About 10 years ago I started reading Ann Rice’s Vampire series. I thought Interview with the Vampire and The Vampire Lestat were pretty enjoyable. Things went rapidly downhill with The Queen of the Damned, got even worse with The Tale of the Body Thief, and then started to get interesting again with [Memnoch the Devil** and Pandora though never reaching their earlier quality.
While travelling this holiday I got fogged in at LAX, and saw that her new book [The Vampire Armand** was in paperback. Remembering upswing in the quality of her vampire books I purchased it. It was just the thing for a three hour fog in followed by a transcontinental flight.
I got fifty pages into it, and literally got sick and through it in a trash can. I can’t beleive they actually published this.
Within the first fifty pages or so, a young prepubescent boy gets brutally sodomized. Fortunately, he is rescued by the pedophilic vampire Marius who takes him to his artsy home where he performs loving fellatio on him to the boy’s delight!
I was in shock, but hoped the book would move on, and kept reading. Five pages later it happened again! That’s when I tossed the book.
Isn’t this kiddie porn? Is this even legal? How can they publish this? I know I’ve been taken to account on this board for not having the most open mind, but please tell me this nobody believes this horrible and sick porn should be published.
I started posting this in the pit, but thought that maybe somebody could explain to me what the hell is going on with this vile shit. If a moderator thinks it’s better suited there, please move it.
If somebody wants to debate that this is actually ok, please do so, or at least explain it to me.
Speaking only to the question of legality, I don’t think any written work would be considered illegal under child pornography laws. Child pornography laws involve using actual children to make sexual materials. There was something called the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 which sought to broaden the definition to include computer simulations or “morphed” images which appear to be minor children engaging in sexual acts. This engendered quite a bit of controversy, and at least one federal judge seems to have found that part of the law unconstitutional.
I don’t imagine any law which banned the written description of a crime–however repulsive–would pass constitutional muster in this country. You can write books about robbery, murder, you name it. You can even make movies simulating those things–countless “murders” have been filmed for TV and movies. With child pornography, the thing is that even simulated sex acts with minor children may still cross the line into child molestation (the State of Georgia’s definition; other states may vary). Making a movie of that book could run into some problems. Using of-age actors who look like children might get the filmmakers around that, legally speaking. (Hmmm–you said he was “prepubescent” which would make it pretty tough to use an 18-year-old; I suppose the screenwriter could adapt the script to make the character older, so that he could plausibly be portrayed by an 18-year-old.)
Scylla, I agree. I love Anne Rice to death (see my .sig), but Armand made me almost too ill to finish it. I have no idea what the hell she was thinking when she wrote it.
FTR - Vittorio the Vampire by her is pretty good, and with a minimum of child sodomy. (j/k)
that kind of thing would be illegal in Canada, at least. The English Patient (the book) was either banned or edited just for that reason.
As to having adults portray minors, I believe that is now illegal here in the states. Don’t ask me why. But if one were to make an explicit “Lolita” with an of age actress, one would be prosecuted.
jb
I periodically resurrect my feeble attempt at writing a vampire novel in which, aside from the vampire’s tradtional vulnerabilities, the vampire can be repelled by the simple recitation of the sentence, “I am the Vampire Lestat.” Continued reading of any randomly selected page of any book from the Vampire Chronicles would cause the vampire to writhe in agony until he finally became enraged and snatched the novel out of the reader’s hand and tore it to tiny shreds.
The books are all well written, to be sure, but I take serious issue with the portrayal of undeadness as beautiful, romantic, and something generally to be sought after.
Also, the portrayal of how Lestat came to be a vampire, and simultaneously fabulously wealthy, and subsequently a rock star filled me with the urge to pound a stake through her heart while an English Literature professor stood by reading Coleridges’s essay on the suspension of disbelief.
Scylla, you ask what is going on?
Simple question: What if Larry Flint had written the book instead of Rice?
My favorite outrage is “Under the Roofs of Paris” by Henry Miller. To keep food on the table Miller wrote the book as pure paid-by-the-word porn long before he became a known author. Now the book appears from time to time in supermarket selections. It’s still porn.
i don’t see the big deal. No one was getting hurt. It was just something written…if anything, the character was getting pleasure out of it. It was pure fiction. Anyway if we outlaw the right to write about child molestation, what next? Murder? Why is this more disgusting to you than reading Silence of the Lambs or Hannibal, or anything equally that graphic…What’s wrong with writing about things that are considered wrong or disgusting?
Typically when those things are written about the characters performing the acts are bad guys. Considering that this is the main character of her book I could see someone making a case that she’s glorifying it. I’m not interested in banning Rice books or making certain material illegal just because I, or someone else, might object to it. But I share Scylla’s sentiments when he threw the book into the trash.
But I haven’t read the book so I can’t really comment on it. Personally I don’t like Rice because I find her vampires to be rather boring characters. And I always wondered what was up with all that homoerotic stuff? Maybe I’m the only one who saw it in the first two books…uh oh, what does that say about me?!
Anne also wrote 3 frankly porno books, mostly gay porno, and a lot with underage kids- a take of on one of the classic fairy tales. Rose?
Note that there is at least one opinion/ruling, that the written word CANNOT be illegal. Note that the Justices let anti-Kiddy porn laws go on ONLT becuase of the “fire in a crowded theatre exception”- ie in order to have kiddy-porno pictures- at least one child had to be exploited. No child is harming in the writing of anything.
However, why the holy F*CK is her publisher publishing that crapola, is another question. Greed is my answer. Same thing with emimem- his studio says the 1st Adm protects mathers right to say & write that crud- YES, it does- but that same 1st Adm does not force them to put it onto a CD and sell it!
Agreed, largely. One critic I recall said of Interview that is was populated by very good-looking young men striking poses. That nailed it. Still, a pretty good read, kind of like a bloodsucking Steppenwolf. The rest of the series is unreadable, and only exists because of the persuasive power of the zero’s on the advance check.
As to kiddy porn, I share the revulsion common amongst us who are not utterly sick and twisted. None the less, I remain a First Amdmt. absolutist: you can say anything, you just can’t do anything.
Reminds me of Lilly Tomlin’s line “Yes, there is sex after death, you just can’t feel it”.
For a truly unique take on the whole vampire thing, and a darn chucklesome read, try “Blood Sucking Fiends, A Romance” by Michael Morrison. A bracing antidote to the whole narcissistic morass of Ms. Rice.
It’s amazing this thread has gotten this far without anybody bringing up Christopher – her author son – whose work is perhaps equally described by some of the comments given above regarding hers – and for the obvious reason. Perhaps there is too great a density of souls in this thread?
There is a split in the federal circuits on this issue right now. The First, Fourth, and Eleventh Circuits have upheld the CPPA against constitutional challenge, but the Ninth Circuit struck it down as an unlawful abridgement of the free speech guarantees of the First Amendment. See U.S. v. Hilton, 167 F.3d 61 (1st Cir. 1999); U.S. v. Acheson, 195 F.3d 645 (11th Cir. 1999); and Free Speech Coalition v. Reno, 198 F.3d 1083 (9th Cir. 1999).
By the reasoning adopted by the First, Fourth, and Eleventh Circuits, a law criminalizing words alone would pass constitutional muster. In considering whether computer-generated images of children in sexual situations were fair targets for government regulation, they pointed out that Congress’ goals in passing the CPPA included preventing the effects of child pornography on child molestors, who often use pornography to “groom” their victims, desensitizing them to the idea of sexual contact by showing other children already so engaged. Congress, by dint of hearings and expert testimony, found that pornography involving actors who “appear to be” minors has all of the same effects on child molesters as actual child pornography. While they acknowledge that no actual children are harmed in the creation of this sort of pornography, it’s still a fair target for banning because “… like sexually explicit material produced with actual children, there is little, if any, social value in this type of expression.” (From the <i>Hilton</i> decision).
Child pornography, unlike adult pornography, is a “category of speech” that may, consistent with the Constitution, be utterly silenced. That one or more such depictions might have serious literary or artistic value, or be designed to express an “idea” of its creator, does not affect the constitutional calculus. Child pornography may be, legally, completely banned.
Scylla, I did the same thing with the same book. I’m not sure I made it 50 pages though.
I am a voracious reader, I’ll read the back of cereal boxes if that is all that is available, but I wouldn’t wast another moment on that hunk of junk she (Ann Rice) calls a book.
When I left for Desert Shield/Storm I had packed about a dozen books, including the first three Vampire books. Only enforced solitude and great levels of boredom were enough to get me through the festering dungheap of the (then) trilogy. Rice’s books were little more than homoerotic romance novels with a slim coat of vampire paint slapped on. How on earth she sells books is beyond me.
Well, that is why they sell-they are thinly disguised gay porn or whatever.
Personally, I liked the Mayfair Witches trilogy MUCH better, especially the Witching Hour. Lasher was annoying though-the whole deal with Michael and Mona. First off, he cheats on his wife who is missing, with a girl young enough to be his daughter, (she’s 14), and she dresses like a little kid-with BOWS IN HER HAIR for crying out loud-and this guy is in his fifties. Icky!
I saw Interview with the Vampire on my first date-:eek: I wanted to crawl under my seat when they stripped that girl on stage. But for what it’s worth-both me and my date (who only evolved into a good friend- both laughed our asses off at the Lestat choking blood scene.
Then I got the book and read it. It was pretty good, but I could NOT get into the Vampire Lestat. I mean, c’mon!
As for vampire books, they may be young adult, but Christopher Pike’s first three the Last Vampire books weren’t too bad.
No, Sleeping Beauty. I do not believe there was any underage sex in there, although I don’t recall any ages being mentioned. However, I got the impression that Beauty was 18; there was certainly no genuine kiddie porn (as in a mention of someone’s extreme youth or prepubescent children) in that series. Nor was it “mostly” gay; I’d say about a 50/50 split of gay/straight light bondage stuff with massive amounts of props. The books are not great erotic writing, in my opinion; she is clearly turned on by some things that don’t do a thing for me and she doesn’t do much in the way of character development or plot. The series is pure fluff compared to The Story of O (I’m not fond of that book either, but that’s because it is powerfully enough written that I actually found it disturbing).
(j/k)