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BLACKWOOD FARM, CHAPTER 42
Mar. 2nd, 2018 09:53 pmBLACKWOOD FARM, CHAPTER 42
They go back to the palazzo and are told by the very frightened servant girl that Petronia wants to see Quinn in her dressing room. The "young Adonis" is plaiting her hair, and Petronia looks GREAT. She's wearing a "buff-colored velvet coat and pants, with a ruffled white shirt that would have looked good in the eighteenth century" and "huge rectangular cameo" at her throat that is "surrounded by diamonds" and she also has "two threads of diamonds running over her head" which are being plaited into her hair.
Quinn says she is "clad as a man" but nothing about this sounds like "male attire" to me, just a woman in a suit, and not looking very "masculine" in it at that. Like wearing a ruffled blouse and diamond hair decorations with long hair does not read to me as "clad as a man" (not that men can't do that!)
We're told a bit about the sea and the sky, as the room is open to it, and how taken aback Quinn is by Petronia's beauty in her "sharp male clothing". When the "young Adonis" is finished plaiting her hair, she gives him some money and tells him to go enjoy himself as he's done well. He bows and backs out of the room "as though he'd been dismissed by the Queen of England"
Petronia asks if Quinn finds the boy beautiful, Quinn says he doesn't know because "Everything charms me. As a human being, I was an enthusiast. Now I think I'm losing my mind."
This is a part of Ricean vampires, that their senses are so enhanced that beauty can much more easily overwhelm them and even hypnotize them, and I think that actually works well both in that gives her a good reason for the elaborate lovely descriptions she's so good at without it seeming bizarre that the character is focusing on these things, and, this may be just me, but it seems like a subtle reference to stories of vampires being hypnotized by counting grains of rice or the like.
Petronia takes him in her arms and asks if the wounds she inflicted have healed, he says yes "Except the wound no one can heal, the one I inflicted on myself, that I killed the innocent young woman, that I murdered her at her own wedding" and that time will not heal it either. Petronia just laughs and says to come join the others, and how his grandfather plays chess but was a poker player when she met him, and beat her too.
She leads him back to the room with the big golden cage and wonders if he had looked like Caravaggio's "Victorious Cupid" inside it. Yes, he seriously ponders this. Because I know if I saw something like that that I'd been thrown inside before undergoing trauma, my thoughts would be, what classical work of art did I most resemble inside it? Also, Rice, pick a different artist than Arion referenced, try to hide it at least a TINY bit that your characters tastes aren't all just your own.
Petronia then tells Quinn about her night thus far. See, it turns out that the bride's husband and father were "first-rate killers" because apparently those really are just all over the place in the Naples, and "of course the little minx knew it, so salve your conscience with that"
So basically the one thing Quinn did that was even close to textually recognized as wrong has now been retroactively justified so it wasn't THAT bad, isn't that convenient. I mean, Quinn will still angst over it, but I feel like this was thrown in so the READER wouldn't feel that much sympathy for the bride is actually justified, and therefore that Quinn didn't REALLY do anything wrong. And if that was the intent, I say, I disagree---the bride did not "deserve" to get killed by Quinn, and it certainly does not justify it that he finds out she was "bad" after the fact. What exonerates Quinn, if anything, is that it was his first time and utterly accidental. That's fair. I agree with Arion, he shouldn't have been left alone. But the bride's morality shouldn't fucking factor in AFTER IT WAS DONE, BECAUSE HE DID NOT KNOW IT AT THE TIME. And like, I get Petronia is an unkind monster, I'm down with that, it just very much feels like, as I said, that it's not simply Petronia's attitude that it's fine the "little minx" died, but Rice's as well. Especially since she pretty clearly thinks that these nameless, faceless "first-rate killers" are justified fodder for the conversely very humanized vampires. It's just another part of how she's determined to give her characters the easy out and not actually have to face any tough moral choices in which they may not, or perhaps even can not, come out justified.
Anyway, Petronia the groom and father sent four armed men here. It is not explained how they knew whodunnit and where to find them. If Petronia & Co are that easy to find so quickly by anyone seeking vengeance, I'm amazed they didn't get fucking staked long ago, especially if they only prey on killers, who seem to be in a very strange abundance in Rice's mind.
Petronia talks about what a terrific time she had fighting them, how thrilling it was, how she should do it more often. but also says she killed them before they could fire their weapons. Okay, in order to kill four men in succession fast enough that none of them could, according to her, even draw their guns, let alone shoot at her, she'd had to have been using some seriously exceptional super speed. that doesn't sound like it was a fight at all, let alone a thrilling one, it just sounds like the usual swift vamp killing. Unless they just...politely stood and waited for her to fight one of them to death before moving on to the next?
Also she says they were all dumped into the sea, their car too. That seems to be where the bodies are disposed of in general. rice may think this is clever, but she does know about this thing called the tide, right? Stuff washes up.
This is seriously just all so flimsy it's downright inexcusable. I can suspend my disbelief to a certain degree with vampire novels, it's basically required, but give me SOMETHING to work with here!
Anyway, Arion says Petronia needs to explain some rules to Quinn, Petronia says don't tell mortals who you are, don't kill another vampire, cover up your kills, respect your Maker, and striking said Maker will mean his destruction. Manfred says that's good, now give Quinn warnings, he needs those. Petronia gets offended and gives "warnings" that are just insults at Manfred, like "don't act old when you're immortal!"
Manfred (still referred to as the Old Man in the narrative by Quinn) says to tell Quinn about the Talamasca, then warns Quinn of them himself, saying they know about "us" and not to fall for their blandishments and flattery, that they're psychics and magicians who want to lock vampires up in their castles and study them in their labs. Shocked, Quinn tries not to think about Stirling, but Manfed detects in Quinn's thoughts that he's already met them and says to never risk going near them again. Quinn says "it was all broken off long ago" and explains how he sees spirits. Arion shakes his head, saying that "Ghosts don't come to our kind, Quinn"
I guess that kinda makes sense? Since ghosts are typically drawn to the living, I think? But then again, Rice established that seeing ghosts in her canon is due to having certain receptors in the brain, so do those just...turn off when you become a vampire?
Petronia agrees with Arion's assertion, and adds that Quinn will probably find that his "familiar" is gone if he ever goes back to Blackwood Farm to spy on his loved ones.
Quinn says nothing, watches the chessboard (Arion and Manfred are playing), then asks if there are any other rules. Arion says not to make other vampires without permission. Quinn is surprised that he can make other vampires. Um, fucking duh, Quinn? Arion confirms yes he can but cautions him against doing so, reiterating he will need the permission of him and Petronia. Arion says it will be tempting, but "Don't be a fool in this. Don't spend eternity with someone you may come to despise or even hate."
Petronia is noted to go silent after Arion says this.
Also I'm gonna spoil things for you guys, as sensible as this advice really is, Quinn has Lestat make Mona a vampire (to give Mona more power, I think, since Lestat is so powerful) by the end, and I don't think there's any consequences to that (though she does die in the most recent book, I believe, Prince Lestat)
After a long silence, Petronia says that if Quinn does go back to look in on his family, don't hunt New Orleans because Lestat is there, that is a "ruthless, iconoclastic, and self-centered" vampire who rules New Orleans, kills young Blood Hunters, and has written vampire books that pass as fiction for mortals but are actually true (remember, the Vampire Chronicles exist within themselves, just written by Lestat instead of Anne Rice, except Interview which was, of course, written by the guy who did the Interview, I forget his name, I think it was Daniel)
We know, of course, that Lestat will not kill Quinn because he's special!
Quinn's quiet a long time, the chess game ends, Quinn says he's going to leave "you gentlemen" and thanks them for their "gifts". Petronia and Arion are like what the fuck, you don't know how to fly that far, you don't know how to pretend to be human, Quinn says he'll just take a plane like a mortal and that he knows how to be human because he's watched how they pretend to be human.
...did he forget how to be human that fast that he even needed to re-learn? He just changed last night so I'd think he hadn't "lost it" and would still be subconsciously breathing and blinking and stuff, but I might just be projecting Masquerade canon on to Ricean canon here.
Petronia says that if he lets these mortals in on his secret, he'll destroy them, while Quinn counters he'll protect them from it and "you won't make me lose my nerve."
I've read ahead and while some people are gonna die, it's NOT due to Quinn letting them know he's a vampire, so yeah Quinn turns out right in this because hey it's not like he can make mistakes, UNLESS it's to be conveniently really dumb for the plot like when he just walked up to Petronia at night uninvited hence how he got here.
Petronia says she doesn't give a damn what he does "just as I knew she would" which is a funny prediction because I would have thought she'd just beat the shit out of him. He says he's going back to the Hermitage and she tells him "venomously" it's a present from her.
Quinn takes a twenty minute walk from the palazzo to, surprise, the Hotel Excelsior where he had previously been a guest! He claims to have been robbed and needs to phone his aunt, which they let him do. He tells a sobbing Aunt Queen that he can't explain but he's in Naples, that he needs his passport and funds. Nash is then put on the line with the hotel staff so that Quinn is set up with 'every convenience" and will have airline tickets delivered to him. Quinn plans a series of evening flights, then goes to his new suite and enters "a state of shock". He reflects how his life has just been a series of escalating fear, and how he just wants to be with his family again, and he won't let being a vampire take that from him. He just uses more purple wording that I'm going to spare you. He also thinks he he can't see Mona again--- "never would my pain be mixed with her pain"
He stands for an hour without moving, trying to breathe deeply, thinks about what he wants to do, lays down on the bed, has tremors, then sinks into mortal sleep. It is mostly dreamless, but he thinks he hears Rebecca laughing. The morning light awakens him "like scalding water" so he has to close the curtains and crawl under the bed to sleep more.
He gets home through his series of flights, and assures us that he makes no kills nor blunders as he practices the Little Drink in airports. And I'm NOT going to spare you THIS:
"Oh, it was an agony of fear and pleasure, drifting through a humanity I could penetrate only as a monster. And the swarming airports became hellish, like vast sets for some existential drama."
He arrives in New Orleans, there's Aunt Queen and Jasmine and Nash and Tommy and Jerome all awaiting him with hugs. He asks about Patsy, her HIV is now full-blown AIDS and Seymour is suing her for giving it to him. When Quinn gets home, he tells Big Ramona he's too old to sleep with her anymore. IT TAKES BECOMING A VAMPIRE FOR HIM TO DO THIS.
He goes to his room, and when he's alone, he cries. He finds out vampires cry blood. Goblin is there, sitting in the computer chair, and when Quinn cries blood, so does he. Quinn wipes at his own face, and when the blood on Goblin's face doesn't disappear as well, he becomes upset and shouts at him. Goblin runs at him, then merges with him, and Quinn is pushed backwards, unable to fight him.
"He was in me, he was merged with me, and it felt like a pure fatal electric shock, and when he withdrew I saw him huge and filled with tiny droplets of blood, and I collapsed."
They go back to the palazzo and are told by the very frightened servant girl that Petronia wants to see Quinn in her dressing room. The "young Adonis" is plaiting her hair, and Petronia looks GREAT. She's wearing a "buff-colored velvet coat and pants, with a ruffled white shirt that would have looked good in the eighteenth century" and "huge rectangular cameo" at her throat that is "surrounded by diamonds" and she also has "two threads of diamonds running over her head" which are being plaited into her hair.
Quinn says she is "clad as a man" but nothing about this sounds like "male attire" to me, just a woman in a suit, and not looking very "masculine" in it at that. Like wearing a ruffled blouse and diamond hair decorations with long hair does not read to me as "clad as a man" (not that men can't do that!)
We're told a bit about the sea and the sky, as the room is open to it, and how taken aback Quinn is by Petronia's beauty in her "sharp male clothing". When the "young Adonis" is finished plaiting her hair, she gives him some money and tells him to go enjoy himself as he's done well. He bows and backs out of the room "as though he'd been dismissed by the Queen of England"
Petronia asks if Quinn finds the boy beautiful, Quinn says he doesn't know because "Everything charms me. As a human being, I was an enthusiast. Now I think I'm losing my mind."
This is a part of Ricean vampires, that their senses are so enhanced that beauty can much more easily overwhelm them and even hypnotize them, and I think that actually works well both in that gives her a good reason for the elaborate lovely descriptions she's so good at without it seeming bizarre that the character is focusing on these things, and, this may be just me, but it seems like a subtle reference to stories of vampires being hypnotized by counting grains of rice or the like.
Petronia takes him in her arms and asks if the wounds she inflicted have healed, he says yes "Except the wound no one can heal, the one I inflicted on myself, that I killed the innocent young woman, that I murdered her at her own wedding" and that time will not heal it either. Petronia just laughs and says to come join the others, and how his grandfather plays chess but was a poker player when she met him, and beat her too.
She leads him back to the room with the big golden cage and wonders if he had looked like Caravaggio's "Victorious Cupid" inside it. Yes, he seriously ponders this. Because I know if I saw something like that that I'd been thrown inside before undergoing trauma, my thoughts would be, what classical work of art did I most resemble inside it? Also, Rice, pick a different artist than Arion referenced, try to hide it at least a TINY bit that your characters tastes aren't all just your own.
Petronia then tells Quinn about her night thus far. See, it turns out that the bride's husband and father were "first-rate killers" because apparently those really are just all over the place in the Naples, and "of course the little minx knew it, so salve your conscience with that"
So basically the one thing Quinn did that was even close to textually recognized as wrong has now been retroactively justified so it wasn't THAT bad, isn't that convenient. I mean, Quinn will still angst over it, but I feel like this was thrown in so the READER wouldn't feel that much sympathy for the bride is actually justified, and therefore that Quinn didn't REALLY do anything wrong. And if that was the intent, I say, I disagree---the bride did not "deserve" to get killed by Quinn, and it certainly does not justify it that he finds out she was "bad" after the fact. What exonerates Quinn, if anything, is that it was his first time and utterly accidental. That's fair. I agree with Arion, he shouldn't have been left alone. But the bride's morality shouldn't fucking factor in AFTER IT WAS DONE, BECAUSE HE DID NOT KNOW IT AT THE TIME. And like, I get Petronia is an unkind monster, I'm down with that, it just very much feels like, as I said, that it's not simply Petronia's attitude that it's fine the "little minx" died, but Rice's as well. Especially since she pretty clearly thinks that these nameless, faceless "first-rate killers" are justified fodder for the conversely very humanized vampires. It's just another part of how she's determined to give her characters the easy out and not actually have to face any tough moral choices in which they may not, or perhaps even can not, come out justified.
Anyway, Petronia the groom and father sent four armed men here. It is not explained how they knew whodunnit and where to find them. If Petronia & Co are that easy to find so quickly by anyone seeking vengeance, I'm amazed they didn't get fucking staked long ago, especially if they only prey on killers, who seem to be in a very strange abundance in Rice's mind.
Petronia talks about what a terrific time she had fighting them, how thrilling it was, how she should do it more often. but also says she killed them before they could fire their weapons. Okay, in order to kill four men in succession fast enough that none of them could, according to her, even draw their guns, let alone shoot at her, she'd had to have been using some seriously exceptional super speed. that doesn't sound like it was a fight at all, let alone a thrilling one, it just sounds like the usual swift vamp killing. Unless they just...politely stood and waited for her to fight one of them to death before moving on to the next?
Also she says they were all dumped into the sea, their car too. That seems to be where the bodies are disposed of in general. rice may think this is clever, but she does know about this thing called the tide, right? Stuff washes up.
This is seriously just all so flimsy it's downright inexcusable. I can suspend my disbelief to a certain degree with vampire novels, it's basically required, but give me SOMETHING to work with here!
Anyway, Arion says Petronia needs to explain some rules to Quinn, Petronia says don't tell mortals who you are, don't kill another vampire, cover up your kills, respect your Maker, and striking said Maker will mean his destruction. Manfred says that's good, now give Quinn warnings, he needs those. Petronia gets offended and gives "warnings" that are just insults at Manfred, like "don't act old when you're immortal!"
Manfred (still referred to as the Old Man in the narrative by Quinn) says to tell Quinn about the Talamasca, then warns Quinn of them himself, saying they know about "us" and not to fall for their blandishments and flattery, that they're psychics and magicians who want to lock vampires up in their castles and study them in their labs. Shocked, Quinn tries not to think about Stirling, but Manfed detects in Quinn's thoughts that he's already met them and says to never risk going near them again. Quinn says "it was all broken off long ago" and explains how he sees spirits. Arion shakes his head, saying that "Ghosts don't come to our kind, Quinn"
I guess that kinda makes sense? Since ghosts are typically drawn to the living, I think? But then again, Rice established that seeing ghosts in her canon is due to having certain receptors in the brain, so do those just...turn off when you become a vampire?
Petronia agrees with Arion's assertion, and adds that Quinn will probably find that his "familiar" is gone if he ever goes back to Blackwood Farm to spy on his loved ones.
Quinn says nothing, watches the chessboard (Arion and Manfred are playing), then asks if there are any other rules. Arion says not to make other vampires without permission. Quinn is surprised that he can make other vampires. Um, fucking duh, Quinn? Arion confirms yes he can but cautions him against doing so, reiterating he will need the permission of him and Petronia. Arion says it will be tempting, but "Don't be a fool in this. Don't spend eternity with someone you may come to despise or even hate."
Petronia is noted to go silent after Arion says this.
Also I'm gonna spoil things for you guys, as sensible as this advice really is, Quinn has Lestat make Mona a vampire (to give Mona more power, I think, since Lestat is so powerful) by the end, and I don't think there's any consequences to that (though she does die in the most recent book, I believe, Prince Lestat)
After a long silence, Petronia says that if Quinn does go back to look in on his family, don't hunt New Orleans because Lestat is there, that is a "ruthless, iconoclastic, and self-centered" vampire who rules New Orleans, kills young Blood Hunters, and has written vampire books that pass as fiction for mortals but are actually true (remember, the Vampire Chronicles exist within themselves, just written by Lestat instead of Anne Rice, except Interview which was, of course, written by the guy who did the Interview, I forget his name, I think it was Daniel)
We know, of course, that Lestat will not kill Quinn because he's special!
Quinn's quiet a long time, the chess game ends, Quinn says he's going to leave "you gentlemen" and thanks them for their "gifts". Petronia and Arion are like what the fuck, you don't know how to fly that far, you don't know how to pretend to be human, Quinn says he'll just take a plane like a mortal and that he knows how to be human because he's watched how they pretend to be human.
...did he forget how to be human that fast that he even needed to re-learn? He just changed last night so I'd think he hadn't "lost it" and would still be subconsciously breathing and blinking and stuff, but I might just be projecting Masquerade canon on to Ricean canon here.
Petronia says that if he lets these mortals in on his secret, he'll destroy them, while Quinn counters he'll protect them from it and "you won't make me lose my nerve."
I've read ahead and while some people are gonna die, it's NOT due to Quinn letting them know he's a vampire, so yeah Quinn turns out right in this because hey it's not like he can make mistakes, UNLESS it's to be conveniently really dumb for the plot like when he just walked up to Petronia at night uninvited hence how he got here.
Petronia says she doesn't give a damn what he does "just as I knew she would" which is a funny prediction because I would have thought she'd just beat the shit out of him. He says he's going back to the Hermitage and she tells him "venomously" it's a present from her.
Quinn takes a twenty minute walk from the palazzo to, surprise, the Hotel Excelsior where he had previously been a guest! He claims to have been robbed and needs to phone his aunt, which they let him do. He tells a sobbing Aunt Queen that he can't explain but he's in Naples, that he needs his passport and funds. Nash is then put on the line with the hotel staff so that Quinn is set up with 'every convenience" and will have airline tickets delivered to him. Quinn plans a series of evening flights, then goes to his new suite and enters "a state of shock". He reflects how his life has just been a series of escalating fear, and how he just wants to be with his family again, and he won't let being a vampire take that from him. He just uses more purple wording that I'm going to spare you. He also thinks he he can't see Mona again--- "never would my pain be mixed with her pain"
He stands for an hour without moving, trying to breathe deeply, thinks about what he wants to do, lays down on the bed, has tremors, then sinks into mortal sleep. It is mostly dreamless, but he thinks he hears Rebecca laughing. The morning light awakens him "like scalding water" so he has to close the curtains and crawl under the bed to sleep more.
He gets home through his series of flights, and assures us that he makes no kills nor blunders as he practices the Little Drink in airports. And I'm NOT going to spare you THIS:
"Oh, it was an agony of fear and pleasure, drifting through a humanity I could penetrate only as a monster. And the swarming airports became hellish, like vast sets for some existential drama."
He arrives in New Orleans, there's Aunt Queen and Jasmine and Nash and Tommy and Jerome all awaiting him with hugs. He asks about Patsy, her HIV is now full-blown AIDS and Seymour is suing her for giving it to him. When Quinn gets home, he tells Big Ramona he's too old to sleep with her anymore. IT TAKES BECOMING A VAMPIRE FOR HIM TO DO THIS.
He goes to his room, and when he's alone, he cries. He finds out vampires cry blood. Goblin is there, sitting in the computer chair, and when Quinn cries blood, so does he. Quinn wipes at his own face, and when the blood on Goblin's face doesn't disappear as well, he becomes upset and shouts at him. Goblin runs at him, then merges with him, and Quinn is pushed backwards, unable to fight him.
"He was in me, he was merged with me, and it felt like a pure fatal electric shock, and when he withdrew I saw him huge and filled with tiny droplets of blood, and I collapsed."
