The ever-brilliant (and most widely-read man I know) John Wilson over at Books & Culture, reflects on the pre-conversion writing of Anne Rice (especially Interview with the Vampire) and concludes with a comment on her conversion (see: “The Vampire and the Cross”). John’s take on Rice’s writing is succinct and spot-on:

“I finished the novel with the sense of moral contamination that some books leave us with.”

But he doesn’t end there. He concludes his analyses by recounting a review of the 1997 anthology, The Anne Rice Reader: Writers Explore the Universe of Anne Rice, edited by Katharine Ramsland. In his review (never published, unfortunately), Wilson writes, presciently:

In short, there was a profound contradiction at the heart of Rice's work. And so I

Okay, I stopped by Border’s on the way home from a medical followup today, and I picked up Anne Rice’s Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt. I’ll soon be diving into it. Already I’m concerned. A phrase from the back of the book jacket caught my eye: the young Jesus Christ is described as a “nature mystic.” Maybe I misread that.

I will follow up with a review as soon as I can make it through the book. Assuming it’s not so laborious that it worsens my illness, that is.

So far, the reviews on Amazon are lightweight and glowing.

See my previous post: “Anne Rice channels the Jesus you never knew…”

[tags]A-N-Roquelaure, Anne-Rampling, Anne-Rice, Howard-Allen-OBrien, Christ-the-Lord, Christopher-Rice, Evangelical, Howard-Allen-Frances-OBrien, jesus, christ, Jesus-Christ, Out-of-Egypt, Vampire-Lestat, literature, fiction, homosexuality, novel, Pentecostal, religious-fiction, review, http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0375412018[/tags]