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This weekend I finished Ira Levin's 1997 sequel to Rosemary's Baby, called Son of Rosemary, and I just want you all to know that as far as I'm concerned this book was never written.
This weekend I finished Ira Levin's 1997 sequel to Rosemary's Baby, called Son of Rosemary, and I just want you all to know that as far as I'm concerned this book was never written.I was kinda with the book for the majority of its run. It's nowhere near as classic as Baby was - the simple parenting paranoia that the original took advantage of so deftly has no place in a Grand Tale of Sneaky Armageddon, after all - but it was nice to see what Levin imagined the characters having been up to for the past 30 years. It was trashy (though not trashy enough), heavy on some incest drama between mother and son, and Levin knows Rosemary's voice well enough (obviously) that it was fun to read with Mia Farrow's voice in one's head (the book's dedicated to her).
That is, until the end. Frak this shit. I'm just gonna spoil it the ending now because it made me so angry I wanted to set my copy of the book on fire.
It's all a dream? Really, Ira? Everything Rosemary has experienced since 1967 - moving into the Bram, meeting Roman and Minnie, getting schtupped on the tannis-soaked mousse by the Devil - a fucking dream? A bad dream she had because she was reading Dracula before going to bed? UGH. No no no no no.
Levin does imply that it was more of an omen than a dream - when Rosemary wakes up and it's 1967 she and Guy are immediately offered a chance at an apartment in the Dakota (her "dream" changed the name of the Dakota to the Bram because of Bram Stoker, natch) by her dear friend Hutch - but I don't care. Weak. W-E-A-K.
So this book was never written. I refuse to incorporate this knowledge into my undying love for Rosemary's Baby. I will not. Didn't happen. LAME.
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7 comments:
oooooo. You should have said something about picking up the book to read; I could have forwarned you that the ending was going to be a tough sell.
I loved this book until the ending...Roastmules and all.
Roast Mules drove me insane! As soon as I finished the book I jumped online and looked it up, because I was angry at the dream ending and not willing to give Levin the time to figure the anagram out on my own anymore.
I read somewhere that the ending was actually Rosemary's way of selling her soul to the devil, and that roast mules was an anagram for somersault, and that this way her he'll is reliving everything over and over and over for eternity.
I took the ending as her still with the devil. He made her enternally youthful even if he said he lied. It is like she is in hell permanently redoing the same actions like a Satanic Ground Hogs day.? The fact that her friend says "Roast Mules" makes it dream-like or rather nightmare-ish. I felt it was rushed and kind of half butt. The incest thing was very off but it was like very matter of fact. I get that Rosemary is a simple bumpkin but... She kept on pecking her son and hanging out with him after they made out. Does this mean that was actually Satan doing that? I don't think Rosemary wakes up in the end either going into another dream or coma bc it is odd that in the beginning of the book someone gets hit by a taxi and at the end someone gets hit by a taxi.
Rosemary's Baby was better bc you did not know if it was post partum depression/paranoia or did she really give birth to Satan. I still don't know if Andy was good kind of or was still with it. Did he kill Judy or was that dad? Plus Rosemary still thought it was ok that Andy might be evil but he is rich so... She still stayed there and etc!
The reveal that he was Satan should have been better! I guessed it early on when she said something about recognizing the eyes. But it was not so sloppy. But it just got stupid!
It seems to me that the ending is a somersault. everything is turned around. Rosemary is going to be forced to relive the whole story. Hell is not what you might expect, but rather it is reliving the whole thing again knowing whay going to happen and unable to stop it - eternal youth.
I really liked the book. I'll read it again soon
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