Skip to main content

review a review

Betty Carter has a review of Anne Rice's latest novel up at First Things. I've never read Anne Rice, but I'm continually fascinated by her. I saw the film 'Interview with a Vampire' and I remember my high school friends who were obsessed with her stories of dark, hopeless, 'omnisexual' vampiricism. I've read countless reviews of her work, both before and after her return to Catholicism, and it never seems possible for the reviewer to separate the experience of the novel from that of the author. Her newest book, Angel Time, is the same way. Reading the review, I confessed to some nervousness that a book about redemption and divine love could be pulled off without sounding trite. I've seen it often enough in Christian fiction. Carter even says as much in the review, and I quote this most especially because it refers to one of my favorite authors:

'Even the greatest writers struggle to describe human goodness, and very few (William Blake, Charles Williams) can speak of heavenly things without giving their audience the church giggles. There’s just something about an aura of divine love that stunts the human vocabulary.'

And yet, the books that DO succeed in describing human goodness, the ones that express the 'aura of divine love,' without giving divinity a bad name, those are the books I most love to read. Those are the ones that make it into my top ten. And if I'm honest, those are the kind of books I want to write myself. Will they be popular? Successful? Probably not. But Carter finished her review with a note of encouragement, speaking again more of Anne Rice than of her novels:

'Her biographies of Jesus were the heavenly work that called her away from the making and selling of bestsellers. With Lucky’s story, she tells us that serving God is more satisfying than serving the Right Man—or the right critics, or even the right readers. Sneer if you want, but it’s hard not to envy her.'

Thank you for the reminder.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

window in the sub

Dear Nathaniel, I am microwaving pie that Mom bought up in Oak Glen this week on her way home from the orthodontist. As I put it in the microwave, I was full of sadness that I was not in Oak Glen with her. Why did I not go? I was working. I want to see the trees turn. I want to wander slowly through autumnal gift shops. Under the water, you cannot sense the approach of the seasons. Even here it is difficult because, after all, it's California. But I can still sense it. After three seasons in Illinois and one in Scotland, it must be with me for good. Or at least for a while. Because I am all abuzz with eagerness for fall and winter, for turkeys and dried leaves and Santa. I should start cooking again this fall. Fall foods are my favorite. Baked squash dripping with melted butter and brown sugar, pumpkin soup... this year, if I have enough money, I will put together a holiday dinner for my friends. And we will drink Scandinavian mulled wine, which is the most wonderful thing I have e...
13 comments
Read more

Again in Gilead

I just finished reading this for the second time last week, thanks to the forever book group of Grace. It was equally as lovely the second time around, and while reading it, I wrote down a dozen more quotes from the incomparable Ames, who is both too beautiful a man to be real and too beautiful a man not to be real. (I'm grateful and amazed to know a few like him.) "It has been my experience that guilt can burst through the smallest breach and cover the landscape, and abide in it in pools and danknesses, just as native as water." (p.82) I have found this to be remarkably true. I see it in myself, and in many others as well. "I believe there are visions that come to us only in memory, in retrospect." (p.91) This seems to be about the only way I experience visions, but because memory is a rickety thing, I tend not to trust them much. Which makes me a poor prophet. "I know, too, that my own experience of the church has been, in many senses, shelte...
Post a Comment
Read more

At the close of nine years

I'm moving to Texas in less than two months. I've lived in Long Beach now for nine years. Already I have stacks of books covering my dining room table that I'll be reading for my PhD program in the fall. I've quietly begun the tedious work of sorting and cleaning everything in my little apartment. I'm scheduling all of my last days with friends, moving through my calendar in reverse order from when I expect to slip into my car and drive away. This is the longest I've lived in one place, so I've never really experienced a leaving quite like this before. I remember the day I left Wheaton, closing the bedroom door on my best friend, walking down to Chaeli's car so she could drive me to the airport. (The greatest grace of Texas is that she will be there. Some friends we never lose completely.) I remember leaving California for Scotland—walking away from my mother in the Palm Springs airport. We leave people who have changed us, and we leave places that ha...
1 comment
Read more