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| 0578947099
| 9780578947099
| 0578947099
| 3.57
| 5,732
| Feb 08, 2022
| Feb 08, 2022
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it was amazing
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The Book of the Most Precious Substance is the latest by one of my favorite contemporary writers, Sara Gran. Author of Come Closer and three mysteries
The Book of the Most Precious Substance is the latest by one of my favorite contemporary writers, Sara Gran. Author of Come Closer and three mysteries featuring San Francisco private eye Claire DeWitt, Gran put this out in 2021 via a publishing company she launched. Describing her experience with Simon & Schuster a "shit show" with her calls unreturned, Gran felt the subject matter of her new novel didn't lend itself to a publisher's editing suggestions either. Even more so than Come Closer, this dark mystery plunges deep into sex and the supernatural. It's also about one of my favorite subjects: books. The story is the first-person account of Lily Albrecht, a former novelist in her early forties who's introduced at a big annual book sale near Gramercy Park. Lily has carved a niche for herself as a rare bookseller specializing in a bit of everything, as long as it's unique, obscure and profitable. She's approached by a colleague named Shyman who specializes in military history. He inquires if she's ever heard of a book he calls The Precious Substance. Shyman claims to have a client offering six figures for it. Lily bargains for 33% of the sale if she can find this book for him. In less than 24 hours, Shyman is dead, murdered in an apparent mugging. Lily approaches a customer named Lucas Markson, head of a rare books department at a university in New York City. A handsome bachelor living well off a dwindling annuity, Lucas is as intrigued by this book as Lily. They agree to work together to locate a copy. Lily is married to a once brilliant writer named Abel who after five years of blissful marriage, slipped into dementia and now exists in a catatonic state at their home, a dreary farmhouse in upstate New York with a 24-hour caregiver. A runaway success with her first novel, Lily has lost her creative fire and accepted that whatever good luck she fell into has abandoned her. Back home, I tried to put The Book of the Most Precious Substance out of my mind and forget about it. My life was here, upstate. It wasn't so bad. People had it worse, that was for sure. I needed money, but chasing after this book was not a particularly wise or logical way to go about getting it. And Lucas was something I'd avoided for years. I'd developed a kind of resentment of people who were attractive and looked like they had sex and maybe even enjoyed life. There wasn't really any reason I couldn't date. It wasn't like Abel would be jealous. But I was married. I loved my husband. I didn't love anyone else, and I didn't think I ever would. And I wasn't all that interested in facing the potentially ugly landscape of dating in my forties: looks fading away, career now a dirty and demanding one, responsible for a husband who was now a full-time job. I'd had a few sexual and romantic encounters over the years. They were awkward and unskilled and messy and did not encourage me to seek out more. In the niche of rare booksellers, everyone knows everyone, and Lucas reports that an acquaintance named Leo Singleton, one of the top rare book men in New York, has seen a copy of The Book of the Most Precious Substance. Leo notifies them that the book was handwritten in 1614 by a Dutchman named Hieronymus Zeel. Only three copies are known to exist now, in very private collections. Leo claims the book consists of five chapters detailing five acts that if executed by a man and a woman with the proper fluids, words and seals, culminates with their wishes being granted. The world's leading authority on sex magic, Aleister Crowley, apparently learned everything he knew from the book. The husband of a New York bookseller Lily knows tells them that each of the steps bring growing levels of power, but the fifth requires blood from a beating human heart. He believes that their buyer is Oswald Johnson Haber III, one of the richest men in New York. Lily and Lucas feel strangely powerful and emboldened simply thinking about this book. Their confidence leads to Haber retaining them to find a copy and make the owner an offer, money being no object. Haber writes them a check for $100,000 but issues a warning not to sell the book to a man he refers to only as The Fool. If they do, he promises to have them killed. Shyman's notebook lists five parties who Lily and Lucas believe own The Book of the Most Precious Substance or want it. Haber is listed as The Accountant. There's also The Admiral, TG/LA, The Whore and The Prince. Lily and Lucas become lovers and begin completing each of the five steps with world class sex all over the globe. In Los Angeles they meet The Fool, a tech guru who owns an incomplete copy of the book. In Washington D.C. they meet The Admiral, who covets the book. They make a detour to New Orleans to lose whoever's following them. Then Munich and finally Paris to meet The Whore, who no longer owns the book but warns Lily to drop her pursuit of it. While Lucas seems to covet the book to obtain money, Lily has other ideas. "Magic is like money, or fame, or any other form of power," Arjun said. "It works. It's real. You can get what you want. Whatever you think will make you happy. But the problem always seems to be that most people are wrong about what will make them happy. Most lottery winners are miserable again within two or three years. Most celebrities are on medication to get through the day. Lord knows we know enough of them." I knew that about lottery winners and celebrities. But I also knew I wasn't like those people. Most of those people weren't where I was, or had been a few weeks ago--broke, alone, loveless, and sexless. And most of them, I guessed, had vague dreams about money and fame; they'd be prettier, more alluring, smarter. I had no delusions. I knew exactly what I wanted from the book. And I knew, if the book could deliver it, it would make me happy again. Sara Gran accomplishes in 90,000 words what Anne Rice (RIP) needed 270,000 words to. The Book of the Most Precious Substance is a contemporary, globetrotting mystery about sex and the occult that flows very well. Novelists love writing about novelists and can get obsessed with the minutiae of a suffering writer. Lily Albrecht is relatable. Giving up her writing career could be anything that she loved but couldn't continue. Earning income as a bookseller could be any dirty job. Gran's love for books shines through. Most of the characters Lily encounters love books, whether they're buyers like Lucas, sellers like her friends, or the rich and strange with their own private libraries. "Come," Paul said. "The books are in the guesthouse." The kitchen had a back door and we all walked through the messy yard to a small house, about four hundred square feet, at the other end of the property. The small house was locked up well; it took Paul three keys to let us in, and I noticed all the windows were tightly gated. Inside I saw why: It was a small, pristine, jewel box of a library, maybe five hundred books, each precisely shelved on dark wood bookshelves. In the middle of the room was a desk in the same dark wood with a laptop and stacks of more books on top. A few chairs and a few library carts, also full of books, took up the rest of the room. The books themselves were extraordinary. Most were in three areas: New Orleansiana; books about books (always the booksellers' favorite); and magic of all kinds: witchcraft, hoodoo, voodoo, tarot, stage magic, and most of all, sex magic. By now I recognized some of the names: Alice Bunker Stockham, Paschal Beverly Randolph. I like the way that Gran writes about sex. Lily Albrecht isn't hung up about it. She's an adult and Gran trusts that the reader is too. Like dining in the finest restaurants or traveling first class, sex is something Lily treated herself to earlier in her life and was good at, but she's in a different space now and simply doesn't enjoy it, though not for a lack of trying. It's an honest approach to sexual health that's neither tawdry or skittish. While the novel is short on the sort of intrigue or danger I'd expect in an international thriller, Gran foreshadows just enough to suggest something bad is waiting for our narrator. This all kept me invested to the end. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jun 30, 2022
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Jul 08, 2022
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Sep 20, 2021
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| 0140340203
| 9780140340204
| 0140340203
| 4.18
| 405,444
| Sep 28, 1981
| Jan 09, 1989
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it was amazing
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My introduction to the fiction of Roald Dahl is The Witches and this is one of those books whose language and imagination are so exotic that I wanted
My introduction to the fiction of Roald Dahl is The Witches and this is one of those books whose language and imagination are so exotic that I wanted to scribble down every paragraph, until the story pulled me in and I surrendered to its spell. Published in 1983 with illustrations by Quentin Blake, I was presented a 30th anniversary edition for Christmas--by a dear friend on Goodreads--which includes Blake's etchings. Without the mischievous charcoal drawings to accompany it, Dahl's text alone would be one of the scariest books I've read, electrified with truths only children know about the treachery of adults and the irrational evils of the world. The story is spun by a seven-year-old British boy whose expertise with REAL WITCHES begins when he travels with his parents to visit his material grandmother in Norway for Christmas. Orphaned in a car accident north of Oslo, the boy is adopted by his grandmother, a big, loving, cigar smoking lady who takes her grandson's mind off tragedy with her stories. Eventually, Grandmamma arrives on the subject of witches. As huge snowflakes fall outside, she cautions the boy that witches are still around and children must be wary of them, as witches despise children, sniffing them out as if they reeked of dog droppings and doing despicable things to them like transforming them into animals. Content to sit at the feet of his grandmother with the missing thumb and listen to her yarns, the boy is instructed by a family attorney that he is to return to England for his education. Grandmamma goes with him, warning her grandson that they must remain vigilant, as there is a Secret Society of Witches in every country. English witches are on a first-name basis, swapping deadly recipes and plotting to kill children under the direction of The Grand High Witch of All The World, who presides over their secret meetings. By Easter, life has almost returned to normal. The boy busies himself constructing a tree house in a big conker tree in their garden. Alone. I worked away, nailing the first plank on the roof. Then suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a woman standing immediately below me. She was looking up and me and smiling in the most peculiar way. When most people smile, their lips go out sideways. This woman's lips went upwards and downwards, showing all her front teeth and gums. The gums were like raw meat. It is always a shock to discover you are being watched when you think you are alone. And what was this strange woman doing in our garden anyway? I noticed that she was wearing a small black hat and she had black gloves on her hands and the gloves came up to her elbows. Gloves! She was wearing gloves! I froze all over. "I have a present for you," she said, still staring at me, still smiling, still showing her teeth and gums. I didn't answer. "Come down out of that tree, little boy," she said, "and I shall give you the most exciting present you've ever had." Her voice had a curious rasping quality. It made a sort of metallic sound, as though her throat was full of thumbtacks. The boy survives his encounter in the garden and averts tragedy when his grandmother falls ill with the flu. Unable to take him to the magical places in Norway she's reveled about when summer arrives, she books passage to the seaside town of Bournemouth, where they check in to the Hotel Magnificent. For company, his grandmother gives the boy two white mice, which he names William and Mary. Searching for somewhere he can train his mice far from the prying eyes of hotel management, the boy sneaks into an empty ballroom, reserved for the annual meeting of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Hiding behind a screen, the boy and his White Mouse Circus are unseen as the hotel manager escorts a great flock of ladies into the ballroom. Once they think they're alone, the ladies secure the door with a chain. The boy notices that all of the women wear gloves, just as his grandmother warned him witches do, and scratch at the bald scalps under their wigs, just as witches do. A stylish young lady addresses the meeting, removing her gloves to reveal claws for fingers and taking off her mask to reveal a cankered and worm-eaten face. The Grand High Witch herself goes into a fury with the others for their failure to eradicate England of its children. Advising the witches to quit their day jobs and open candy stores, the Grand High Witch introduces a concoction she calls Formula 86 Delayed-Mouse Maker. This will transform English children to imbibe it into mice, once they're far away from the scene of the crime. The High Witch tests the stuff out on a gluttonous boy named Bruno Jenkins, lured to his fate by the promise of chocolate. As the meeting breaks up, the boy's scent--concealed by virtue of his not bathing for days--finally gives him away and set upon by witches, he is transformed into a mouse too. Finding he quite enjoys being a mouse, the boy reunites with his grandmother, who sees an opportunity. All the rooms in the Hotel Magnificent had small private balconies. My grandmother carried me through into my own bedroom and out onto my balcony. We both peered down to the balcony immediately below "Now if that is her room," I said, "then I'll bet I could climb down there and somehow get in." "And get caught all over again," my grandmother said. "I won't allow it." "At this moment," I said, "all the witches are down on the Sunshine Terrace having tea with the Manager. The Grand High Witch probably won't be back until six o'clock, or just before. That's when she's going to dish out supplies of the foul formula to the ancient ones who are too old to climb trees after gruntles' eggs." "And what if you did manage to get into her room?" my grandmother said. "What then?" "Then I should try to find the place where she keeps her supply of Delayed-Action Mouse-Maker, and if I succeeded, then I would steal one bottle of it and bring it back here." "Could you carry it?" "I think so," I said. "It's a very small bottle." "I'm frightened of that stuff," my grandmother said. "What would you do with it if you did manage to get it?" "One bottle is enough for five hundred people," I said. "That would give each and every witch down there a double dose at least. We could turn them all into mice." My grandmother jumped about an inch in the air. We were out on my balcony and there was a drop of about a million feet below us and I very nearly bounced out of her hand over the railings when she jumped. Roald Dahl is the truth. I loved how fantasy is used here to strip away the deceit and corruption of the adult world, as opposed to using fantasy for escapism. In Dahl's world, there are no gifted children but normal ones, and magical instruments are in the hands of adults, who use them to victimize the meek. The book is terribly frightening, particularly the appearance of a witch under a boy’s treehouse, but Dahl softens his delivery with language that is witty and delightful, meant to beguile rather than unsettle the reader. All over the Dining Room women were screaming and strong men were turning white in the face and shouting, "It's crazy! This can't happen! Let's get the heck out of here quick!" Waiters were attacking the mice with chairs and wine bottles and anything else that came to hand. I saw a chef in a tall white hat rushing out from the kitchen brandishing a frying pan, and another one just behind him wielding a carving knife above his head, and everyone was yelling, "Mice! Mice! Mice! We must get rid of the mice!" Only the children in the room were really enjoying it. They all seemed to know instinctively that something good was going on right there in front of them and they were clapping and cheering and laughing like mad. In addition to his craft with language, Dahl is able to express his love for children even as particularly ghastly things happen to children in his stories. Bad stuff happen when you're a kid, but ingenuity and a good heart are the keys to a better world, while greed ultimately leads to a dead end. A film version of The Witches produced by Jim Henson was released in 1990, the year both Dahl and Henson would pass away, at the ages of 74 and 53, respectively. While the ending of the film was changed to reassure audiences, Dahl's vision is magical, exciting and affirms that change, while terrifying, is a natural part of the world. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 17, 2017
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Dec 23, 2017
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Dec 11, 2017
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Paperback
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| 0394537602
| 9780394537603
| 0394537602
| 3.23
| 17,631
| 1984
| Apr 12, 1984
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did not like it
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My introduction to the fiction of John Updike is The Witches of Eastwick and based on 111 pages, it's going to take Elizabeth Montgomery wiggling her
My introduction to the fiction of John Updike is The Witches of Eastwick and based on 111 pages, it's going to take Elizabeth Montgomery wiggling her nose for me to pick up one of the author's books again. Published in 1984, this literature is set in a quaint Rhode Island town (described down to the flowers or carpeting) where three bewitching women (described down to their facial features and dialects) become involved with a brutish bachelor named Darryl Van Horne. Some might even say he's the devil. Of the 1,000 approaches to that story, Updike's is so pontifical and pumped up with its own magnificence that it ceases to be ridiculous and just becomes unreadable. Set in the late 1960s--where there is no love lost between the author and those kids growing their hair long, protesting the war and listening to those damn Beatles records--the title characters are Alexandra Spofford, Jane Smart and Sukie Rougemont, divorcees or widows who've all shacked up with seemingly every able bodied man in Eastwick. Artisan, musician and writer, the witches of Eastwick are less committed to their craft--creative craft or witch craft, of which Lexa seems the most talented--as much as they're casting for their next male conquest. They're each repulsed by Van Horne, the swarthy, super rich New Yorker, but all attracted to him as well. Let me start with what this novel is not. This novel is not progressive in its portrayal of liberated women, with Van Horne breaking up the Thursday coven meetings the three women hold weekly. Their development hinges on their relationship to various men. They're not independent enough to see through Van Horne's wealth or have the self-respect to reject his mansplaining (Don Draper would approve of Van Horne's opinions on gender studies). This novel is not horror or fantasy fiction in any reliable way and not particularly paranormal, though Lexa can alter the weather and will her enemies into acts of bad luck. And finally, this novel is not readable. She returned to putting up Mason jars of spaghetti sauce, sauce for more spaghetti than she and her children could consume even if bewitched for a hundred years in an Italian fairy tale, jar upon jar lifted steaming from the white speckled blue boiler on the trembling, singing round wire rack. It was, she dimly perceived, some kind of ridiculous tribute to her present lover, a plumber of Italian ancestry. Her recipe called for no onions, two cloves of garlic minced and sauteed for three minutes (no more, no less; that was the magic) in heated oil, plenty of sugar to counteract acidity, a single grated carrot, more pepper than salt; but the teaspoon of crumbled basil is what catered to virility, and the dash of belladonna provided the release without which virility is merely a murderous congestion. All this must be added to her own tomatoes, picked and stored on every window sill these weeks past and now sliced and fed to teh blender: ever since, two summers ago, Joe Marino had begun to come into her bed, a preposterous fecundity had overtaken the staked plants, out in the side garden where the southwestern sun slanted in through the line of willows each long afternoon. The crooked little tomato branches, pulpy and pale as if made of cheap green paper, broke under the weight of so much fruit; there was something frantic is such fertility, a crying-out like that of children frantic to please. Of plants tomatoes seemed the most human, eager and fragile and prone to rot. Picking the watery orange-red orbs, Alexandra felt she was cupping a giant lover's testicles in her hand. She recognized as she labored in her kitchen the something sadly menstrual in all this, the bloodlike sauce to be ladled upon the white spaghetti. The fat white strings would become her own white fat. This female struggle of hers against her own weight: at the age of thirty-eight she found it increasingly unnatural. In order to attract love must she deny her own body, like a neurotic saint of old? Nature is the index and context of all health and if we have an appetite it is there to be satisfied, satisfying thereby the cosmic order. Yet she sometimes despised herself as lazy, in taking a lover of a race so notoriously tolerant of corpulence. There are longer paragraphs in The Witches of Eastwick and shorter paragraphs, but this is representative of Updike's focus, which isn't on character or storytelling but on his own brilliance at turning a word. It's writing that is quite pleased with itself and satisfied with how well it has women figured out. Despite the publishing date, this feels like a relic of the Swinging Sixties. A film adaptation released in 1987 took place in the present day and starred Jack Nicholson, Cher, Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer. Nicholson's charms and special effects are the focus, while the relegation of the female characters to fashion accessories are a holdover from the obtuse book. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Sep 02, 2017
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Sep 02, 2017
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Jun 20, 2017
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Hardcover
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| 0451210514
| 9780451210517
| 0451210514
| 4.04
| 145,596
| Mar 12, 1967
| Sep 02, 2003
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it was amazing
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What shocks me most about reading Rosemary's Baby is what fantastic fiction it is. Published in 1967, this thriller by Ira Levin flew off shelves and
What shocks me most about reading Rosemary's Baby is what fantastic fiction it is. Published in 1967, this thriller by Ira Levin flew off shelves and was adapted to film in 1968 by Roman Polanski into not only a prestigious studio picture but one that stands the test of time as one of the best horror films ever produced. In an afterword penned in 2003 and included in this edition, Levin expresses surprise by how faithful the hit film was to his book--preserving virtually all of the characters and scenes and even much of the author's dialogue--perhaps because no one told Polanski, making his first American film, that he was allowed to make changes. Opening with the pop and the sizzle of a tabloid photo, the novel centers on Rosemary Woodhouse, a Manhattan wife in her early twenties who with her husband Guy, a striving actor, are notified that a four-room apartment has opened up in the Bramford, a 19th century building the couple has been wait listed for since their wedding. The available 7th floor apartment was once the back of a luxurious ten-room apartment, but even after being split, retains a large kitchen and bath, as well as five closets, one of which has been barricaded by a dresser it takes both Guy and the leasing agent to budge. Inside the closet they find nothing but a vacuum cleaner and linen. Rosemary falls in love with 7E and is already planning to change the wallpaper as she urges Guy to get them out of a lease they've signed on another apartment (he phones in a fib to the landlord about joining a four-month USO tour of Vietnam). Born and raised in Omaha to a family of rigid Catholics she has separated herself from physically and spiritually, Rosemary believes in Guy, struggling to break out after minor roles in a couple of big plays and some commercial work that pays the bills. He notes that the theaters are all within walking distance of the Bramford, but Rosemary's patriarchal friend Hutch, a writer of boys' adventure novels, warns them against moving there. "I don't know whether or not you know it," he said, buttering a roll, "but the Bramford had rather an unpleasant reputation early in the century." He looked up, saw that they didn't know and went on. "Along with the Isadora Duncans and Theodore Dreisers," he said, "the Bramford has housed a considerable number of less attractive personages. It's where the Trench sisters performed their little dietary experiments, and where Keith Kennedy held his parties. Adrian Marcato lived there too; and so did Pearl Ames." "Who where the Trench sisters?" Guy asked, and Rosemary asked, "Who was Adrian Marcato?" "The Trench sisters," Hutch said, "were two proper Victorian ladies who were occasional cannibals. They cooked and ate several young children, including a niece." "Lovely," Guy said. Hutch turned to Rosemary. "Adrian Marcato practiced witchcraft," he said. "He made quite a splash in the eighteen-nineties by announcing that he had succeeded in conjuring up the living Satan. He showed off a handful of hair and some claw-parings, and apparently people believed him; enough of them, at least, to form a mob that attacked and nearly killed him in the Bramford lobby." Rosemary enthusiastically supervises the painting, furnishing and carpeting of her dream apartment, while Guy goes on auditions in the afternoon, his wife confident that his big break is coming. Their neighbors are heard but not seen: Minnie and Roman Castevet, an elderly couple who Guy concludes must be recluses or keep odd hours. Entering the creepy basement laundry, Rosemary meets a young woman named Terry, who was found on the street by the Castevets and can't say enough kind things about them. She shows Rosemary an amulet given to her for good luck; it contains a moldy smelling substance Terry calls tannis root. When police find a jumper on the sidewalk, Rosemary and Guy help identify her as Terry. They meet Minnie and Roman Castevet at the scene and Rosemary offers her condolences. In the morning, Minnie Castevet pays Rosemary a visit to thank her. An energetic and nosy old bat, but kind, Minnie invites the couple for dinner. Guy tries to beg off, fearing that if they get too close to the old timers they'll never be rid of them, but over dinner, he's charmed by Roman's travel stories and his belief in Guy's potential. Guy cancels their plans with friends so he can visit the Castevets again. Rosemary finds it odd that their neighbors' bare walls showed signs of picture frames being taken down. Rosemary begins to observe changes taking place around her. Guy lands a big break when an actor he lost a lead role in a play to goes blind and Guy is offered the part. He proposes to Rosemary that they have a baby, breaking his pattern of resistance to children. On the night they're planning to conceive, Rosemary receives a strange phone call from her estranged sister, wary that something bad had happened to Rosemary. Eating a chocolate mousse that Minnie prepared, Rosemary detects a chalky undertaste. Guy brushes it off and urges his wife to finish the mousse anyway. Dizziness sets in and Rosemary is taken to bed by her husband, where she has a vivid dream. Below was a huge ballroom where on one side a church burned fiercely and on the other, a black-bearded man stood glaring at her. In the center was a bed. She went to it and lay down, and was suddenly surrounded by naked men and women, ten or a dozen, with Guy among them. They were elderly, the women grotesque and slack-breasted. Minne and her friend Laura-Louise were there, and Roman in a black miter and black silk robe. With a thin black wand he was drawing designs on her body, dipping the wand's point in a cup of red held for him by a sun-browned man with a white moustache. The point moved back and forth across her stomach and down ticklingly to the insides of her thighs. The naked people were chanting--flat, unmusical, foreign-tongued syllables--and a flute or clarinet accompanied them. "She's awake, see sees!" Guy whispered to Minnie. He was large-eyed, tense. "She don't see," Minnie said. "As long as she ate the mouse she can't see nor hear. She's like dead. Now sing." Rosemary's dream culminates in her rape by something inhuman and a conviction that it's really happening to her. She wakes to discover scratches on her thighs. Guy apologizes for having too much to drink last night as well, admitting that he had sex with her while she was passed out. Rosemary is offended and feels her husband has become distant. Late for her period, she visits Dr. Hill, a young obstetrician recommended to her by a friend and receives the great news that she is pregnant. Elated, Rosemary also shares with Guy her concerns over how they've been treating each other. He apologizes for neglecting her for his play and promises a new start. Guy rushes to share the baby announcement with the Castevets. Minnie offers to get Rosemary an appointment with one of the top obstetricians in the country, a Dr. Saperstein who is a good friend. While Rosemary is content with Dr. Hill, Guy urges her to accept the upgrade. Fearful of the unknown, Rosemary also accepts a good luck charm from Minnie in the tannis root amulet like Terry had worn. Visiting the elderly Dr. Saperstein, Rosemary is ordered to ignore the baby books or advice of her friends and to drink an all-natural milkshake he'll have Minnie Castevet prepare daily. When Rosemary experiences prolonged abdominal pain, Dr. Saperstein tells her it'll pass. Hutch visits Rosemary in 7E and is shocked by how much weight she's lost. He questions the black candles in the apartment (provided by Minnie) and her amulet, packed with what smells like a fungus to him. Hutch phones Rosemary and asks her to meet him in the morning, but suffers a stroke before she can speak to him. His daughter ultimately delivers to Rosemary a parcel he meant for her. Inside is a book titled All of Them Witches. It offers clues that "Roman Castevet" is an anagram for "Steven Marcato," Adrian Marcato's son, and their neighbors dabble in modern day witchcraft. She presents her conspiracy theory to her husband. Guy watched her for a moment. "What about Dr. Saperstein?" he said. "Is he in the coven too?" She turned and looked at him. "After all," he said, "there've been maniac doctors, haven't there? His big ambition is probably to make house calls on a broomstick." She turned to the window again, her face sober. "No, I don't think he's one of them," she said. "He's--too intelligent." "And besides, he's Jewish," Guy said and laughed. "Well, I'm glad you've exempted somebody from your McCarthy-type smear campaign. Talk about witch-hunting, wow! And guilt by association." "I'm not saying they're really witches," Rosemary said. "I know they haven't got real power. But there are people who do believe, even if we don't; just the way my family believes that God hears their prayers and that the wafer is the actual body of Jesus. Minnie and Roman believe their religion, believe and practice it. I know they do; and I'm not going to take any chances with my baby's safety." "We're not going to sublet and move," Guy said. "Yes, we are," Rosemary said, turning to him. He picked up his new shirt. "We'll talk about it later," he said. "He lied to you," she said. "His father wasn't a producer. He didn't have anything to do with the theater at all." "All right, so he's a bullthrower," Guy said; "who the hell isn't?" He went into the bedroom. Rosemary sat down next to the Scrabble set. She closed it and, after a moment, opened the book and began to read the final chapter, Witchcraft and Satanism. Guy came back in without the shirt. "I don't think you ought to read any more of that," he said. Rosemary said, "I just want to read this last chapter." "Not today, honey," Guy said, coming to her. "You've got yourself worked up enough as it is. It's not good for you or the baby." He put his hand out and waited for her to give him the book. There have been plenty of novels about paranoia, with a protagonist confronted by incongruencies--hinting at a mental breakdown or a massive conspiracy against him--but Ira Levin operates on another level with Rosemary's Baby. His protagonist is a pregnant woman heavily dependent on her husband and her social structure and thus vulnerable to them. She finally wakes up and comes to fear that both she and her child are in danger. Her evidence inconclusive and theory improbable, she's told she's overreacting. While witchcraft is implausible, society's frequent mistrust of women is not. This makes the terror of the novel plausible. As a protagonist, I don't cater sympathy for Rosemary Woodhouse, even as a woman of her era. Desperate to escape the control of her family, she surrendered control of her life to a husband, a man whose stagecraft comes with certain perks. Rosemary cut her deal with the devil at the county courthouse and Rosemary's Baby is about the devil coming to honor that contract. Regardless of one's views of marriage, the novel can be enjoyed as sinister, delightfully executed suspense. Levin writes with restraint and precision, introducing no detail he doesn't leverage later and engaging the reader's imagination to question whether anything supernatural is occurring at all. In 1966, schlock horror producer William Castle put in the highest bid for the film rights to Rosemary's Baby, but in need of financing, went to Paramount Pictures, where a young production head named Robert Evans bet that the material would be a match for a young European filmmaker he wanted to work with named Roman Polanski. Evans used Polanski's love of skiing and promise of a skiing picture to get him to Los Angeles, where he convinced Polanski to consider Ira Levin's novel instead. The film is a masterwork of unease, duplicity and slowly pulsating doom, with Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Sidney Blackmer and in her Academy Award winning role, Ruth Gordon. [image] ...more |
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| 0547550294
| 9780547550299
| 0547550294
| 4.02
| 154,768
| 1958
| Jan 10, 2011
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My autumn witch-a-thon continues with The Witch of Blackbird Pond, the Newberry Medal winning novel by Elizabeth George Speare. Published in 1958, I g
My autumn witch-a-thon continues with The Witch of Blackbird Pond, the Newberry Medal winning novel by Elizabeth George Speare. Published in 1958, I gather this is required reading in some public schools; The Bookman in Orange carries new copies, while a buddy of mine named Steve Green at McClain's Coffeehouse in Fullerton caught me reading this and experienced a bad flashback to his junior high days. I was enamored by the finesse with which Speare propels her narrative and the historical detail she wields, but the story didn't deliver on my wicked witch-a-thon expectations and suffers from issues common to the Young Adult genre. The drama centers on Katherine "Kit" Tyler, a sixteen-year-old who arrives in the Connecticut Colony in April 1687. Born and raised on a plantation in Barbados with her grandfather, Kit departs for the Colonies after his passing to live with her Aunt Rachel. Aboard the Dolphin as it docks in the village of Saybrook, Kit meets two young men: Nathaniel "Nat" Eaton, son of the vessel's captain, and John Holbrook, a clergyman headed to the town of Wethersby upriver to study with a reverend doctor. When a wooden doll belonging to a put upon child named Prudence goes overboard, Kit boldly dives in to the bay to retrieve it, alarming those who have never known a woman to swim. Kit continues to make waves by revealing to Holbrook that she can read. Upon finally reaching Wethersby when the winds permit, Kit reveals to the captain that she has not sent word to her aunt of her arrival and her seven trunks must be transported to "town," which Kit is shocked to learn is little more than a church, a square and the scattered homes or fields of the Puritan villagers. Aunt Rachel initially mistakes Kit for her dead sister, but is welcomed, even when Kit notifies her aunt that she has come to live with them. Her uncle Matthew is a taciturn farmer whose word is law, and does not truck to his daughters Judith and Mercy idling the day away trying on the dresses Kit offer as presents. Her uncle regarded her with scorn. "No one in my family has any use for such frippery," he said, coldly. "Nor are we beholden on anyone's charity for our clothing." "But they are gifts," cried Kit, tears of hurt and anger springing to her eyes. "Everyone brings--" "Be quiet, girl! It is time you understood one thing at the start. This will be your home, since you have no other, but you will fit yourself to our ways and do no more to interrupt the work of the household or to turn the heads of my daughters with your vanity. Now you will close your trunks and allow them to get about the work they have neglected. Rachel, take off that ridiculous thing!" "Even the gloves, Father?" Judith was still rebellious. "Everyone wears gloves to Meeting." "Everything. No member of my household will appear in public in such unseemly apparel." Mercy had said no word, but now as she folded the blue shawl and laid it quietly on top of the trunk, Rachel found courage for her only protest. "Will you allow Mercy to keep the shawl?" she pleaded. "'Tis not gaudy, and 'twill keep off the draft there by the chimney." Matthew's glance moved from the shawl to his daughter's quiet eyes, and barely perceptibly the grim line of his jaw relaxed. So there was one weakness in this hard man! Kit tries her best to fit in to the Puritan village. Upon learning that her people have no servants, she tries to earn her keep carding wool, preparing meals or making soap. Bossy Judith settles on assigning her cousin corn pudding. To the more sympathetic Mercy, Kit reveals the reason she did not give her aunt prior notice is that her late grandfather's debts made her vulnerable to marriage to one of his creditors. The runaway bride turns heads by attending Sabbath Meeting in silk, the only outfit she has. Kit despairs that the boring service lasts practically all day, but garners the attention of William Ashby, a wealthy young suitor who has never seen anything like her. The stranger in a strange land begins to find her stride when she assists Mercy in teaching the dame school for young children. Helping Judith weed the onion field out by Blackbird Pond, Kit inquires about a shack out there in the tranquil meadow and is told a witch lives there, a Quaker named Hannah Tupper. When Kit improvises a lesson by involving her students in playacting a Bible scene, chaos erupts and her Puritan observers fire Kit. She flees to the meadow for solace, where she is comforted by Hannah and learns that the woman is no witch, just a misunderstood widow who's persecuted in Massachusetts for her religious beliefs. Kit befriends the old woman. Kit summons the courage to ask for her job back. William has come courting Kit, with John Holbrook putting in similar family time with Mercy, but Kit finds her thoughts turning back to Nat, who she encounters at Hannah's home delivering her goods and helping with repairs to her roof. Uncle Matthew forbids Kit from visiting the Quaker, which Kit ignores with support from her aunt. She even starts to teach her young fan Prudence how to read in secret, introducing her to Hannah and turning over lessons to the old woman. But when a fever afflicts the youth of the village, Hannah is singled out as the cause and the rebellious Kit's relationship with the woman pulls her into the witch hunt. "Do you deny that on a certain day in August last, on passing the pasture of Goodman Whittlesley you cast a spell upon his cattle so that they were rooted to the ground where they stood and refused to answer his call or to give any milk on that evening?" "Goodman Whittlesley, will you repeat your complaint for this assembly?" Her head reeling, Kit stood helpless as, one after the other, they rose and made their complaints, these men and women whom she scarcely recognized. The evidence rolled against her like a dark wave. One man's child had cried aloud all night that someone was sticking pins into him. Another child had seen a dark creature with horns at the foot of her bed. A woman who lived along South Road testified that one morning Kit had stopped and spoken to her child and that within ten minutes the child had fallen into a fit and lain ill for five days. Another woman testified that one afternoon last September she had been sitting in the window, sewing a jacket for her husband, when she had looked up and seen Kit walking past her house, staring up at the window in a strange manner. Whereupon, try as she would, the sleeve would never set right in the jacket. A man swore he had seen Kit and Goody Tupper dance round a fire in the meadow one moonlit night, and that a great black man, taller tan an Indian, had suddenly appeared from nowhere and joined in the dance. Elizabeth George Speare does a wonderful job of not only placing the reader in a working Puritan village in the 17th century but populating her story with compelling characters and leaving the readers with a good message. If it adhered a bit closer to history, it's a story that had the potential for great violence and tragedy, but perhaps due to its young audience, everything turns out happy in the end. I liked how Speare introduces close to a dozen characters, assigning them roles in the village and personalities that distinguish them from one another. Most of the characters remain static, while Uncle Matthew and Nat evolve the more they come to understand and appreciate Kit. The prose is poised and illustrates its setting quite effectively. What a pity every child couldn't learn to read under a willow tree, Kit thought a week later. She and Prudence sat on a cool grassy carpet. A pale green curtain of branches just brushed the grasses and threw a filigree of shadows, as delicate as the wrought silver, on the child's face. This was the third lesson. At first Prudence had been speechless. In all her short life the child had seldom seen, and certainly never held in her hands, anything so lovely as the exquisite little silver hornbook. For long moments she had been too dazed that the tiny alphabet fastened to it were made up of the same a's and b's that she had overheard through the school doorway. But now, by this third meeting, she was drinking in the precious letters so speedily that Kit knew she must soon find a primer as well. There's a lot of Drama(!) in The Witch of Blackbird Pond, with the sister who loves the boy who loves the other sister, and parents who just don't understand. I was amused by the suggestion that teenagers were apparently running wild in the streets as far back as the first Thanksgiving. Speare handles her story with class, with language that is poised and vivid, and takes her historical subject matter seriously. That was my problem with the novel: nothing eerie or frightening occurs. Hannah Tupper is easily the most static and forgettable character in the book despite being the title character. [image] Cover art over the years hints at different types of books. My favorite is Cover #4, from the first Dell printing in 1971. This promises a far out chiller and a thriller featuring a spooky witch haunting the countryside. I love the proportionality of its elements and the beguiling mood it conjures. Cover #1 accurately reflects the YA novel the author wrote, which despite the colonial setting and high level of writing, is in many ways a generic teen book. The Witch of Blackbird Pond is a good book, but not one I'd recommend to get the pulse racing on Halloween. ...more |
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| 0440497272
| 9780440497271
| 0440497272
| 3.69
| 2,518
| Jun 01, 1972
| Feb 01, 1986
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Autumn's witch-a-thon continues with my introduction to the fiction of Zilpha Keatley Snyder, her Newberry Medal winner The Witches of Worm. Published
Autumn's witch-a-thon continues with my introduction to the fiction of Zilpha Keatley Snyder, her Newberry Medal winner The Witches of Worm. Published in 1972, the book arrived on my radar by virtue of its stellar reviews and while I'm very critical of what's become known as the Young Adult genre, I'm not above enjoying them, particularly those in the vein of Lois Duncan where teenagers vulnerable to the whims of adults encounter the supernatural. Terror and adolescence go hand in hand in this sub-genre, something I find relatable. There were qualities I admired in this novel while I was reading it, but too little I found memorable. The story concerns Jessica, a twelve-year-old latchkey kid who lives in the Regency, an apartment house with her single mother, Joy. While mom is a vivacious blonde who would rather turn to stone than stay home and bake cookies, daughter is a sullen loner who lives in her own imagination. Jessica is estranged from her only two friends. Brandon lives at the Regency but has gone from participating in adventures with Jessica to shunning her, or vice versa. Diane, who was never as exciting but easy to get along with, has deserted Jessica for a new friend who lives in the posh neighborhood up the hill, overlooking the Regency from the top of a steep cliff. Climbing the cliff to a natural stone shelf near the mouth of a cave, she reads a book called The Witches of Salem Town, having found an article on witches in one of Joy's women's magazines and gone looking for more information at the library. She is reading about Ann, the most famous of Salem's witch accusers, who was also twelve years old at the time of her purge. She is interrupted by the sound of movement and at the rear of the cave, discovers a mute and hairless animal that could only be a baby kitten. Jessica dislikes cats and has no nurturing side to her, but lives in the same building as an old cat lady named Mrs. Fortune she feels might help. She looked terribly old, older than forever, and her faded dress of heavy brown material hung loosely on her thin body. Her long gray hair was tied at the back of her neck with a piece of string. People had always talked about Mrs. Fortune's strange appearance, but Jessica had never paid much attention to it. Now, suddenly, she found herself thinking. She does look weird. It's a good thing for her she doesn't live in Salem in the olden days. But out loud she only said, "Hello, Mrs. Fortune. I've come about this." She pulled the kitten out of her pocket and held it out. "I thought maybe you might want it." Mrs. Fortune saddles Jessica with the responsibility of feeding and cleaning the kitten every two hours. Joy, who has long encouraged her daughter to adopt a pet who would keep her company, is repelled by the animal and urges her daughter to take it back to its mother. She offers Jessica a darling Persian from the pet shop. She tells Jessica the kitten looks like a worm and the name sticks. Through her lonely summer vacation, Jessica takes care of Worm, who does not develop attractiveness as it grows and while acknowledging Jessica, doesn't lavish her with attention. She talks to Worm nonetheless and begins imagining what he might say back if he could speak. By the time school starts, Jessica is lonelier and more bitter than ever. Joy is spending more time with a new boyfriend named Alan, who Jessica does not consider the paternal type and might not want her around for long. She begins hearing a voice in her head which she attributes to Worm. The voice urges Jessica to do things. Her first stunt is to cleverly snitch out Diane after she catches her walking home from school with her new best friend past a certain arcade where Diane's mother has forbid her from parading around. Next, she tells a nosy neighbor named Mrs. Post obsessed with murderers and robbers that she saw a strange man in the apartment house, sending her into hysterics. Confronted by her daughter's lies, Joy does everything she can not to get involved in parenting. When Jessica is put in charge of laundry before Joy takes off for the weekend with Alan, Jessica throws her mother's $75 red dress in the wash and destroys it. Going into a catatonic fit when confronted with her behavior, Jessica is scheduled a visit with the school counselor, whose tests Jessica is confident she fools by telling a story about a baby being forgotten about in a park, where leaves slowly cover it up. Jessica's destructive behavior continues under the guidance of Worm, who seems to advise her that Mrs. Fortune knows more than she tells. Jessica goes to visit the old woman. "Witches--about believing in witches--it's not a question I'd care to answer for just anyone who might ask. But I can see you have reason for wanting to know. So, I'll tell you this. Belief in mysteries--all manner of mysteries--is the only lasting luxury in life." She stopped for a while and nodded as if agreeing with what she had just said. Then she went on, "Yes, my dear. I'm quite prepared to say that I believe in witches." Her face crinkled into the cozy expression she used when she talked to her white cats. "I believe in the witches of yesterday and today--and in all shapes and sizes." There were qualities that I admired about The Witches of Worm. Snyder is restrained in her exploration of the occult and allows the reader to decide whether supernatural events have enveloped Jessica, or she's suffering from an emotional breakdown. Parallels between her behavior and the Salem witch hysteria are made lightly by the author, who writes about latchkey children and single mothers a decade before the media acknowledged that the nuclear family was breaking up. The Newberry Medal is well-earned as many children who feel neglected and are on the verge of self-destructive behaviors might read this book and realize they are not alone. My admiration never crossed over into emotional involvement though. Snyder skips over so many details, a characteristic that seems to be a requirement in a lot of Young Adult books, where forward momentum and high drama always trump any sort of retrospection or reflection. Nothing is explored about Joy's past, or the identity of Jessica's father. The details of Jessica's estrangement from Brandon remain unexplored until practically the climax of the novel, even though the hints Snyder drops involves physical abuse and is begging to be explored. While the Regency and Jessica's isolation there feels real, the tenants do not. The Witches of Worm might appeal most to young readers or those who don't want to read a long novel, particularly if they have any interest in the paranormal. Snyder's prose doesn't allow for detail, but it does evoke a certain gothic atmosphere and creepiness, and the topics she explores concerning latchkey kids and single parenting do make the book important. I wasn't captivated by anything that went on in the story, but understand I wasn't the demographic Snyder was writing for either. ...more |
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| 0812035712
| 9780812035711
| 0812035712
| 3.89
| 928,904
| 1623
| Apr 01, 1985
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it was amazing
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My game plan for revisiting Shakespeare was to stream video of a staging of the play, listening and watching, while reading along to as much of the or
My game plan for revisiting Shakespeare was to stream video of a staging of the play, listening and watching, while reading along to as much of the original text as was incorporated by the staging. Later, I read the entire play in the modern English version. The staging I found for Macbeth was the 1971 film adaptation directed by Roman Polanski, adapted by Polanski & Kenneth Tynan and shot by Gilbert Taylor, the legendary director of photography on Dr. Strangelove, Repulsion and Star Wars. Starring Jon Finch as Macbeth and Francesca Annis as Lady Macbeth, the production is handsomely mounted, enthralling and spooky, no surprise since this was Polanski's follow-up to Rosemary's Baby. Historians believe Shakespeare wrote Macbeth in 1606 for the King of Denmark on a visit to his brother-in-law King James I in London. Shakespeare may have drawn inspiration from Ralph Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland, which the Bard consulted often in his research. Macbeth ruled Scotland from 1040-1057 A.D. and per Holinshed, conspired with his wife, his aide Banquo and several others to murder Duncan, a rival chief with whom Macbeth held a grievance. Macbeth may have also consulted with "three women in evil apparel" who spun certain prophecies. Macbeth engaged in a series of murders to protect his rule and was eventually revenged by Duncan's son, Malcolm. A reigning superstition in the theater is that Macbeth is so unlucky that to even utter the title or quote from it on stage will invite disaster. Among theater groups, referring to it as "The Scottish Play", "The Scottish Business" or simply "that play" are preferable to tempting fate by saying the name Macbeth. Constantine Stanislavski, Orson Welles and Charlton Heston all suffered some woe after a performance. Abraham Lincoln apparently read the play the night before his assassination. The bad luck is said to originate from the Witches Song in Act IV, Scene 1, which if the rumors are to be believed, has the power to literally raise hell. Or, the fact that the play is performed in dim lightning with heavy swordplay and stuntwork might account for the freak accidents associated with it. The play lives up to its sinister reputation. It's one of the darkest and most potent dramas I've read. Macbeth opens with three witches, the Weird Sisters, commiserating on a Scottish heath as a storm brews. King Duncan arrives on a battlefield with his sons Malcolm and Donalbain to be notified that a rebellion backed by the King of Norway has been repulsed by Macbeth, thane of Glamis. Macbeth and his fellow nobleman Banquo are stopped by the three witches after their great victory and issued a pair of prophecies: that Macbeth will assume the title of Thane of Cawdor and eventually, King of Scoland. A messenger then notifies Macbeth that due to his capture of the traitorous Thane of Cawdor, Duncan has bestowed upon him the villain's title. In spite of his battlefield honors and favor of the king, Macbeth is none too pleased when Duncan announces that his son Malcolm will inherit the throne. Macbeth returns to his castle at Inverness, sharing with his wife Lady Macbeth that three witches have predicted his rise to power. The little missus doubts that her husband has the mettle to take what is his. When the king arrives to spend the night, Lady Macbeth hatches a plot to disable the king's bodyguards with drink, allowing her husband to slip into the king's room to murder him, laying the blame on the king's men. Uncertain of his ability to commit regicide, Macbeth is pushed by his wife and manages to carry out the crime. He catches a break when the king's sons flee Scotland for their own protection, sewing suspicion that they may have killed their father. Macbeth is crowned king, but his celebration is short lived. Fearing that Banquo and his boy Fleance will ferret out Macbeth's guilt, he hires murderers to ambush father and son. Banquo is vanquished protecting his son, but during a banquet, Macbeth sees the ghost of his old friend at the table and makes a spectacle of himself, much to Lady Macbeth's displeasure. Another nobleman, Macduff, distances himself from Macbeth, fleeing to England rather than risk attack. The king responds by sending murderers to slaughter Macduff's wife, children and servants. As forces gather against Macbeth, he pays another visit to the witches. They conjure three apparitions, which tell Macbeth to beware Macduff, that no one born of woman will harm Macbeth and that no harm will come to him until the forest of Birnam Wood advances on his castle. In spite of these predictions, Macbeth and his wife discover it's lonely at the top, and that fate works in mysterious ways. Macbeth is a gangster movie. Unwilling to pay their dues, the thane of Glamis and his wife resort to violence to rise to the top in a fashion that Tony Montana would approve of. And in gangster movie style, the couple's unchecked ambition gets them exactly what's coming to them. The play is drenched in highland atmosphere, with witches, superstitions, skullduggery, hallucinations and duels. It's eerie, bloody and contains some of most powerful dialogue to be found in Shakespeare. Act V, Scene 5 is particularly memorable, with Macbeth realizing a little too late that "All our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death". The dilemma faced by Macbeth and his wife -- whether to play the game or grab what's coming to them by any means necessary -- is more relevant to the human condition today than it was in 1040 A.D. The appearance of the witches and their cryptic predictions lend the play a dark and unsettling mood, as if Macbeth's plot had been seen from a hundred miles away and is going to end badly in spite of what his conscience is telling him. It's a quickly paced play with terrific inner monologue by Macbeth and Lady Macbeth as they debate their course of action and thrills as their plot meets its ends. The characters may not be the most complicated in Shakespeare, but they may be the most cursed. ...more |
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May 10, 2014
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Apr 03, 2014
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| 4.10
| 119,498
| Oct 01, 1990
| May 1993
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My witchathon concludes with The Witching Hour, the eleventh novel by Anne Rice. Published in 1990, I was hoping it might be the author's thirteenth b
My witchathon concludes with The Witching Hour, the eleventh novel by Anne Rice. Published in 1990, I was hoping it might be the author's thirteenth book, but this goth epic of blood, sugar, sex and black magic is a monster as is. The word count is 327,360 words, 10,000 shy of Stephen King's baby high chair Under the Dome. Rice is a gifted scenarist who sets the table for adult horror dripping with sensuality and dread, the type moviegoers had to imagine in the 1940s with thrillers like Cat People or I Walked With a Zombie. While her atmosphere is combustible, her storytelling skills are flaccid and I reached a point where I just wanted this to end. The novel gets off impressively. Chapters one through six alternate between three main characters and three citizens of New Orleans: a doctor, a priest and a woman who marries into a family owned funeral parlor. These locals are traumatized by their experiences with Deirdre Mayfair, a woman in her late 40s and heir to a family fortune. Deirdre has existed in a catatonic state for thirty years since her child was taken away from her to be raised by a cousin in California. Cared for by her sister Carlotta, Deirdre wastes away in a grand but decaying house on First Street, spook central for stories the nuns tell naughty children about witches in the Garden District. The doctor, the priest and the woman have at one time wanted to help cure Deirdre or reunite her with her daughter, but find the heir to the Mayfair fortune to be lost in her own world, as well as controlled not only by feared attorney Miss Carl, but a strange man that has been seen near her for years. Each of our do-gooders has had an encounter with that man and unburden themselves to inquiring mind Aaron Lightner, an Englishman who's part historian and part psychic detective for a transcontinental organization called the Talamasca, which in addition to investigating vampires and ghosts, has kept tabs on the Mayfair family for generations. Lightner had proved an excellent listener, responding gently without ever interrupting, But the doctor did not feel better. In fact, he felt foolish when it was over. As he watched Lightner gather up the little tape recorder and put it in his briefcase, he had half a mind to ask for the tape. It was Lightner who broke the silence as he laid down several bills over the check. "There is something I must explain to you," he said. "I think it will ease your mind.: What could possibly do that? "You remember," Lightner said, "that I told you I collect ghost stories." "Yes." "Well, I know of that old house in New Orleans. I've seen it. And I've recorded other stories of people who have seen the man you described." The doctor was speechless. The words had been said with utter conviction. In fact, they had been spoken with such authority and assurance that the doctor believed them without doubt. He studied Lightener in detail for the first time. The man was older than he seemed on first inspection. Perhaps sixty-five, even seventy. The doctor found himself captivated again by Lightner's expression, so affable and trusting, so inviting of trust in return. "Others," the doctor whispered. "Are you sure?" "I've heard other accounts, some very like your own. And I tell you this so you understand that you didn't imagine it. And so it doesn't continue to prey on your mind. You couldn't have helped Deirdre Mayfair, by the way. Carlotta Mayfair would never have allowed it. You ought to put the entire incident out of your mind. Don't ever worry about it again." Meanwhile, in San Francisco, forty-eight year old Michael Curry has plied himself with beer and shut himself indoors while the news media stake him out. Pulled from the bay and revived after drowning, the New Orleans native and restorer of old houses has discovered an unwanted talent for psychometry, picking up psychic visions off any object he touches. Donning leather gloves to blunt the effect, Michael received a vision while clinically dead of others instructing him that he had some purpose to fulfill, but can't remember what it is he's supposed to do. He compels his doctor to track down his rescuer, hoping he might have spoken about his vision to them. Michael's savoir is Rowan Mayfair, thirty year old board-certified Staff Attending in Neurosurgery. Rejecting a promising career in research, Rowan has found her calling in trauma surgery. Raised by wealthy adoptive parents in Tiburon and recently orphaned, she recharges her batteries after a fifteen-hour shift by taking her yacht, the Sweet Christine into Richardson Bay and then the open sea. The cabin of the yacht has been the location of Rowan's other favorite pasttime, taking select cops, firemen or first responders she picks up in neighborhood bars for recreational sex. Rowan has followed Michael's story in the tabloids and wants to contact him for far more than professional courtesy. There are three people Rowan knows of that she's has killed by thought, most recently, her philandering adoptive father who threatened to leave Rowan's terminally ill adoptive mother unless Rowan slept with him. Michael's experience with psychic phenomena make him one of her people, while his rough and tumble build, blue eyes and worker's hands cloaked in leather have their allure to her as well. Rowan takes Michael to her home and in addition to vividly describing the mystique of New Orleans and San Francisco, Rice demonstrates her facility for writing hot sex. When he saw her breasts through the thin covering of nylon, he kissed them through the cloth, deliberately teasing himself, his tongue touching the dark circle of the nipple before he forced the cloth away. What did it feel like, the black leather touching her skin, caressing her nipples? He lifted her breasts, kissing the hot curve of them underneath--he loved this particular juicy crevice--then he sucked the nipples hard, one after the other, rubbing and gathering the flesh feverishly with the palm of his hand. She was twisting under him, her body moving helplessly it seemed, her lips grazing his unevenly shaven chin, then all soft and sweet over his mouth, her hands slipping into his shirt and feeling his chest as if she loved the flatness of it. She pinched his nipples as he suckled hers. He was so hard he was going to spill. He stopped, rose on his hands, and tried to catch his breath, then sank down next to her. He knew she was pulling off her jeans. He brought her close, feeling the smooth flesh of her back, then moving down to the curve of her soft clutchable and kneadable little bottom. No waiting now, he couldn't. In a rage of impatience he took off his glasses and shoved them on the bedside table. Now she would be a lush soft blur to him, but all the physical details he'd seen were ever present in his mind. He was on top of her. Her hand moved against his crotch, unzipped his pants, and brought out his sex, roughly, slapping it as if to test its hardness--a little gesture that almost brought him over the edge. He felt the prickly curling thatch of pubic hair, the heated inner lips, and finally the tight pulsing sheath itself as he entered. I did mention that The Witching Hour is 327,360 words, so, if you like the supernatural and erotica, Anne Rice has more. A lot more. After three rounds of world class sex, Michael takes leave of Rowan to make a flight to New Orleans (he'd booked his passage before they officially met). Michael feels pulled to his hometown and after picking up no clues from Rowan or her boat, believes the riddle behind his vision lies in the Big Easy. Michael has many memories of the city, particularly a house on First Street in the Garden District his mother would take him past on walks and where a strange man watched him from the porch. Drunk, Michael heads straight for that house and sees the man again. He passes out. When Michael recovers, he finds himself at the Pontchartrain Hotel with Aaron Lightner. The Englishman attempted to make contact with Michael in San Francisco, intrigued by his psychometric talents, and is operating under the impression that Rowan Mayfair hired Michael to do some work for her in New Orleans. Through much exposition, Lightner reveals that Rowan is heir to a vast family fortune here in the Crescent City and that house that Michael has been obsessed with--and everything in it--belongs to her. He convinces Michael to come with him to a motherhouse the Talamasca has in Metairie, where he is given a file to read on the Mayfair Witches. Back in San Francisco, Rowan is awakened by a presence. She finds a man standing on the dock who dims away. In the morning, Rowan receives a call from Carlotta Mayfair. Miss Carl is unaware that Rowan's adoptive mother is deceased and has to notify her niece that her birth mother Deirdre passed away that morning. She warns Rowan to avoid New Orleans at all costs. The doctor ignores her. Michael makes progress on the file of the Mayfair Witches, which goes back twelve generations and spans Scotland, France and New Orleans in an orgy of persecution, personal fortune, and madness, with "that man," who goes by the name Lasher, waiting in the wings. Though Deirdre has slumbered in a twilight induced by drugs all of her adult life, there have been countless sightings by those around her of "a mysterious brown-haired man." Nurses in St. Ann's Asylum claimed to have seen him--"some man going into her room! Now I know I saw that." At a Texas hospital where she was incarcerated briefly, a doctor claimed to have seen "a mysterious visitor" who always "seemed somehow to just disappear when I wanted to question him or ask him who he was." At least one nurse in a northern Louisiana sanitarium insisted to her superiors that she had seen a ghost. Black orderlies in various hospitals saw "that man all the time." One woman told us, "He not human. I know him when I see him. I see spirits. I call them up. I know him and he know me and he don't come near me at all." Most workmen cannot work on the First Street house any more today than they could in the days when Deirdre was a girl. There are the same old stories. There is even some talk of "a man around here" who doesn't want things done. The strengths of The Witching Hour and part of what has driven Anne Rice up the bestseller's charts over the years is her command of prose while trafficking in the supernatural and the sensual. Her attention to detail--whether it's describing a witch burning in the 17th century or a crumbling Irish Catholic church in the present--is so good. Rather than ride a marketable genre to its obvious and boring conclusions, Rice paints vivid pictures of places and people. She knows cities. She knows Catholicism. I liked how a family owned funeral parlor in New Orleans knows where all the bodies are buried and keep quiet about more than they'll ever reveal, and this is one minor character. I loved how Rice's characters who've come in close contact with the Mayfair witches are suffering from the same trauma as a motorist buzzed by a UFO; they've experienced something they can't explain and want answers. In another excellent stroke, Rice stumbles onto the conceit of renovating a haunted house, confident enough to cite novels about great houses like Great Expectations or Rebecca by name and in addition to crafting home design porn that matches her skin porn, raises compelling questions about whether new tenants and new fixtures are enough to drive out bad energy hovering around an old house. The problem with The Witching Hour is that it's two stories: a back story about witches that's exciting and a front story about modern lovers that's lame. Rice doesn't like Rowan Mayfair much--the author's sympathies lie with her tragic men while her women seem to be asking for whatever misfortune is visited on them--and the neurosurgeon has a cunning that felt robotic to me. Rowan and Michael do spend a lot of time crying, but the machinery of their romance made me want to get back to the flesh and blood of the witches. And 327,360 words is too damn long. Rosemary's Baby had a far more compelling story and characters trapped in a web of black magic and deceit and at 79,360 words, can be read in a quarter of the time. ...more |
Notes are private!
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Sep 24, 2017
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Nov 12, 2017
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Feb 09, 2014
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Mass Market Paperback
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