I'm just curious about what Toibin's shtick is. I'm almost halfway through the novel now, and I don't have any idea where he's headed.

Well, I mean, Henry James is not going to whip out a maxim gun and mow down English society, but, I got the book as a gift and don't have any context for the author. Which is disconcerting.

Well, blackwater Lightship is a beautifully written and observed study of the dynamics and emotions of an Irish family over a particularly stressful week. not muc happens, but his dissection of character is incredible. Toibin is one of Ireland's top literary writers, I think; he's got a few Booker noms, and many people think the master was robbed this year.

Thanks, Jim. Further along in the novel, I'm coming to see that it's primarily about "this life experience got transmogrified into that character in a novel," and also about how to keep one's mouth shut when one is being invited to participate in rudeness. Of which much, and much gossip about Oscar Wilde's trial.

Also, Oliver Wendell Holmes and his war trauma.

Nooo! Don’t take away the arduer Privaledges ! Hee hee hee. Comedy gold! I can just see LKH and Anne Rice sitting together and complaining about their ungrateful fans.

Perhaps dissatisfied fans should change tactics to exploit her darned contrary nature, and start complaining about the well-thought-out plots and believable characterizations that they hope she'll drop.

Wrod.

Apparently Anne Rice's newest project is a life of Jesus.

Oh, dear lord, no.

Yes. [link]

Pretty sure that's one of the signs of the end times.

I'm just going to pretend that I never read that. Otherwise I'll be imagining what she'll be writing about Jesus at age 7...in complete seriousness...

From EW, a "lengthy letter that will accompany advance review copies of the book this summer" that screams of self-importance. Just write the fucking book, dude.

Dear Reader,

For over ten years I've wanted to do this book—Jesus in his own words. For five years I've been obsessed with how to do it, and for the last three years I've been consumed with nothing else.

The ultimate questions, the ones distilled from a thousand others, were so obvious as to be frightening. What did it feel like to be Jesus? What did it feel like to be God and Man as a child?... In all my career, I don't think I've ever faced such a daunting task. And there were moments when I came near to giving up. I prayed. I asked for guidance. I scrapped hundreds of pages. At moments, I was on the verge of accepting that perhaps I couldn't do what had to be done here...

I'm not a priest. I can't be one. I'll never be able to go to the altar of the Lord and say the words of consecration at Mass, "This is my body. This is my blood." No, I can't work that magnificent Eucharistic miracle. But in humility, I have attempted something transformative which we writers dare to call a miracle in the imperfect human idiom we possess. It's to bring Him here in the form of a story, and that story is Christ The Lord.

Sincerely,
ANNE RICE