Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin

Rating: WARTY!

This was an audiobook follow-up to my listening to this author's This Perfect Day which I heard recently and felt was worth the time. I did not like this one at all. I'd read it before, I think, but it was a long time ago that I did not remember it well. This listening began okay, but I soon started feeling that Rosemary Woodhouse, the main female character, was such a limp person, lacking in any sort of self-motivation, that I really began to dislike her. She was manipulated all the way and was far too stupid to see it or to take charge of her life. That;s not acceptable to me.

The story is so old and so obvious now that it's no spoiler to reveal that she's lured (with the contrivance of her duplicitous husband) into having sex with the Devil and giving birth to his baby. It's a complete farce to begin with, but a better writer would have made a better job of it. If you want to see how bad this is, take a look at the original trailer for the movie which was made from the novel. That trailer is one of the worse movie trailers ever made and it will give you a decent idea of how unexciting and unengaging this novel is! I cannot recommend it.

Ira Levin wrote seven novels: A Kiss Before Dying (1953), Rosemary's Baby (1967), This Perfect Day (1970), The Stepford Wives (1972), The Boys from Brazil (1976), Sliver (1991), Son of Rosemary (1997), Five of the first six of these have all been turned into movies which is quite a feat for a writer to achieve. It is, I imagine, what many writers would wish for a novel: for the publicity and associated dream of increased sales if nothing else, so it's remarkable to have so much of your oeuvre turned into movies, but that doesn't mean the novel which underlies each movie is any good. I've read his first four novels and liked three of them - at least when I originally read them, but I can't give this one a pass.

The 53rd Card by Virginia Weiss

Headers.txt
Rating: WARTY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I hate to end the year on a down note, but while this novel of good and evil, and of the supernatural, had some things to recommend it, after reading more than 400 pages I expected a much bigger reward than ever was delivered. At the end I felt relief that I was finally through it, but also resentment that the author had taken a portion of my life that I would never get back; I felt I'd wasted it reading this when I could have been enjoying something else in my reading list.

The novel was way too long. It needed some serious editing. I usually avoid books this long for precisely this reason: that it's not such a chunk of your valuable time to give up if the novel is short and it's bad, but when it's both bad and long, it's really irritating. It's even worse when it keeps teasing the reader with the promise of better things to come and never delivers. There was a phrase used in the novel which with some irony I think applied to the book as whole: ponderously clanking links! That's how it felt: like a series of short stories loosely connected rather than a coherent novel.

If the book feels like it's awful right from the off, I DNF it without even a pang of conscience because life is too short to waste on bad literature. The problem with this book was that it kept on promising something good was coming, yet in the end, nothing arrived. The ending itself was a horrible disappointment. It simply fizzled, like even the author herself had tired of this story and wanted over with just as much as I did. Some anally-retentive people will doubtlessly try to argue that it’s disingenuous to dump a book as unworthy without giving it a fair chance, but whenever I do give an “iffy” novel a fair chance, as I did here, I’m inevitably disappointed, so yes, I think you can ditch a novel guilt-free if it is not thrilling you. What’s the point of reading it otherwise? I think its a reader’s duty to DNF a bad read.

Some parts of the book were a joy, but as soon as I started to think maybe I would read a little more, it drifted back into tedium, and then I'd start to think about ditching it, but it would offer a promise of improvement. That's how the whole book went! I found myself skimming parts and thinking it was time to ditch the book; then I would find another interesting piece to read and it brought my hopes up again only to find them dashed again as the story dragged on without - quite literally - going anywhere except in circles. It was as bad as that book where you read through it only to find out at the end, that it was all a dream. And if you found the foregoing tedious to read through, then I achieved my aim and made you feel like I felt while I was reading this novel!

The story is of Emma Susanne Addison. She's close to being a shut-in, but not quite. This itself made little sense, because when she wanted to go somewhere, she had no real problem going there even if it was quite a way from her home, yet she was constantly whining about being scared of big open spaces, even as she lived right in the middle of the city.

This pseudo-phobia went back to a tragic incident with an unsavory uncle which took place not in the city, but in the woods by a river in winter. It would have made sense to me if she were afraid of older men, or afraid of the woods, or afraid of the winter, or afraid of the river, or afraid of ice, but she wasn't. She was inexplicably afraid of open spaces. In her case, this phobia made no sense. People's knee-jerk reaction when you say that is that phobias almost by definition don't make sense precisely because they are irrational, but even the most irrational phobia has rational roots. In this case it did not, and so I could never take it seriously.

Emma's life is beset by tragedy, but in the end you cannot help but feel she brings a lot of things on herself. I did not like her as a character. We're told in the blurb that Emma summons the devil one Christmas, but that portion was written so poorly that I missed it. I went on to the next section of the novel and started reading it like it was an entirely new story. I was thinking, “Wait, when did this happen?" and the truth was that it did not happen - not in the way the author thinks she told us it did. I went back and checked! It was like a whole section of the book was missing.

It was written so hazily that what the author thought she was telling us happened didn't actually feel like it happened at all from the reader's perspective; at least not to this reader. But the offshoot from this is that Emma is now somehow in some sort of preliminary bargaining with the devil - not actually a contract but at least a verbal agreement, yet this goes nowhere. And when I say the devil, I mean the big guy himself. We're constantly told that Emma is a special snowflake which is why he comes personally, but nowhere in the rest of the novel is there anything to explain why she is special or even to suggest that she is! She felt more like a spacial snowflake, and the personal attention made no sense.

What made even less sense is that there was another supernatural being involved - and this one was from Chinese mythology. I never did figure out what her purpose was because it was never explained, and this lack of clarity became even further muddied at the end especially when we had characters from other mythologies appear and disappear without rhyme or reason. It was like the author had some great ideas, but could never settle on a good set to include, and worse, tried to include them all, but could never quite figure out how to successfully integrate them.

The offshoot is that Emma develops super powers (yep, and there was a kitchen sink tossed in there, too)! Emma doesn’t go flying around with a cape, but she can choose outcomes and see them appear in the real world. Or can she? Maybe she was dreaming that too! I can’t tell you, because the author never told me! I kept reading on hoping it would l make sense, but it never did. I do not read prologues and epilogues. They’re antiquated affectations. Put the first in chapter one, the last in the last chapter, and be done with it for goodness sake! Quit with the self-importance and pretension. I skipped the prologue here as I always do, and I did not miss it as I never do. Thinking I had missed something at the end of the story I actually did skim the epilogue, but it contributed nothing. Hence my resentment.

There were other oddities such as the public library being open the day after Christmas. This seemed highly unlikely to me. I don't know. I don’t live in same city as Emma did, so maybe it is, but it sounded unlikely to me and it struck me more like the the author wasn’t properly thinking through what she was writing. This feeling was further enhanced when I read, ”Her hair is glorious, so black it’s almost blue….” That phrase has always struck me as utterly nonsensical. I expect it of typically clueless YA authors, but not of one who can actually write. I can see what an author is trying to say when they write an asinine phrase like this, but tripping yourself up in writing bad prose isn’t a good idea. Black with a sheen of blue or a hint of blue or a blue highlight works, but when something is really black? It’s black, period.

So, in short, I was truly disappointed in a book that initially sounded so promising. I wish the author all the best; she can write if she can learn to curb the meandering, and I think she has some great novels inside her, but this was not one of them, and I cannot in good faith recommend it.

The Devil Rides Out by Dennis Wheatley

Title: The Devil Rides Out
Author: Dennis Wheatley
Publisher: Prion (GB)
Rating: WORTHY!

I review the Devil Rides Out movie here.

This is one of several novels this year that I will be re-reading and reviewing. This one is probably my all-time favorite satanism volume. I'm not a fan of Dennis Wheatley: the man was way too much of a snob for my taste, and I'm not even a fan of all of his black magic novels, but this particular one is really good for its time. Indeed, Wheatley is just as deserving of the slur aimed and the creator of James Bond ("sex, sadism, and snobbery") as Ian Fleming is. Wheatley just has a little more snobbery and somewhat less sex and sadism, although that latter is arguable. Wheatley himself was an obnoxious and despicable royalist who actually advocated violence and even assassination in protecting the nobility and keeping the lower classes in their place.

This novel is written very much in the tradition of the swashbuckling adventures of some well-known novels which are even older than this one is (this was published in late 1934), and which feature a redoubtable team which is in the end, successful in its quest. There was the Three Musketeers, which strangely featured four guys, Aramis, Athos, D'Artagnon, and Porthos. Bram Stoker Chimed in with Dracula, which featured Jonathan Harker, Arthur Holmwood, Quincey Morris, Wilhelmina Murray, John Seward, and Abraham Van Helsing. In more modern times we've met in comic books and on the silver screen the four Avengers and their side-kicks. And there was of course Frankstein which featured Vic, Tor, Frank, and Stein....

Now comes Wheatley, piling on with his team of Simon Aron, Tanith Carlisle, Marie Eaton, Richard Eaton, Le Duc de Richlieu, and Rex Van Ryn. You might like to note the similarities with Stoker's characters, in that Wheatley brings to the table a nobleman, just as Stoker does, someone of Dutch ancestry, as Stoker does, who is also American, as Stoker does, and a married couple, as Stoker does. I have no idea if this was intentional or simply a coincidence. It's also interesting that a phrase (Gateway to Hell) and a chapter title (The Satanist) from this novel were re-tasked for use as novel titles for future satanic volumes from Wheatley.

The Devil Rides Out begins with a friends' reunion, but there's one person missing. The Duc de Richlieu, his young American friend Rex Van Ryn, and their young English friend, Simon Aron get together once a year for a reunion to celebrate their friendship and their survival of a story told in a previous (non-satanist) novel written by Wheatley (actually, it was his very first novel, a run-away best-seller titled The Forbidden Territory, to which this supernatural volume was a sequel). So this year, Simon has canceled, and neither the Duc nor Rex can understand why he would reject such an important reunion. They decide to visit him to find out why, and that's where things start going south in a hurry.

After mingling with the guests at Simon's "party", the Duc realizes that this is a coven of thirteen - a satanist coven. The way he arrives at this conclusion is through the most appalling bigotry and callousness on the part of Wheatley, by his noting, for example, that a man was missing his right hand, leaving only the left (the path of satanism is the path of the left hand; you know, 'sinister', and other bigoted assumptions). Their leader Damien Mocata, is fat. Another member is albino. Another has a hair lip. In short, the Duc's "assessment" arises solely from Wheatley being downright mean and nasty. You have to either let this go - keeping in mind that while it isn't right, this book was written the better part of a century ago (and Wheatley was a royal snob!), or you have to say no more! The choice I made was that this is fiction and these elements are just as pathetic as the entire idea of satanism and black magic, so I continued to do as I did when I was a naïve young adult myself and I first read this: I let it go for the sake of enjoying the other parts of the novel. So moving right along, then: under the ruse that he would like a minute to see Simon's little observatory up in the roof, the Duc hustles his young friend upstairs where he confirms his suspicions.

Acting precipitously, the Duc knocks Simon out and has Rex carry him out to the car, where they beat a hasty retreat to the Duc's flat. Once there, he hypnotizes Simon, sending him to bed protected by a swastika, which causes Rex consternation, since Simon is Jewish by heritage and apparently practices Judaism. The bizarre thing about that, is that there's a lot of mumbo jumbo about Jesus Christ in this novel, in the context that he is the son of a god, and Simon makes no objection at all to that! I think this is another example of insensitivity of Wheatley's part. He simply cannot grasp that there are other cultures which are at odds with cozy western religious fiction. The Duc explains to Rex that he had no choice in his actions (abducting Simon) once he learned what was at stake here, and Simon wouldn't listen to reason. His plan fails however, as Mocata calls Simon back to him from the Duc's care, and when Rex and the Duc return to Simon's house to recover him, no one is there save for an evil spirit which incarnates in the observatory after the Duc discovers an invaluable and ancient magical tome hidden there. The two of them barely get out with their lives. Now Rex has lost his skepticism!

The next day, Rex is tasked with trying to get a line on Simon's where-abouts by tracking down and chatting up the exotic young Tanith, a woman he met at the party at Simon's, and whom he has seen several times over the preceding couple of years, but only in passing. He manages to lure her out to the Duc's riverside country residence where they spend an afternoon together falling in love, but she cannot tell him where Simon is. She does tell him that she's a clairvoyant, and that she has seen that she has less than a year to live. Her powers are why she is so vitally important to Mocata, and before long, she tricks Rex and steals his car, leaving him stranded. That night is Saint Walburga's night (the original Black Sabbath!), and all of the covens will be meeting in the wild for an orgy and the casting of spells. Fortunately, the Duc has tracked down where it will be held and he heads over there with Rex, still intent upon saving Simon.

The two of them stage what is really a quite dramatic rescue (better than the movie depicts), and the three of them overnight at Stonehenge, supposedly protected from evil by the centuries of worship carried out here. I find that a stretch! Rex and the Duc sit and smoke a cigar (another snobbish trait of the Duc's which is reminiscent of James Bond's obsession with brand names). This seems odd because later they go eat a large breakfast and at the same time send a telegram to their friends, the Eatons, whom they intend to park themselves with, that they must eat no lunch! I don't get this business at all. These are the people who acknowledge Jesus Christ, who drank wine at the last supper, and they telegram their friends not to eat lunch, and later to avoid alcohol, after they themselves have smoked cigars and had a whopping breakfast. And why telegram? The Eatons have a phone! Yes, even successful authors routinely screw up; it's really nothing to be afraid of!

Moving right along, the group show up at the Eatons now tasked with convincing them of what has happened. Simon is wearing the most absurd of outfits, since he had been naked at the sabbat, and the only place Rex could "knock up" was a sports outfitters. Yes, in those days the lackey of a store keeper lived above the store and never had any objection to rich folk yanking(!) them out of bed at ungodly hours so they could ransack his store. Nor was money ever a problem for any character in this entire novel no matter what their circumstances! That simply doesn't remotely explain why he chose such a bizarre collection of clothes. I guess this is Wheatley's idea of a sense of humor? Anyway, Marie Lou is the easiest to convince since she's the most gullible, having been raised amongst outrageously superstitious peasants in Russia. Richard is much more of a hard sell, but the blatantly juvenile tales which Wheatley uses to 'convince' them, is the real joke here. There is a built-in assumption that every oddball and wacky tale of the supernatural is true! The funniest part is that Richard is supposedly the skeptic, but he clearly isn't, since he's making half of the Duc's arguments for him. All of these people in this little team swallow all of this satanist nonsense with barely a hint of skepticism to be found, but I guess this kind of writing worked in the 1930's. Indeed, it still does today in woefully many novels!

The Duc once again vanishes. His plan is to try and get some holy wafers, which would undoubtedly protect them no matter what Mocata did. How a cracker which some deluded people think is the actual body of a dead 2,000 year old Jewish rabbi would be of value is a mystery, but for some reason it takes all day for the Duc to visit one church (where the priest isn't even at home) and procure some supplies. In his absence, Tanith, who did not make it to the sabbat, phones Rex and he runs off to meet her abandoning his team for love! He doesn't return until the next day. Richard is upstairs watching over Simon as he sleeps, and poor Marie is left to face Mocata, who shows up unexpectedly at the house. This is one of the best scenes in the entire novel. In fact, I love this whole next section. Despite being quite an objectionable little man in appearance (so Wheatley tells us), Mocata has oodles of charm, and is in process of hypnotizing Marie just from the power of his voice, until their daughter, Fleur, bursts in unexpectedly and breaks the link, whereupon Marie Lou and her husband throw Mocata out. He tells them that he's not done with them. This scene really creeps me out! It's just as creepy in the movie.

The next part is one of my favorites in any book I've read. While Rex is off, deciding to keep Tanith away from Simon so Mocata cannot use her as a medium to overcome his friends, the Duc returns and draws a double chalk circle on the floor of the octagonal library. Within these two boundaries he draws a pentacle (although frankly, I am not convinced that that is technically feasible, although I've never done the actually geometry) and writes some Latin mumbo-jumbo, drawing some signs from several languages and cultures. Why a Latin phrase is supposed to be more powerful than the same thing said in English (or Hebrew, or Aramaic, for that matter) is a complete mystery not confined to Wheatley. It's common to all novels of this type. The most laughable fiction in the entire Harry Potter series, for example, is that shaking a stick and saying one or two Latin words makes amazing magic happen!

The Duc lights five candles, one at each point of the star, and fills a silver bowl with holy water at each valley. He, Richard, Marie, and Simon are within this protective pentacle. Why it's believed that candles and water and chalk can protect them from evil is a mystery, but apparently it works. It's more of a mystery as to why the Duc doesn't feel that the servants and the couple's young daughter need protection, and it's this which will come back to bite them in the morning.

The night passes amazingly: what's in the novel is much better than what's in the movie. Wheatley definitely does have a flare for the creepy and dramatic in his writing here. The assaults on the circle are creepy, and inventive. they start slowly, almost innocently and culminate in a visit from the Angel of Death himself, who, unlike in the movie, is invisible; his horse is the only thing you can see. The Duc repels this visit by calling out he last two lines of the Sussamma Ritual which must never be used unless the very soul is in peril! If they're that crucial, why are they even part of a whole ritual, and especially why are they the last two lines?! Wheatley describes the effect of uttering these words as putting the four of them into he fourth dimension, which he equates with the sky, since they find themselves looking down on the Eaton's home. Next thing they're back again, and poor Rex arrives with dead Tanith in his arms. She paid the price for Mocata's using her to call up the angel - who of course cannot return without a soul in hand.

Mocata has evidently used the time of their trip into the fourth dimension to kidnap poor Fleur (who is unaccountably named 'Peggy' in the movie, and who is older, for some reason - perhaps because an older girl is easier to film than a much younger one?). Simon talks the Duc into calling Tanith's soul back - not to reanimate her corpse, but to see if her soul will help them to locate Mocata and Fleur. A smokey haze in the form of Tanith appears over her body, and she reveals that Mocata plans on going to France (why, isn't explained), and that he intends to sacrifice Fleur to recall Tanith's soul to her body in the age old law of a life for a life, a soul for a soul. Why any god would set up an idiotic law like that is wisely left unexplored in this novel!

Next comes a chase across Europe, reminiscent of the chase in both Frankenstein and in Dracula, except that these guys are in a small airplane. Just as in Dracula, it culminates in an ancient chapel. As the chase is pursued, Marie dreams she is reading a skin-covered book whilst wearing an "iron circlet" on her head. Nothing useful is made of this until she is able to defeat Mocata when no one can by the simple means of saying (and in English yet! See, it does work!) "They only who Love without Desire shall have power granted to them in the Darkest Hour" (sic) and finishing off by uttering a five syllable word, which Wheatley doesn't share with us. Never was there a more deus ex machina moment in a novel! Suddenly, they're waking up in the pentacle and Rex arrives with Tanith in tow - and she isn't dead, meaning that Mocata must be. The Duc reveals that a Lord of Light has reversed time itself for them all because of that blesséd Sussamma Ritual.

However, despite several issues I have with this novel, I still like this story in general, and consider it one of the best satanist/supernatural/magical novels I've ever read. Some of Wheatley's other such novels are good (I haven't read any of his non-supernatural titles), but I don't feel that any of those come quite up to this standard. This is a worthy read despite its unworthy author!