Anne Rice in NPR interview - mentions John Edward

[specious_reasons]

Did anyone else catch this interview with Anne Rice on NPR?

http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=1477768

Unable to quote from it directly, but in the interview, she states that she had a sitting with John Edward, who (paraphrased) told her things only her husband knew.

In the same interview, she speculates that the ghosts in her house must be happy with the current tenants (her), because she's never seen them.

You know, I didn't like very many of her recent books, I'm beginning to understand why.

[Clancie]

It was televised on CO--a reading with Anne Rice, her husband and son at her home.

The main information they showed JE giving was about her son's friend who had died. (She said later that he was the person she was most hoping to hear from, since her son was still having problems with the death--if I'm remembering correctly, by suicide).

[Ratman_tf]

Originally posted by specious_reasons

In the same interview, she speculates that the ghosts in her house must be happy with the current tenants (her), because she's never seen them.


Lisa: For instance, I could say this rock keeps tigers away.

Homer: How so?

Lisa: Well... you don't see any tigers, do you?

Homer: Ah! I'll give you five dollars for it!

Lisa: But... oh, oh well. *Takes Homer's fiver, gives him the rock.*

[Hand Bent Spoon]

I heard it. This interview took place recently, after the death of her husband.

She is an unabated, shameless believer. Writers of fiction should be able to recognize fiction. Alas, she can't.

Perfect example of needing to believe. Her husband was an atheist, and she now dishonors his memory by pretending to have contacted him post-life.

She should be ashamed, really.

Oh, and she's a hack who's writing will be promptly forgotten after her own 'crossing over'.:p

[specious_reasons]

Originally posted by Clancie
It was televised on CO--a reading with Anne Rice, her husband and son at her home.

The main information they showed JE giving was about her son's friend who had died. (She said later that he was the person she was most hoping to hear from, since her son was still having problems with the death--if I'm remembering correctly, by suicide).

I'll have to re-listen, but I thought she stated she contacted her husband after his death, which would not be the reading you're referring to.

[Clancie]

Yes, Specious Reasons. I see that her husband died last December. She must have had another reading with JE since the one that was televised.

[LFTKBS]

Sorry for being a Simpsons quote-correcting jerk, but it's actually:

(long pause) Lisa, I'd like to buy your rock.

In the Castellaneta voice and diction, comedy gold.

[Keneke]

Here's a question: do you think skeptical thought (or the lack of it) would affect a person's writing style? If Anne Rice were a bit more skeptical, do you think her books (that some people DO love, in spite of her critics) would be different? Better? Worse? After all, she writes about vampires.

[specious_reasons]

Originally posted by Keneke
Here's a question: do you think skeptical thought (or the lack of it) would affect a person's writing style? If Anne Rice were a bit more skeptical, do you think her books (that some people DO love, in spite of her critics) would be different? Better? Worse? After all, she writes about vampires.

Fantasy is just that. Skepticism doesn't have much to do with it. However, I think that if she had a clearer sense of her own religion, the content of the books might have changed.

One of her "vampire" books - I think Memnoch the Devil (spelling?) was mostly an odd re-telling of events in the Bible. I didn't like it much - whose fiction should I believe? The Bible or a pop author?

For a recently reaffirmed Catholic, it was annoying to hear her truss it up with new-age sentiment. This is one thing that ruffles my feathers.

[Ratman_tf]

Originally posted by LFTKBS
Sorry for being a Simpsons quote-correcting jerk, but it's actually:

(long pause) Lisa, I'd like to buy your rock.

In the Castellaneta voice and diction, comedy gold.

Well, I was typing it from memory. :)

[Clancie]

I enjoyed the interview.

The way she responded to the information in her reading--"things that only her husband could have known", combined with being unable to shake off doubts and embrace it totally (despite a recent return to Catholicism) is a very typical reaction, despite the ideas of some here that people will easily embrace belief in this under emotional duress.

[CFLarsen]

Originally posted by Clancie
The way she responded to the information in her reading--"things that only her husband could have known", combined with being unable to shake off doubts and embrace it totally (despite a recent return to Catholicism) is a very typical reaction, despite the ideas of some here that people will easily embrace belief in this under emotional duress.

Are you saying that people don't embrace belief in this under emotional duress?

I don't understand the remark about "despite a recent return to Catholicism". Isn't JE a Catholic?

[Yahweh]

Originally posted by CFLarsen
Are you saying that people don't embrace belief in this under emotional duress?

I don't understand the remark about "despite a recent return to Catholicism". Isn't JE a Catholic?
Not to come off a little paranoid, but are you actually asking questions because you are genuinely interested in the answer, or is there a reason beyond my own sense of intuition/irrational paranoia?

(And in all seriousness, if this is just a bait, just let it go...)

[CFLarsen]

Originally posted by Yahweh
Not to come off a little paranoid, but are you actually asking questions because you are genuinely interested in the answer, or is there a reason beyond my own sense of intuition/irrational paranoia?

(And in all seriousness, if this is just a bait, just let it go...)

Not a bait at all. You see, what Clancie claims flies in the face of what we know: That most people do start believing in an afterlife after losing a dear one. That's "emotional duress" if there is such a thing.

We can see that in the believers who attend psychic performances. We can see that in the believers who post here, on TVTalkshows and on the believers' boards.

In fact, neofight might be the only one (that I know of) who does not claim a dead relative "set off" the interest in an afterlife. Whether this is true, I don't know, of course. But RC, Steve Grenard and Clancie herself have lost dear friends or relatives, before starting to believe in paranormal phenomena.

So, to state that belief in an afterlife has nothing to do with emotional duress is very much news.

I would also like to know why a belief in the afterlife is not compatible with a Catholic belief. I am not talking about the Dogma issued from the Vatican, but what Catholics themselves are saying. John Edward is one, you know.

Two claims that we need to get to the bottom of. I hope Clancie will enlighten us with her thoughts. Evidence would be nice, too.

[Candace]

Originally posted by Keneke
Here's a question: do you think skeptical thought (or the lack of it) would affect a person's writing style? If Anne Rice were a bit more skeptical, do you think her books (that some people DO love, in spite of her critics) would be different? Better? Worse? After all, she writes about vampires.

Well, a goodly percentage of posters on these boards play role-playing games (unless everyone but me is Gary Gygax's sock puppet, that is!) in which you pretend to be elves, vampires, bunnies, you name it.

Most of the gamers I've met in real life have a finely tuned bullstuff detector. I have NEVER met the stereotypical "I can really cast spells cause my mage in Dragonlance can" kind of people, the ones who hang themselves with startling regularity when their characters get iced.

I think writing is very much like gaming: you populate your head with all these different people, and they talk, and you write it down. Ok, maybe if you're NOT Dalton Trumbo or Joseph Heller, you do this - those guys sweat blood to do what they do (or did..)

Some of the greatest writers were realists: Twain, Bierce, Lovecraft come to mind (well, Lovecraft is always on my mind, but that just because of the gibbering eldrich ichor in the cellar...) as examples of non-fantastic thinkers who wrote fantasy books. Lovecraft studied astronomy. Bierce fought in the war. These writers were down to earth types. Not superstitious people.

Stephen King comes to mind as well - he claims he's afraid of the boogeyman under the bed, yet when I used to get the Castle Rock newsletter it was surprisingly woo-woo free.

And personally, I thought Interview was super - when it first came out, it was new, different, kind of cutting edge. Of course, she just burned the franchise with her later books, notably Pandora and Memnoch. And Tale of the Body Thief was horrid.

My .02 cents worth is that Ms. Rice's fiction fails when she attempts to humanise her supernatural creations. Deathless desire and androgenous vampirism is one thing - the scene when Lestat learns how to go potty again is yet another. Not worthy of the tree they killed to print the page.

BTW, I like your sig quote! ;)

[thaiboxerken]

I tried to read an Anne Rice book, "Interview with a Vampire", but it was so boring that I couldn't go on. Her vampires are not really cool, suave or interesting at all.

[specious_reasons]

Originally posted by CFLarsen

(snip)
I would also like to know why a belief in the afterlife is not compatible with a Catholic belief. I am not talking about the Dogma issued from the Vatican, but what Catholics themselves are saying. John Edward is one, you know.


Belief in the afterlife is not incompatible with the church, however, mediumship is considered incompatible.

From what I have been told - by Christians who were not necessarily Catholics - is that if mediumship is not fake, i.e. spiritual communication is real, the people in heaven aren't the ones communicating. It's assumed that all spirits which speak to psychics are evil, demonic spirits.

[voidx]

Originally posted by Keneke
Here's a question: do you think skeptical thought (or the lack of it) would affect a person's writing style? If Anne Rice were a bit more skeptical, do you think her books (that some people DO love, in spite of her critics) would be different? Better? Worse? After all, she writes about vampires.
I think it absolutely would affect someone's writing style. A persons own worldviews and biases often end up having an influence in their writing. If you did not believe in telepathy, you'd be unwillinging to include it in a sci-fi story you were writing, or you might look for another phenomena to fill the void. The original Dune series by Frank Hebert is one of my all time favorites, and I've enjoyed the prequel novels done by his son. But the recent book about the Butlerian Jihad has an aspect of telepathic women that just to me, seems lazy, and tossed in so he didn't have to come up with a more interesting explanation. Perhaps a personal pet peeve though.

As for Rice, I see the old "only things my *insert dead relative/loved one here* could have known" bit was trotted out. This line is tossed out often enough to make myself suspicious. Its a handy out for not actually going into detail of what was conveyed. "Oh its personal", just doesn't cut it with me.