Are You There, God? It’s Me, Anne Rice.

In a perfect story for Halloween Eve, Yahoo News has published an interesting profile of famed author Anne Rice, who has gone from being the Queen of Vampire Fiction to — cue horror movie scream — an emerging voice in Christian literature. Yes, gone are the days of ravenous bloodsuckers Lestat and Louis, not to mention the sexual escapades of Sleeping Beauty humping her way through the castle, and in their place we have a decidedly different Anne Rice.

In Rice’s new book, a memoir entitled Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession, the 67-year-old writer recounts her journey from Catholic youth to Existentialist college student to adamant Athiest — and her eventual voyage back to Christianity. In the late 90s, after the death of her beloved husband, the poet and artist Stan Rice, and she herself facing health problems, Rice returned to Mass and found her spiritual home.

But remaining true to her mystical leanings, Rice also tells of the more supernatural elements of her religious transformation. In a string of epiphanies, mostly on pilgrimmages to European cathedrals, Israel, and Brazil, she remembers the dizzy euphoria of rediscovering Christ. In Brazil, when she visited Rio de Janeiro’s monolothic Jesus statue, Rice writes of her “delirium” and religious intoxication, recalling equally-blissful events in her Catholic childhood (as a girl, Rice wanted to be a saint).

Refreshingly, she doesn’t disown her series of wildly successful vampire novels. ”I do think that those dark books were always talking about religion in their own way,” Rice said. “They were talking about the grief for a lost faith.”

This time, though, her goals are a bit loftier than just entertaining the masses. ”My objective is simple: It’s to write books about our Lord living on Earth that make him real to people who don’t believe in him; or people who have never really tried to believe in him,” she said.

While I’m sure many of Rice’s die-hard fans are put off by her recent change of faith — or at least her decision to write about it so intimately — I myself am happy for Ms. Rice. Our religious views may be different, but I’m all for an artist exploring his/her world in whatever method he/she may choose. In an uncharacteristically UN-snarkish bit of commentary, I welcome Rice’s transformative journey and how it has enriched her life. When an artist does the same thing over and over again, there is a sense of static, a lack of evolution, if you will. When an artist grows and changes, in whatever ways, it shows us that a) he/she is human, and b) there is a constant supply of new and wondrous things to investigate. So even though the New York Times called her memoir “the literary equivalent of waterboarding”, I applaud Anne Rice.

Called Out of Darkness is available now. Two other Christian-themed works by Rice, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt and Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana, the first novels of a four-part, first-person history of Jesus, were released earlier this year.

 

Story Source  Yahoo News

October 30, 2008 | Filed Under Authors, Newsies, Spirituality & Religion 

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      The Snark is a creature created by Lewis Carroll in his poem "The Hunting of the Snark". To give a proper description of Snarks, one must look no further than Carroll himself, who summed them up in one word: Unimaginable.

      But this much we do know: some have feathers, some have whiskers. Snarks sleep a lot, yet they are an ambitious lot -- with very little sense of humor. They love bathing-machines and tend to bring them wherever they go; they are also handy for striking a light. Snarks live on a far-off island, a place filled with chasms and crags, and are constantly on the lookout for Snark-hunters. Their mortal enemies are hope, care, thimbles and forks.

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