Dead Souls

**GulDukat** · 12-10-2021, 06:20 PM

Some really good Nesmith songs:

**allegro** · 12-12-2021, 01:31 AM

Whoa, Anne Rice died! She was 80.

**versusreality** · 12-12-2021, 04:45 AM

Bummer. I can't say I've read any of her material outside of Interview With the Vampire (since I loved the film) but I loved it and always wanted to read more of her work. RIP Anne Rice.

**chuckrh** · 12-12-2021, 04:55 AM

RIP Anne

**otnavuskire** · 12-12-2021, 07:10 AM

Damn. I was obsessed with the entire Vampire Chronicles when I was younger. She brought a lot of entertainment into my life.

**october_midnight** · 12-12-2021, 08:26 AM

Legendary author and from all accounts, a decent and kind person. Went through a lot, lost a husband and son at age five I believe? Damn RIP.

**sweeterthan** · 12-12-2021, 08:34 AM

I went to a book signing with a reporter 20 years ago. She was covering the event. we were allowed to get really close and take some photos. Anne was informed the reporter was there and she looked in our direction and locked eyes with me and smiled and i swear i left my body. I remember trying to smile back but i blushed and giggled. It was a fun momentary connection with someone i really fucking admire. I am grateful to the universe for that moment. i have a signed copy of memnoch from that event. A memento of Anne Rice writing my name in her handwriting. So sweet.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

**muad'nin** · 12-12-2021, 12:47 PM

Been reading/re-reading and chipping away at The Vampire Chronicles/Mayfair Witches every night for months now, loving my daily delve into her worlds. This is a loss for me.

Thank you for your body of work, Anne.

**marodi** · 12-12-2021, 04:01 PM

RIP Anne.

Thank you for sharing your gift of words with us and your vivid imagination. You will be missed.

**Jinsai** · 12-12-2021, 09:23 PM

I haven't read an Anne Rice novel in a long while... I did like Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, and Memnoch the Devil (which it seems isn't a fan favorite, but I really liked that one). She had a really engaging style of writing that pulled you in, and some creative approaches to the vampire concept that explored sexuality, morality, religious conviction, and class structure/aristocracy in adventurous ways, and it felt like she really did enjoy herself in her world/character building. Sad news. There really aren't many modern horror novelists more established and unique and celebrated, and in the world of iconic female horror authors, she's there alongside Shirley Jackson and Mary Shelley.

**allegro** · 12-15-2021, 11:55 AM

Author and activist bell hooks, at only 69. Rest in power.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna8895

**elevenism** · 12-15-2021, 12:50 PM

Oh. Oh my dear god. I've been so wrapped up in various crises these past few days, that i didn't hear about Anne Rice.
This breaks my fucking heart. I'm actually in tears.

I've read like MOST of her work. I'm talking 29 books, here, i think? (i never read the Rampling and Roquelaure erotica.)

As a young man obsessed with the occult and darkness and beauty and sex and death, like many of us are, she brought me the most uncanny, imaginative, original tales. She was the queen of gorgeous neo-gothic prose. I discovered her at 12, and was immediately in love.
Anne created the best and most extensive vampire mythos of all time, PERIOD.

Her lush words, dripping with passion and beauty and descriptions of fluid sexuality and pansexuality were MORE IMPORTANT THAN ANYTHING in helping me feel ok being bi, or, whatever the fuck i am, when i was young. It was a refuge for a young man being told "there ain't gonna be any goddamn faggots living under my roof" by his father, in 1994.
I'll never forget my mom reading, and then giving me Blackwood Farm, a book steeped in bisexuality, when i was 22 and still going through horrible depression related to all that shit.

She played with history and religion in The Witching Hour, which is one of my absolute favorite books of all time. It's a doorstopper, weaving through generations, with details that put it on the verge of being historical fiction.

Her serious historical fiction was also utterly stunning: Cry to Heaven describes the DEEP pain of Castrati singers. The Feast of All Saints brought brought to life the plight of the free Antebellum Creole folk in 1840s New Orleans, alongside the Haitian Revolution.

She made Jesus walk for me in her Christ the Lord series, which is a FIRST PERSON account of the life of Jesus. Edit: she did this after making a great case for Lucifer in Memnoch the Devil- @Jinsai , i LOVED that one too. Lestat drinks the blood of christ, all of the arguments made by Memnoch, yeah. It was fucking awesome.

She ALSO wrote a CS Lewis level non-fiction christian book called Called Out of Darkness, and it was fucking great.

Basically, she's been there for every part of my life since i was a tween.

Basically, this fucking KILLS me. This HURTS. My three big authors are Stephen King, Anne Rice, and John Steinbeck.

I just...FUCK.

In honor of this, for anyone who read the first three or four Vampire Chronicles, READ PRINCE LESTAT.
It's the first TRUE follow up to Queen of the Damned, (because Armand and Blood and Gold and Merrick and such, they all avoided continuing the story.)

And if you've never read an Anne Rice book? If you're a reader, i'd say, take it upon yourself to read The Witching Hour.

JESUS i'm sad.

**allegro** · 12-15-2021, 01:38 PM

Originally Posted by elevenism

Anne Rice Roquelaure erotica

I just threw out the Sleeping Beauty Trilogy a few months ago when we were clearing out the basement and I had to cull my library.

I’ll refrain from issuing my comments at this time.

**elevenism** · 12-15-2021, 01:43 PM

Originally Posted by allegro

I just threw out the Sleeping Beauty Trilogy a few months ago when we were clearing out the basement and I had to cull my library.

I’ll refrain from issuing my comments at this time.

Did you read The Witching Hour or Feast of All Saints or Cry to Heaven, or Christ the Lord, or Interview/Lestat/QoTD?

I read a bit of The Taming, and Exit to Eden, and stopped, because I'm not into BDSM.
She wrote those books under a nom de plume for a reason, I guess.

i appreciate you not kink shaming the dead.

**allegro** · 12-15-2021, 01:58 PM

Originally Posted by elevenism

Did you read The Witching Hour or Feast of All Saints or Cry to Heaven, or Christ the Lord, or Interview/Lestat/QoTD?

I read a bit of The Taming, and Exit to Eden, and stopped, because I'm not into BDSM.
She wrote those books under a nom de plume for a reason, I guess.

I was REALLY into erotica for many years, I was like a friggin erotica librarian LOL. I’ve kept a lot of it on my shelves. The first being this one when I was a kid.

Sure, I’ve read Rice’s “other” books.

But I’ve ALSO read Mary Shelley.

I know you’re sad, but Rice was EIGHTY and recently had a stroke.

What surprised me most wasn’t her dying; it was that the world found out about it via her son, Christopher, on Twitter before anyone else. Which happens a lot on Twitter.

**elevenism** · 12-15-2021, 02:29 PM

Originally Posted by allegro

I was REALLY into erotica for many years, I was like a friggin erotica librarian LOL. I’ve kept a lot of it on my shelves. The first being this one when I was a kid.

Sure, I’ve read Rice’s “other” books.

But I’ve ALSO read Mary Shelley.

I know you’re sad, but Rice was EIGHTY and recently had a stroke.

What surprised me most wasn’t her dying; it was that the world found out about it via her son, Christopher, on Twitter before anyone else. Which happens a lot on Twitter.

Yeah, i know she was old.

It's just, she meant a LOT to me. It's still a massive loss.
There's also the part where she did live chats on facebook with her "People of the Page," up until fairly recently, talking about her plans, working on a Vampire Chronicles series scripted by herself and her son (which originally had backing from hulu.)

She was STILL working her ass off trying to get that show off the ground.

ALSO, she was still writing.

No, she wasn't Hemmingway or Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy or whatever, but at her best, she was DEFINITELY the Shelley of her time. The thematic similarities between Frankenstein and the Vampire Chronicles are pretty damned blatant: the search for identity and themes of alienation. In FACT, these themes appear in a LOT of her work, like Servant of the Bones and Ramses the Damned.

Ultimately, though, i really don't care about literary arguments right now, though. It's more "i was in love with this author for about 3/4 of my life, and she meant the fucking world to me, and now she's gone."

It's just like losing Neil from Rush.

It sucks.

**allegro** · 12-15-2021, 02:41 PM

Victor Frankenstein’s creation was a scathing reflection of the Industrial Revolution. Shelley was a lot like Dickens (Great Expectations, Hard Times, Little Dorrit).

In honor of the passing of Ms. Rice, I recommend that you read a lot of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Awesome stuff.

Yup. As we age, everyone dies. But, death teaches us about life. Those vampire books taught you a lot about that

Christopher says there’s going to be a memorial thing for Anne Rice in New Orleans sometime next year, which will likely be huge.

**elevenism** · 12-15-2021, 03:12 PM

Originally Posted by allegro

Victor Frankenstein’s creation was a scathing reflection of the Industrial Revolution. Shelley was a lot like Dickens (Great Expectations, Hard Times, Little Dorrit).

In honor of the passing of Ms. Rice, I recommend that you read a lot of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Awesome stuff.

Yup. As we age, everyone dies. But, death teaches us about life. Those vampire books shoulda taught you a lot about that.

I've read enough Hawthorne (Faun, Gables, Letter, Romance, all at least twice,) and Dickens (Great Expectations, Bleak House, Two Cities, good GOD most of that shit is depressing) and such for a lifetime: at least a lifetime lived currently, immersed in literature from the 1900s onward.

My current fiction reading list is aimed at finishing up my Pynchon, Vonnegut, Barth, Wallace, Burroughs and De Lillo, not to mention the final Vampire Chronicle and the latest Stephen King.

Aside from that, I've got a BUNCH of biographies on my Kindle, which have been my favorite thing as of late.

I DO wonder if Anne's son, Christopher, will write another Prince Lestat book, especially if his mother had already been working on it. They collaborated on Ramses the Damned part 2 in 2017, and had apparently finished the third, to be released in 2022.

**allegro** · 12-15-2021, 03:32 PM

Originally Posted by elevenism

good GOD most of that shit is depressing

I prefer "realistic"

It's amazing how much of it applies TODAY!!!

If Christopher collaborated then, yeah, I imagine he'd carry on the canon.

Edit: @elevenism re Hawthorn: I meant his short stories.

**allegro** · 12-15-2021, 04:57 PM

Meanwhile, I did not know that The Big Ragu - Eddie Mekka - died at 69: https://nypost.com/2021/12/02/lavern...gu-dead-at-69/. RIP, Eddie.

**elevenism** · 12-16-2021, 10:25 AM

Originally Posted by allegro

I prefer "realistic"

It's amazing how much of it applies TODAY!!!

If Christopher collaborated then, yeah, I imagine he'd carry on the canon.

Edit: @elevenism re Hawthorn: I meant his short stories.

Ah! I've not read many of those: just whatever was included in this big ass compendium I had for a community college course.

And when I said depressing, I was referring to Dickens. Yes, the Hawthorne I've read is both depressing AND realistic, especially from a feminist viewpoint. Dickens is just GRIM, though, all the way around.

So with Anne Rice, the idea is that many of the Vampire Chronicles are TRUE, and written by Lestat, under the pen name Anne Rice.

Most likely, the real Anne Rice finally joined Prince Lestat's coven.

**elevenism** · 12-19-2021, 07:57 PM

Rapper Drakeo the Ruler got stabbed to death last night, apparently, at a show in LA.
Slim 400, famous for his song Brusin, (34 million youtube views on that song alone) was murdered on December 8.
Up and coming Memphis rap legend Young Dolph was murdered in late November.

That's three VERY famous young rappers shot or stabbed to death in the past 30 days.
I don't even LISTEN to these young "drill" rappers much, but I'm REALLY concerned by the body count.
There's also been Lil Loaded, Indian Red Boy, Baby CEO, Dope Boy Young, etc etc, and I'm JUST talking about the young, reasonably famous cats who died VIOLENTLY, THIS year, and that's just off the top of my head aside from Drakeo. It's a horrible epidemic.

In fact, this is gonna need its own thread if we want to keep up with it.

**Erneuert** · 12-22-2021, 10:38 AM

Sally Ann Howes, Truly Scrumptious in 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,' Dies at 91
A grand dame of Broadway and the West End, she starred in 'Paint Your Wagon,' 'My Fair Lady,' 'Brigadoon' and 'What Makes Sammy Run?'

**Erneuert** · 12-26-2021, 01:56 PM

Janice Long at 66. Very sad.

**marodi** · 12-27-2021, 01:22 AM

Jean-Marc Vallée, director of Dallas Buyers Club and Big Little Lies, dead at 58.

https://nyti.ms/3FwspXb

He was found in a cabin near Québec City.

RIP Jean-Marc, merci d'avoir partagé ton talent avec nous.