Description
This article is from the Anne Rice
FAQ, by Laura Troise talset@eskimo.com with numerous
contributions by others.
48 Should I buy/read VC or Prism of the Night? (Anne Rice - Captivating Companions)
This question cannot be answered without giving an opinion of
the two books. Originally I only included my opinion of the
books but this caused something of a stir on alt.books.anne-rice
since it was felt that giving only one opinion put too much of
a slant on things. Since I agreed with that sentiment (and since
Ian offered so nicely) here you will find two differing opinions
about VC and Prism of the Night. Please keep in mind that these
are only opinions and you can take them or leave them. If you
have any questions, please direct them to the person who wrote
each section.
Ian Wellock:
I liked VC. It has three main sections, the Entries
A to Z, which covers a total of 484 pages (!), a Time Line,
which starts at 'around 4000 B.C.' and goes up to 1992,
the time of TotBT's publication, and also a Vampire Atlas,
with some fascinating maps which is a nice touch for those
of us mere mortals who have never been to New Orleans.
There are a few errors, but I regard these as minor.
(Details can be had upon request). For me, far and away
the best reason for reading this book is the collection and
cross-referencing of all the little items into many different
subject areas, which, if you can't remember when a certain
character made an appearance, or find out more about the
Talamasca, is invaluable. I even like to sit down and just
read the thing, and thereby pick up little snippets of
information that perhaps were not immediately obvious.
Laura Troise:
I didn't like VC. For all the good that it offers (what is
listed above) it offers a lot of garbage as well. It should
be retitled "Katherine Ramsland's Interpretation of the
Vampire Chronicles." Her opinion invades *everything*.
This would be fine (after all, *my* opinion is all over this
FAQ) except that *she gets things wrong while giving her
opinion*. She has a Ph.D. in philosophy and has studied
Jungian psychology but there's a very strong Freudian view
throughout the book. She rips apart characters that she
doesn't like and ignores what really happened in the books.
Plus she gets basic facts wrong (like the names of
characters) so you never know what bits of information to
trust. VC is a fine book but it is in no way the "Official
Guide to the Vampire Chronicles." It contains too many
errors to be officially anything.
As for Prism of the Night, this is a slightly better book in
comparison. Katherine's interpretation of Anne's books is
still in there but you can pretty much ignore it while
reading about Anne's life. The only problem is that
Katherine is not a good writer (and I've had published
authors agree with me on this) so you have to slog through a
lot of bad prose to get to the gems of Anne's life.
Anne herself had this to say about Prism of the Night in
CS#3:
"On my life: because you ask. There is Katherine Ramsland's
PRISM OF THE NIGHT, a full scale biography with which I
cooperated, but which I never sought to control. It's out
there in paperback, and is fairly up to date. I have not
read all of it. I mean it's my life, for God's sakes! But
my father did read the first edition and approved of it
before he died. Good enough for me."
In her conference on Compuserve, Anne said that she doesn't
do final proof reads of the Companion books so this could
account for the errors to be found within VC (I don't know
enough about TWHC to comment on it one way or the other).
Finally, the word from Katherine herself. This was supplied
to me via abar who got it from someone who was putting together
a web page for Katherine. I'm sorry about the length and any
spelling errors, but I was told I could only include it if I
didn't edit it in any way and since I wanted to be sure I was
letting all sides have a say, I thought it best to go with
a slightly long rebuttal rather than no rebuttal at all.
"ARE THE COMPANION GUIDES REALLY OFFICAL???
Katherine: I suppose that, NO matter what I say, people
will still believe their own theories - including the one
that I don't really exist - but I did explain in the
introductions to the books how Anne and I created the
vision for the Guides together. She wanted them to
be very detailed and rich with trivia and background, and she
certainly supplied ALL of the quotes!
Also, I doubt that I could have put the original short story of
Interview in the last book without Anne's approval (and prior
approval of the other books).
I'm ALWAYS dismayed by readers who insists that I don't even
KNOW Anne. It's a strange thing to say. On the other hand,
perhaps their skepticism is a compliment to my imagination - to
be able to make all that up and get away with publishing it!! Wow!
Anyway, Anne and I faxed each other back and forth (day and night)
until she was happy with it. She served as a consultant THROUGHOUT -
always providing quotes and resources to help me "track" her
imagination. Admittedly, there is a certain amount of
interpretation involved and I explained that in the
introduction. If readers ask me why I said something in this way
or that, I can almost ALWAYS defend it from the text of the
novels. I tried very hard to make no personal judgement of
characters, relying on judgements from the context of the
novels- and providing references for them. Since most of the
Chronicles are from Lestat's point of view, and since he viewed
Armand as nihilistic and the "embodiment of thirst itself," that's
what I wrote. And since Lestat (and ANNE!) viewed Louis as
dependent and somewhat helpless and unwilling to use his full
powers, that's the way I presented it.
I personally don't feel that way! I actually prefer Armand
and Louis to Lestat. I have private opinions of what motivates
them and what they might be outside Lestat's view, as I'm sure
MANY other readers do! That's partly the fun of good fiction -
to be able to take it beyond its apparent boundaries in the
direction of one's own imagination. Only people who know me know
my true opinions about the various characters.
If I've made mistakes in the text I've asked readers to let
me know. It's a big job to write an encyclopedia and then to
deal with editors and copy-editors (and even printers) who
decide to change things without asking. I have tried very hard
to be accurate because my intent was to provide Anne's readers
with more background than they get in the novels - not just from
research and travel but FROM ANNE HERSELF! I had hoped it would
be fun for people to be able to see the paintings or landscapes
she describes... to hear about her inspirations and to learn
more about things to which she merely alludes in the novels.
Why did I say what I said about Armand in the revised Companion?
BECAUSE THAT'S THE WAY ANNE FELT ABOUT IT WHEN WE WORKED ON THE
REVISION, while MEMNOCH was still in manuscript form. ANNE
is always free to change her mind and make revisions, but I GO
(and have to) with what she's thinking AT THE TIME THAT THESE
GUIDES ARE PREPARED FOR PRINT...
So that's the long way of saying YES, these books are QUITE
official. ANd yes, I really exist!
Katherine"
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