Son of Rosemary

Son of Rosemary
by Ira Levin


Blurb:

Son of Rosemary opens at the dawn of the new millennium - a time when human hope is shadowed by growing fear and uncertainty, and the world is in greatest need of a savior. It is here - against a glittering backdrop of New York City in 1999 - that Rosemary is reunited with her son. It is also here that the battle between good and evil will be played out on a global scale - a struggle that will have frightening, far-reaching consequences, not only for Rosemary and her son but for all humanity.

My Reaction (with SPOILERS):
Well, at least I finally finished it.  To be fair, I knew going in (based on the "bad-book recommendation" of my youngest sister) that it wasn't going to be a good book.  However, I didn't know what made it a bad book, and now I've satisfied my curiosity.

There are plenty of things I could nit-pick, but I'll try to confine myself to the bigger issues.

First, I get the impression that the author had some sort of writer's crush on his own creation-- Rosemary herself-- intensified by and linked to Mia Farrow's portrayal of her.  Rosemary isn't that interesting, honestly.  That's part of her appeal in the first book: she's just a normal, everyday woman tossed into a nightmare scenario.  In this sequel, however, it feels like we're supposed to adore or at least admire her in a way I just don't understand.  Maybe it's just me being too sensitive to the book-world's bizarre obsession with her, which is attributable to her connection to Andy, who himself has an apparent charisma-on-steroids that doesn't translate well to the page.

Example: Why would the world care particularly about Rosemary's "Fresh Eye" perspective on how things have changed since she went into her coma?  She's been "asleep" for 30-ish years, not a hundred.  Tons of living adults could make the same observations.  Yes, it's a little different when you're seen things gradually change vs. essentially waking up one morning after a 30-year sleep, but I still don't see why she just assumes that of course everyone will care about her ground-breaking theory on "terrorist-speak", etc.  (The maddening thing is, in the world of this book, people would care!  Yuck.  Never been one for the cult of personality. Hero/celebrity-worship is definitely not my thing.)

Second, the relationship between Rosemary and Andy.  ...What can you say about it?  Just... bizarre. It might be a while before I hear or read the word "biggie" without cringing.

Third, the ending.  I didn't find it quite such a cop-out as some evidently did.  I mean, I didn't like it-- found it a let-down and a fairly anticlimactic, boring conclusion-- but I'm pretty certain we aren't meant to believe that it was all really "just a dream", which means I didn't hate it as much as I would have if it had erased everything that happened in both books.  No, it's not really a dream-- or rather, maybe Rosemary's in a dream at the end of the book, but the events of the books all still happened.  She's just temporarily in a dreamlike bubble, hinted at by the "roast mules" and "exactly three minutes and twelve seconds by the clock".

Finally, I have to admit that while I found the sinister nature of "the Lighting" extremely predictable, it somehow never occurred to me that Joe might be Satan.  I also thought Andy would play a more active role in the last section of the book-- would whip off his (not-quite-actually-a) good-guy mask and do something particularly nasty and cruel and evil to Rosemary.

Okay, I was mistaken.  That "finally" was premature, because some nits must be picked.

#1:  "He [Satan] lives up to his reputation, Andy had said.  Surpassed it, rather; the worst she remembered from the Bible was 'the father of lies.'  How about the father of bestial savagery?"

...So a woman brought up in a strict Catholic family in the 1950s (?) is surprised that the Devil is a savage, cruel monster?  I find that a little strange.

#2:  Andy explains that he was nailed to the wall to keep him from telling Rosemary about the deadly candles "while there was still time to get the word out."  He says he was going to, then adds, "I feel so rotten about it."

...Um, what?!  Feel so rotten about it... About dooming all of humanity to an excruciating death?  Yeah, I can see how he might.  I'm sorry, was this supposed to be funny?  Because it's a darned weird sense of humor, if so.

Maybe I'm being unfair.  Some of the things I like best about Rosemary's Baby are the off-kilter moments of humor.  I think it's only in the movie, but I love it that Laura-Louise sticks her tongue out at Rosemary when she's reprimanded by the coven's leader.  Why do I love that but hate this?  I guess it just doesn't seem to fit.  The sequel isn't as well crafted, for one thing, but also... Ok, Rosemary's Baby is a horror-tragedy, but it's not quite on the same scale as the extinction of all human life.  Little jokes don't work, in this context.

No, I wouldn't recommend this sequel.  Far from adding anything to Rosemary's Baby, it tends to diminish its value.  Best to try to forget it altogether.