. Yes, that was a digression.
Do I agree with what she said? No. I don't think that people who didn't like it are clearly stupid or of lesser intellectual capacity. I think speculating on why the book didn't work -- that she was tramautized by the death of her husband and it affected her work, or that he must have been writing the other books because now he's dead and this one 'sucks' -- gives me some information about how seriously I should take the reviewer, and I understand why she might feel a sense of outrage at the implication that the words weren't hers. I think talking about the genius of one's own work is always teetering on the edge of wise (the wrong edge), but frankly, I've heard so many damn authors say the same things about their own work, either publicly or in chat rooms with a large number of people, that I guess it slides off the hard skin; it doesn't surprise me. It doesn't offend me.
What I find somewhat bewildering is the hostility that the counter engendered. She is clearly emotionally invested in her work to such a degree that she can't detach once the book has gone out of her hands; she's done something inadvisable and even publicly embarrassing (to herself), but I understand the source of the reaction because she's demonstrably not capable of not taking it personally; the work is what she has.
Do I advise anyone else to do this? Not on your damn life. And I would be eternally grateful to anyone who stopped me from doing something equally ill-advised; that's what spouses are for, poor sods.
The anger and scorn and derision and general cruelty that arose in response to her comments? I understand that less well. I don't understand that it comes from the same place; there's obviously no one with that same visceral attachment, that same inability to let go, because it's not their work. Yes, it's published. Yes, it's now open to public commentary, and yes people on Amazon have every right to post their opinions; I'm not arguing against that.
It's the reviews, if you will, of her response to the reviews that I find almost creepy. Or mob-like. Or something. It's like, "Okay, she's down and she's exposed a very stupid vulnerability, so let's all get together and kick her and giggle." I understand bonding exercises, and things that draw a group together in fun -- but this kind of fun is not my kind of fun. There's not a lot of malice in her words, that I can see; a lot of rage and obvious pain, but not a lot of malice; she's right there, in her words. She's completely exposed. There's a sh*tload of malice coming from other people, and it doesn't seem to come from a place of pain.
A better way to put this: She's not knowingly lying. She didn't knowingly turn out a bad book. She's not misinforming others to their detriment. Will the book make money for her? Yes, but not in a scam-artist way. I can understand a group assembling around any of these other things, because it seems to me to serve a purpose. Not entirely getting the purpose served here. (And Graydon, if you're reading this and you attempt to tell me this is some value of poor insecurity management, we'll have words <wry g>.)
My reaction to Rice's post is, as I said, a certain horrified fascination; it's like watching something implode. Or worse. But I'm wincing at it. If she came into my store tomorrow and screamed her head off, using more or less the same words? I'd grind my teeth and say nothing, and feel sorry for her because of the obvious cracks in the façade; but I'd be thinking, while I did it, there but for the grace of something-or-other go I. You build a lot of walls in this business, and it's like watching a car accident when they come down in this particular fashion.
I'm not immune to disaster scenes. I'm probably a lesser person because of this. I have to go and look. Why? Because obviously I'm stupid. And I have an edge. Just not that much of one.
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Date: 2004-09-22 06:31 am (UTC)This is probably the best thing that could come out of it -- those of us with a short fuse print out a copy and post it beside our computers <wry g>.
It's interesting how many people are comparing her to a fanfic writer who can't take criticism -- because what she's responding to isn't the kind of measured criticism fanfic can get. I wonder how much of that is due to her status as a "genre" author -- a bestselling one, to be sure, but still someone without "literary" prestige.
I don't write fanfic, and I don't read it, so I don't always understand the subculture. Could you expand on this a bit?
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Date: 2004-09-22 08:04 am (UTC)I feel sympathy for her because of all the ill-conceived missives I've fired off in the past -- I feel a lot of sympathy with Twain, who said his wife picked up his angry letters before they reached the post and waited a day to see if he still felt like mailing them, and thanked her for it. If poor Anne had posted it on her website or even just sent it round to her email list it might not have even set off such a fuss.
I don't write fanfic, and I don't read it, so I don't always understand the subculture. Could you expand on this a bit?
Errrrrrrrrrr. Well, expanding on fanfic could take a while....heh. There's some tension in fanfic-writing communities I've observed about criticism -- there are people who treat it as serious literary work and engage in literary critiques that wouldn't shame a workshop, and then there are people who write it mainly for fun and aren't looking so much for critiques. And as much as any author is touchy about having their work criticized, it can be exponential for someone who's written fanfic, because it's "just for fun" or "not professional" &c. I think people who've been on fanfic mailing lists, or places like ff.net (which I actually do not encourage you to visit) have all seen the phenomenon of some fanfic writer who's been criticized ("Vampires can't walk down the street at noon") and who goes into a big harangue about what
It's just weird, to people who've encountered that tone, to see that her replies to specific things people have said -- oh, her husband just died, oh, her husband wrote everything, this isn't Lestat, she's phoning it in, &c -- also spookily echo a fanfic writer who is just incensed at the received criticism. It was interesting to hear how someone else thought maybe her husband had served as a sort of shield -- in my (admittedly v limited experience) one of the first things you learn as a writer is that some people Just Won't Like what you do (or may just Have It In for you), and you have to distinguish between that and genuine, helpful criticism.
I do also think a number of living authors are just getting tired of what they dislike about Amazon.com reviews -- reviews which are too short, have nothing to do with the book, which are so poorly written they're barely readable -- and on the Internet, unfortunately we can all type out our messages and send them near-instantaneously. Mark Twain's wife wouldn't've stood a chance. To me it reads entirely like some poor pissed-off author in the middle of the night banging out a paragraphless sreed and then just pushing that SEND key in a high holy binge of frustration and misery. The action feels nearly irresistible at the time, and it almost always just engenders more misery afterward.