Today has been a pretty good day. It started off with a bit of a lie in (until about 9.00), was followed by the Hollyoaks Omnibus (some good episodes!) and continued on with a shopping trip to the city centre (bought myself a new top and some useful holiday bits). To finish it all off, I have a lovely chicken roasting in the oven and it should be done in about half an hour!
Mother Nature was kind today as well with the sun streaming into the living room. I was awake and alert (something that does not always happen on a Sunday afternoon), had my snack and drink (non-alcoholic) close at hand, in truth, the reading conditions were just about perfect. So, I once again find myself at the review stage.
##### SPOILER ALERT #####
Rosemary's Baby - Ira Levin
The only other book I have ever read by Ira Levin is The Boys From Brazil. I enjoyed that one. It had a good story to it. It had just enough truth in it to make it border on the believable and that fact, that what he described could take place, made it all the more spine chilling. This one is sort of the same.
It starts out as a story of a young couple (Rosemary and Guy) moving into their first home together. They are happy and in love and the place seems just about perfect. Guy's career as an actor seems to be slow in taking off but everyone believes he will get his big break soon, Rosemary most of all. She seems a normal, strong independent woman. She married against the wishes of her family and is not really in touch with them any more but Guy and the friends she has made since coming to New York seem to be all she needs. They cancel a lease on another place as Rosemary has always wanted to live in The Bramford. She sees it as a place to raise a family. One of her friends, Hutch has some doubts about them moving in to their new place. He knows that some weird things took place there in the past (people eating babies and witchcraft being practiced there) but this is not enough to dissuade the young couple to give up the apartment. They laugh it off and get on with settling in. Once they get the place decorated the way they want married bliss erupts. In between being mr and mrs Blissfully Happy they get to meet some of the neighbours, notably mrs and mr Castevets and although she (Minnie - as in Mouse) seems a bit nosey they seem friendly and harmless enough. Guy does not want to mingle with the Castevets at first but later on they become like second parents to him. Apparently mr Castevets (Roman - as in Holiday) has been everywhere and has some great stories to tell and Guy is all ears.
There is nothing too sinister going on in the first part of the book. Well, that is if you discount the girl falling to her death from the 7th floor. A girl that Rosemary met in the laundry room only a few days earlier. Then there also is some weird dream that Rosemary has about being carried on a bier through a linen closet, hearing chanting, seeing naked people dance around her and being violated by some devil or other. But hey,.... don't we all get those sort of dream every now and again? Perhaps it is also a bit strange that Guy seems distant from her one day and then changes his mind about wanting to have kids all of a sudden. They love the place they live in, light fires, have dinner with the Castevets and all is well. The fact that they seem to socialise less and less with their old friends and more and more with the Castevets is slightly odd but apart from that Guy seems to be Guy and the neighbours seem nice as pie.. life could not be more perfect. Then Rosemary finds that she is pregnant. Naturally the Castevets know a good doctor and they insist she goes to see him and not the one that Rosemary's friend suggested to her. We meet Dr Hill and he seems like a nice enough guy. He worries Rosemary (and us) a bit when he asked her to come back in for more blood tests but he seems perfectly capable. Then again, so does the good dr Sapirstein.
By this time, as a reader you kind of guess that something is up. Rosemary even at times seems to know that something is wrong but her fears are only fleeting and most of the time she ignores them trusting those around her to do right by her. There is something ever so slightly unhealthy in the way the Minnie tries to (s)mother Rosemary. Then there is the way that the good doctor advises her to trust no-one concerning her pregnancy (well except him off course) and to take only the advice he gives her. It feels as if "they" are trying to separate her from her old friends and preparing her for something as well. Minnie keeps bringing over the green drinks and some cake and insists that she take it while she is there. Rosemary has a few flare ups of resistance - she invites their old friends round for a party and promises to go see a different doctor about her stomach pains. She stops drinking the gunk that Minnie feeds her thinking it is making her sick. When she catches up with her old friend Hutch he tells her she looks terrible and that he does not trust what is happening to her. From what she tells him you can tell the hairs on the back of his neck are prickling, which makes you more guarded as a reader. When Roman joins them briefly there seems to be some tension between the two men but nothing to disquiet Rosemary. She is a bit more disquieted when Hutch ends up in a come a little later.... as are you as a reader. Again, Levin places little bits of doubt in your mind and unlike Rosemary you are not inside the story being manipulated so you can sense that something is about to go very, very wrong. All the strange stuff that has been going on combined with Rosemary's doubts about what she feels and senses is about to come to a head.
Then Hutch dies and when Rosemary goes to the service she gets given a book and a message. The book is on witchcraft and the message is the "name is an anagram". This is good fun as it gets you thinking, whose name? I ended up thumbing through a few pages to see what the characters were all named and seeing if I could spell out something sinister with the letters from one of their names - Alas, no luck. I've always been rubbish at scrabble unlike Rosemary. She hits the jackpot when she figures out that mr Castevets is actually Steven Marcato, son of a witch who lived in the Bramford and was involved in some strange goings on there. She goes off on a train of thought that you hope leads to her getting her things together and getting out of that place, back to her friends who want only the best for her. But no.. Guy manages to settle her down and once again married bliss returns.... briefly. Rosemary is by now way too suspicious to let things lie and when she finds out that Guy has been lying to her about some other things she finally gets out of the apartment and runs to her old doctor and tells all. Unfortunately for Rosemary the good dr Hill delivers her back into the arms she is trying to escape from. The pretence is over now and we all know where we stand.
Rosemary is taken back to her home and very soon after gives birth. She is told the child has died. Some part of her knows they are lying to her and she is proven right. She manages to get to her child but he is not quite what she expected. Initially she does not want to know and thinks about ending it for both her and her baby. But she decides against this. Maybe it is something is those fierce eyes of her little boy, or the cute gloves he is wearing?
I enjoyed this one. Not only is that clear from the fact that it took me only two days to read it but also from the fact that I was sad it ended when it did. Don't get me wrong it ended in the right place. It leaves you with just enough doubt about what is going to happen that you turn the last page thinking "you clever little s...". The main characters are likable. The Castevets are written in way that they do raise some suspicion about their behaviour and interference but not enough to make any major alarm bells go off. Guy is nice enough, though a bit selfish and arrogant. Rosemary is written in a way that you feel she ought to be clever enough to have to realise what is happening to her but the people around her are equally clever and she is so isolated that by the time she realises what is really going on she is way beyond saving or redemption.
It is the borderline between truth and fiction that makes this one work. Everything that you read borders on the realistic and plausible (well, most of it). Levin gives you hint of what might be going on and then pulls the wool over you eyes again, tells you it will all be okay. He keeps doing this and yet keeps it interesting enough for the reader to keep on reading. It does not feel like he is taking you by the hand too much. He nudges rather than pushes you in the right direction. You find out some things as Rosemary does and you get to follow her train of thought. She is your main link in the story and you can relate to her. He keeps you involved in the present story line and gives you a little extra every now and again. Levin weaves his story well, dropping little hints about what is going on. Sometimes you miss them, other times you put them aside as irrelevant. I just remembered a one liner about one of the neighbours knitting someting for the new arrival. Rosemary comments that it is sweet of the woman but that the little bootees are rather strangely shaped... yeah.. I bet they are!
Title: Rosemary's Baby
Author: Ira Levin
Pan Books Ltd
205 pages
ISBN nr 0 330 02115 x
Books to be read: 68
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