So in the time it took for me to remember to write a new blog, I finished reading "Rosemary's Baby" and started on "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs." I'm really happy with the variety in my reading materials. While "Rosemary's Baby" wasn't nearly as dark and disturbing as I'd hoped it would be, it satisfied my desire to squash cuteness.
I made it through this book so quickly most likely because I wanted to hurry up and get to the good parts, and they never really came until the end. The first half of the book is basically Rosemary and her husband, Guy, moving into a new apartment and trying to have a baby. They know their building has a bad/mystical reputation, but they don't heed the warnings to stay away. The book is written in third person but is told from Rosemary's perspective nonetheless. She's a naive Omaha girl moving to New York City with her actor husband. She gets bad vibes from the neighbors, but it's the 1960s and she has to be polite. Little does she know, her husband is joining a satanic coven with them.
I have a feeling someone could make a great movie out of this. I know one exists, but I'm not sure how old or great it is. In a nutshell, what happens is Guy drugs his wife and subjects her to a satanic ritual in which she is impregnated with a half-breed demon baby. Rosemary has a dim, dream-like recollection of this event, but she remains in denial until the pieces of the puzzle start to come together. Eventually, she figures out what has been going on behind her back with the help of her friend Hutch, who is soon killed off via demonic vengeance. Rosemary seeks help but cannot escape. Once in labor, she is sedated and later informed that her baby died in childbirth. She is kept under watch by the coven, all the while hearing a baby cry and producing weird green breast milk, a byproduct of the "(witches' brew) vitamin drinks" she was forced to consume during her pregnancy. She drugs her attendant one night and busts in on a coven meeting, wielding a large kitchen knife. She sees her demon baby -- horns, claws, yellow cat eyes and all -- and ponders much too briefly tossing it and herself out the window. Instead her maternal instincts take over and she decides maybe she can be this child's mother after all. The end.
What kind of ending is that? What did the demon baby grow up to be? How did it terrorize Earth? How did Rosemary go on living with the coven? Did she just tell her family that the baby died? How can she live with herself? I'm not saying I hated this book, or that I even disliked it. I just want a sequel! I don't think the story's finished. What's that? There is one? It's called "Rosemary's Son"!!! Happy day. Stay tuned for the potentially titillating conclusion! Unless of course, it got worse reviews than the first! One reader recommends avoiding just the last two pages of "Rosemary's Son." Ugh. I think I'll skip it. I'm glad I read it -- I love some classic horror -- but perhaps these days we're all just a little too desensitized to violence and demonic mayhem to be frightened by the glossing over of ritual rape, odorous (albeit cursed) trinkets and 65-year-old cultists named Minnie and Laura-Louise.
As for "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs," so far so good. Laughter, cynicism and a definition of solipsism? I think we're on the right track, 50 pages in. I was quickly over the "Real World" analogy, but the Sims bit was interesting. We've moved on to analyzing Billy Joel. I'll be sure to mark some quotes.
I browsed the opening chapters of a couple chick-lit novels, to see if there was anything I'd want to send to Angie, who is tiring of romance novels. "Confessions of a Shopaholic" was beginning to make me gag. Bridget Jones minus a few million brain cells plus a credit card. "Milkrun" I might could handle, and I think I will. Some nice writing there, comparatively speaking. At least some good "huh" points. Other books I might have to wolf down to send to Angie? "The Other Boleyn Girl" (good luck, it's huge!) and "Chocolat."
As suggested by two now, I will probably read "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time" next.
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