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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
If neatness counts for you, don't count on Anne Rice's musical-ghost novel Violin. It is an eruption of the author's personal demons, as messy as the monster bursting from that poor fellow's chest in the movie Alien. Like Rice, the heroine Triana lives in New Orleans, mourns a dead young daughter and a drunken mother, and is subject to uncanny visions. A violin-virtuoso ghost named Stefan time-trips and globetrots with Triana, taunting her for her inability to play his Stradivarius--which echoes composer Salieri's jealousy in Amadeus and possibly Rice's jealousy of her successful poet husband Stan Rice in the years before her own florid, lurid writing made her famous. The storytelling here is too abstract, but the almost certainly autobiographical emotions could not be more visceral. At one point, the narrator exclaims, "Shame, blame, maim, pain, vain!" But Rice's dip in the acid bath of memory was not in vain--she packs the pain of a lifetime into 289 pages.
Book Description
The classic Anne Rice tale reissued with a stunning new look
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is partly autobiographical. Which is kind of scary because now we know Rice is obsessed with death and with wanting to play the violin. The story starts where Triana (Rice i suppose) has just lost her husband to AIDS and his dead body is still lying in the house (she stays with the body for 2 days actually). The beginning of the book was actually the best part, (I had read all the other bad reviews for it on US Amazon) and i was thinking "it's not so bad, what was all the fuss about?" Then it just got confusing and messy because this ghost keeps playing outside her window (with a violin) really beautiful music which makes her think of all the people who have died (her mom, dad, little girl and husband). Then the ghost (incubus? what is that?) comes to her and I just didn't get the relationship between Triana and Stefan (the ghost/incubus), it wasn't properly explained what he wanted from her, or what he was. Stefan told some of his "story" from the 19th century but still it fails to make the reader feel sympathy for him. It just gets Sooooo confusing, i mean he "shows" her all these images of his life and we don't know how or why or what is going on. Then suddenly she's in Vienna (she has just stolen his violin (a ghost violin?)) How did she get to Vienna??? and she finds that she can play it like a musical genius (before she wanted to play the violin but had no talent), so she becomes famous and plays everywhere in the world with an entourage of her family following her and using all her money. Then Stefan keeps begging her to give the violin back (why won't she??!!). Then ...etc. etc. What I enjoyed: I love Rice's writing, I love her thick, rich prose and beautiful wording. It was said that this book was too 'wordy', I agree but I don't mind because I'm used it by now, you just have to concentrate, but really some of the descriptions and etc. are just too convoluted. I felt sadness reading about the daughter's death but i couldn't relate and also the bits she told of her childhood and alcoholic mother were quite sad and also shocking, it caught my interest. She goes on and on about death, (to be expected but still...) and guilt (enough already), everyone keeps crying, it's a bit too melodramatic) I don't like the way she created Beethoven, Paganini, i don't like it that she "created" them at all. I just don't accept the whole "point" of the book, i understood where she was coming from but i didn't feel like wallowing in pain, everything was just too overdone and acute. 'when you laugh the world laughs with you, when you cry....'
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Being an Anne Rice fan i was really looking forward to reading Violin but it was so slow it took me forever to get into and the characters were less than engaging. The book is basically about death and grief and pain and some more pain and imparticular one womans struggles to cope with the deaths of family members. The last half is much better but you are still left thinking; why did i bother reading this?
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A big fan of all of Anne Rice's other books, I was extremely disappointed with this one. Occasionally I have had to put her books down after a few pages through them being a drag to continue, then returned to them a few weeks later and persevered and been quite pleased with the results. Unfortunately, this time the book was put down over 10 times, at times I skipped a few pages to avoid the glorification of death. Yet every time I was still just as disappointed and consider the book a complete waste of time and effort. Sorry Anne. To anyone new to the books try 'Taltos' or 'Queen of the dammed' these books are well worth the time and effort.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
The ghostly adventures of AR
It's only natural for an artist to incorporate parts of their life into their art. And if that life involves pain, the art often becomes a means of working through it. Read more
Published 9 months ago by E. A Solinas
self-indulgent awful weepy awfulness
Honestly the worst waste of time a book has ever been. Hours of my precious life were wasted reading about a fat middle-aged woman sobbing and snotting over a ghost and the violin... Read more
Published 23 months ago by Ms. F. M. Stygall
Not everyone's thing, but I liked it
I get why people don't like this, it's messy, it's dark, it makes leaps in space and time, it doesn't entirely have a plot....but despite that I liked it...a lot. Read more
Published on 14 Sep 2008 by Allison
I loved it...even if no-one else did!
This is a beautiful book. Yes, it is self-indulgent to some extent - but writers are always self-indulgent, there's always an element of autobiography in a novel. Read more
Published on 9 May 2005
One star is being over generous
What was Anne Rice thinking? Not much, evidently. Anyone thirsting for more in the vein of the Vampire Chronicles or even one-offs like The Feast of All Saints is going to be... Read more
Published on 10 Feb 2004 by Alison Morgan
Not very convincing!
It had some intriguing ideas: the ghost was fairly arresting as an idea when first on the scene, but became a bit of a bore after a while. Read more
Published on 3 Mar 1999
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