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a_sporking_rat) wrote2017-09-06 12:19 am
a_sporking_rat) wrote2017-09-06 12:19 am
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BLACKWOOD FARM CHAPTER 34
Darcy passed away on Saturday night, due to the same illness that took Dodger and Topaz. I was pretty sure this was coming, hence why I posted his pictures most recently.
Normally I really like to be with them—that was what upset me a lot with Dodger passing while I was on vacation—but Darcy always wanted to be wild and didn’t want to bond with me as much as his cagemates, so I think this is how he would have wanted it, which makes me feel better. Also I spent a lot of time yesterday earlier cuddling with him before he passed and despite usually wanting to be a wild ratty, he did snuggle and brux (rat purring) so I guess he did know I loved him. And I fed him yogurt too!
Next will probably be Amethyst or Phoebe, as they are elderly ladies :C I hope to show off Phoebe before that but I don't have my laptop with her pictures right now.
Anyway, on to the spork!
BLACKWOOD FARM CHAPTER 34
Quinn gets home. AQ and Nash are making plans for Europe. Quinn asks if Tommy can go too, says he can have him here in an hour with his birth certificate and all his clothes. AQ gives it "instant and deep thought" which is a phrase I like, then replies "Is he worthy of such a trip, Tarquin?" WHICH IS A PHRASE I DON'T LIKE
WORTHY OF---?!
WHAT KIND OF CRAP IS THIS like how are we NOT meant to see Quinn and his family as obnoxious snobs?
Quinn gushes about how "worthy" is just the right word, and how AQ will love him and if she doesn't they'll just get a nanny and AQ agrees. Quinn asks for some more "petty cash" in case Terry Sue doesn't want Tommy to go. AQ, shocked, says "You mean she'd sell the boy!" to which Quinn, admittedly generously, says it's just to "sweeten deal" and that "Terry Sue is merely the practical mother of six hungry kids" though he also does call it a "ransom"
Quinn gets the money and on the way he and Goblin have the usual talk about Goblin being afraid to go to Europe. Quinn promises to hold his hand and that he will sit next to him on the plane. He then runs back to the manor to ask Aunt Queen to buy an extra first-class ticket for Goblin. Aunt Queen says she wouldn't dream of putting him in coach and what kind of aunt does Quinn think she is?
...I love Aunt Queen. She's very authenticly an old Southern grande dame to me, in both good and bad ways, even if Rice seems unaware that the bad ways are bad.
More talking between Goblin and Quinn. Only thing worth noting is that Goblin wishes he could be in two places at once, so he could go to the Talamasca and learn about spirits from them so that he could be "the finest spirit ever made" which I think is kinda sweet. He also talks more to Quinn about how he loves him and needs him to see him, even when he hates him.
They get to Terry Sue's trailer, which is in a "topsy turvy" state because they're in the process of moving, "and who should come up to me but my nine-year-old self" meaning Tommy. Quinn asks Tommy if he wants to go, he says he can't leave Brittany, Quinn says he'll make it up to her. He then "caught Brittany's arm as she drew close" and then tells her so, addressing her as "sugar plum"
...do not grab children you have only met twice by the arm, Quinn. Eesh.
Anyway Brittany is cool with it, saying Tommy should go on because he's the one "always talking about books and things" and Quinn promises she'll have fun in the new house and she'll have new friends and a new school and a maid to do the chores.
Terry Sue, baby on her hip, approaches. She's now wearing a pink polyester suit and pumps, washed and combed hair, and "a brand-new set of drug-store fingernails."
Given Quinn's penchant for noting how expensive everything is, name-dropping the brands he wears, etc., the way he points out they're from the drug-store seems like a sly insult to me.
She asks Quinn why he's doing all this, saying Pops never did it. Quinn says never mind and asks to take Tommy to Europe right now, that all he needs are his clothes and birth certificate. Terry Sue tells Tommy to go get his clothes, so I guess she agrees, but says "He don't have no birth certificate" and "Europe, you mean like, in Europe?"
Because, naturally, the trailer trash single mom is the only character IN A NOVEL SET IN THE SOUTH to use double negatives. And of course, ask dumb questions.
Quinn says he can just get the birth certificate at the courthouse, and then gives Terry Sue an envelope with five thousand dollars (petty cash!) He says he was going to give it to her if she argued, so it seems to him she should get it because she didn't.
...now, if I was Terry Sue, I would be suspicious as fuck right now. This strange man---teen boy, okay, but eighteen---comes into her life, starts throwing money and nice things at her, pays special attention to one of her kids (albeit with a good reason, them being related) and then shows up one day with $5,000 in exchange for taking the child a long way away RIGHT NOW?
That is A MILLION RED FLAGS. And Terry Sue would especially see those red flags, since she's already in the vulnerable position of being an impoverished woman with lots of kids. That is a big fat target for child predators. She has to know this.
But all she does is gush about how great Quinn is, though in a way that is actually hilariously insulting: "You're crazy, Quinn Blackwood, just as Pops always said you was. He said you'd never come to nothing, but I tell you, you're sure somebody in my book!"
BURN!
Also, it is possible that Terry Sue has EXACTLY the suspicions about Quinn that I think she should, but is just playing dumb for the money, but I dunno, I feel like this is genuine. Deceit and guile really aren't things that Rice is skilled at writing, and they don't often crop up to my memory. More serious Rice readers, correct me if I'm wrong.
Quinn just says thanks and one day she'll have to tell him what else Pops said. Then he asks if that's Pop's baby, she says she doesn't know whose baby it is.
Tommy runs up with a pillowcase full of clothes, Quinn says he'll write the school board and Grady (their lawyer, if you don't remember) will take care of everything. I think this is one of the reasons Rice might prefer writing wildly rich protagonists, so that real-world rules and obstacles don't matter to them.
The next page is spent discussing the Hermitage renovations with Allen, one of the Shed Men.
"And so the tasks of Manhood were done."
CAN HE PLEASE STOP WITH THIS maybe it's meant to show how much of a child he really is but I feel like even an 18 year old would find this ridic. Then again, Quinn's not like most teenagers, and for admittedly good reason. But god, it is cringey.
Quinn tries to call Mona at the hospital but she's not available so he puts on Kenneth Brannagh's Ophelia and watches the Ophelia drowning scene over and over, as well as the part where Gertrude (which he kindly tells us in parenthesis is Hamlet's mother) describes the drowning.
...that's creepy.
Jasmine packs for Aunt Queen, Big Ramona packs for Quinn, everyone is packed. Quinn tells everyone let's go to the Grand Luminere Cafe for supper and also to book suites at the Windsor Court Hotel "of course I was hit with questions and objections" but then everyone agrees since they're so excited about the trip.
Jasmine is to run Blackwood Manor while they're gone but she's super nervous about it and doesn't think she's up to the task.
"Jasmine had the education to do it. Jasmine had the smarts. Jasmine had the good English to do it, and Jasmine also had the sophistication."
...it is really cringey to hear a white person praising a black person's good English. Like that's a significant can of worms there.
Also, there's been no mention of AQ or Quinn really doing shit as it is, so I'm not sure why them leaving is gonna make this an issue. Like is Jasmine not already doing everything anyway?
Yeah, according to what Quinn says next, she's already doing "ninety-nine percent of the work" anyway.
Anyway it all gets worked out and we move on to Mona, who is waiting for Quinn at the cafe and flies into his arms, wearing a big white blouse with white ruffles and bows at the wrists to hide "the intravenous port with its evil carbuncle of tubing and tape on the back of her inflamed right hand"
She thinks it's great he's going to Europe and says her condition is stable. She offers him to come to her room. He charmingly replies "I never made love to anybody who was wired up."
REAL ROMANTIC REMARK, QUINN.
She thinks so though, I guess, because she whispers "Good, because I have three or four baby quilts to ruin, and then we can read Hamlet to each other. I have a copy of Kenneth Brannagh's version with all the screenplay directions" and how he can recite Gertrude's speech about Ophelia drowning "and I will lie as if dead on the pillow. I've already strewn flowers all over the bed."
IS...IS THIS A FETISH?
THIS SEEMS LIKE A FETISH
He tells her that she's Ophelia Immortal and that's the name he'll write and email her with and there's a whole lot more weird Ophelia-related rambling, and she says their correspondence will be as famous as that of Heloise and Abelard and Quinn is like uhhh wasn't Abelard castrated for that and Mona is like well that's a metaphor for your restraint Quinn.
...because Quinn not getting to put his dick in Mona is the same as being castrated, I guess.
Quinn gushes about oh what fifteen year old knows things like that (about Heloise and Abelard, I mean, not castration) and Mona returns that she knows more about the stock market and bonds than anyone at the Mayfair and Mayfair firm who are "managing my billions"
...okay then.
Stirling comes over (I had forgotten they were still in the cafe) and Tommy gets introduced and he's going to be Tommy Blackwood on his passport and they eat and thankfully not a lot of time is spent on it. Tommy is "extremely bright" and "literature and history were his loves, thank God." The "thank God" bit makes me wonder how Quinn would behave towards this child if he wasn't bright or interested in these things. Then again maybe he means it like "thank god because endears him to Nash and Aunt Queen" because apparently they find Tommy "fascinating" which Quinn was hoping for.
After dessert "it was agreed my beloved family members would return to the hotel and I would go up with Mona to her room" Before Quinn does, he tells Goblin to stay with the family and to come to Quinn if Petronia shows up.
Like Quinn's previous hospital room, Mona has a "luxury suite" with a parlor and a double bed, which Mona has indeed covered with white eyelet baby quilts (is this a kink too?) as well as flowers like she said. She throws some more on and jumps on the bed and "Dr. Winn Mayfair stood by solemnly watching all these proceedings" and asks Mona (whom he addresses as Ophelia) if she's ready for him to insert the line. She gives him the go-ahead and adds for him to close the door after and "Quinn knows the line is the only thing that can be inserted, right, Quinn?"
HAHA WOW MONA
Winn is cool about, asks if Quinn understands the risks, Quinn says he does. Mona gets the needle put in, it's hard for Quinn to watch, but it's all done in moments and Winn leaves "and I was kissing her with all the drama I could effortlessly muster, calling her my eternal love and seeking only to pleasure her as she pleasured me. It was a long night of tender kissing and lovemaking, and the quilts probably bear their testimony to this time."
DEAR ANNE RICE, MENTIONING SEMEN STAINS ISN'T ROMANTIC IT'S NASTY like I guess kudos for remembering the less romantic aspects of sex but it just seems in-congruent at the end of prose like that and followed by prose like "Dawn had come, vague and pink like twilight over the city, and I said my farewell to Mona, and if anyone had told me that I would never see her again---this soft, drowsy child amid her lace and flowers, and her gloriously disheveled hair--I wouldn't have believed it. But there were many things I wouldn't have believed then."
We do see Mona again in this book and she does NOT die, so I guess he and Lestat meet up with her AFTER he completes this prolonged flashback story.
"And there were more good times to come."
Hoo boy
Quinn leaves her, gets the airline tickets and Tommy's passport, and they're on their way to Rome "with Goblin strong and visible and in his own expensive first-class seat" because Quinn just couldn't end the chapter without being sure to remind us his family is so rich they can buy the freaking GHOST not just a seat but a first-class one, and an EXPENSIVE one did you get that it's expensive?
I think it's very important to him that we know it was expensive.
Normally I really like to be with them—that was what upset me a lot with Dodger passing while I was on vacation—but Darcy always wanted to be wild and didn’t want to bond with me as much as his cagemates, so I think this is how he would have wanted it, which makes me feel better. Also I spent a lot of time yesterday earlier cuddling with him before he passed and despite usually wanting to be a wild ratty, he did snuggle and brux (rat purring) so I guess he did know I loved him. And I fed him yogurt too!
Next will probably be Amethyst or Phoebe, as they are elderly ladies :C I hope to show off Phoebe before that but I don't have my laptop with her pictures right now.
Anyway, on to the spork!
BLACKWOOD FARM CHAPTER 34
Quinn gets home. AQ and Nash are making plans for Europe. Quinn asks if Tommy can go too, says he can have him here in an hour with his birth certificate and all his clothes. AQ gives it "instant and deep thought" which is a phrase I like, then replies "Is he worthy of such a trip, Tarquin?" WHICH IS A PHRASE I DON'T LIKE
WORTHY OF---?!
WHAT KIND OF CRAP IS THIS like how are we NOT meant to see Quinn and his family as obnoxious snobs?
Quinn gushes about how "worthy" is just the right word, and how AQ will love him and if she doesn't they'll just get a nanny and AQ agrees. Quinn asks for some more "petty cash" in case Terry Sue doesn't want Tommy to go. AQ, shocked, says "You mean she'd sell the boy!" to which Quinn, admittedly generously, says it's just to "sweeten deal" and that "Terry Sue is merely the practical mother of six hungry kids" though he also does call it a "ransom"
Quinn gets the money and on the way he and Goblin have the usual talk about Goblin being afraid to go to Europe. Quinn promises to hold his hand and that he will sit next to him on the plane. He then runs back to the manor to ask Aunt Queen to buy an extra first-class ticket for Goblin. Aunt Queen says she wouldn't dream of putting him in coach and what kind of aunt does Quinn think she is?
...I love Aunt Queen. She's very authenticly an old Southern grande dame to me, in both good and bad ways, even if Rice seems unaware that the bad ways are bad.
More talking between Goblin and Quinn. Only thing worth noting is that Goblin wishes he could be in two places at once, so he could go to the Talamasca and learn about spirits from them so that he could be "the finest spirit ever made" which I think is kinda sweet. He also talks more to Quinn about how he loves him and needs him to see him, even when he hates him.
They get to Terry Sue's trailer, which is in a "topsy turvy" state because they're in the process of moving, "and who should come up to me but my nine-year-old self" meaning Tommy. Quinn asks Tommy if he wants to go, he says he can't leave Brittany, Quinn says he'll make it up to her. He then "caught Brittany's arm as she drew close" and then tells her so, addressing her as "sugar plum"
...do not grab children you have only met twice by the arm, Quinn. Eesh.
Anyway Brittany is cool with it, saying Tommy should go on because he's the one "always talking about books and things" and Quinn promises she'll have fun in the new house and she'll have new friends and a new school and a maid to do the chores.
Terry Sue, baby on her hip, approaches. She's now wearing a pink polyester suit and pumps, washed and combed hair, and "a brand-new set of drug-store fingernails."
Given Quinn's penchant for noting how expensive everything is, name-dropping the brands he wears, etc., the way he points out they're from the drug-store seems like a sly insult to me.
She asks Quinn why he's doing all this, saying Pops never did it. Quinn says never mind and asks to take Tommy to Europe right now, that all he needs are his clothes and birth certificate. Terry Sue tells Tommy to go get his clothes, so I guess she agrees, but says "He don't have no birth certificate" and "Europe, you mean like, in Europe?"
Because, naturally, the trailer trash single mom is the only character IN A NOVEL SET IN THE SOUTH to use double negatives. And of course, ask dumb questions.
Quinn says he can just get the birth certificate at the courthouse, and then gives Terry Sue an envelope with five thousand dollars (petty cash!) He says he was going to give it to her if she argued, so it seems to him she should get it because she didn't.
...now, if I was Terry Sue, I would be suspicious as fuck right now. This strange man---teen boy, okay, but eighteen---comes into her life, starts throwing money and nice things at her, pays special attention to one of her kids (albeit with a good reason, them being related) and then shows up one day with $5,000 in exchange for taking the child a long way away RIGHT NOW?
That is A MILLION RED FLAGS. And Terry Sue would especially see those red flags, since she's already in the vulnerable position of being an impoverished woman with lots of kids. That is a big fat target for child predators. She has to know this.
But all she does is gush about how great Quinn is, though in a way that is actually hilariously insulting: "You're crazy, Quinn Blackwood, just as Pops always said you was. He said you'd never come to nothing, but I tell you, you're sure somebody in my book!"
BURN!
Also, it is possible that Terry Sue has EXACTLY the suspicions about Quinn that I think she should, but is just playing dumb for the money, but I dunno, I feel like this is genuine. Deceit and guile really aren't things that Rice is skilled at writing, and they don't often crop up to my memory. More serious Rice readers, correct me if I'm wrong.
Quinn just says thanks and one day she'll have to tell him what else Pops said. Then he asks if that's Pop's baby, she says she doesn't know whose baby it is.
Tommy runs up with a pillowcase full of clothes, Quinn says he'll write the school board and Grady (their lawyer, if you don't remember) will take care of everything. I think this is one of the reasons Rice might prefer writing wildly rich protagonists, so that real-world rules and obstacles don't matter to them.
The next page is spent discussing the Hermitage renovations with Allen, one of the Shed Men.
"And so the tasks of Manhood were done."
CAN HE PLEASE STOP WITH THIS maybe it's meant to show how much of a child he really is but I feel like even an 18 year old would find this ridic. Then again, Quinn's not like most teenagers, and for admittedly good reason. But god, it is cringey.
Quinn tries to call Mona at the hospital but she's not available so he puts on Kenneth Brannagh's Ophelia and watches the Ophelia drowning scene over and over, as well as the part where Gertrude (which he kindly tells us in parenthesis is Hamlet's mother) describes the drowning.
...that's creepy.
Jasmine packs for Aunt Queen, Big Ramona packs for Quinn, everyone is packed. Quinn tells everyone let's go to the Grand Luminere Cafe for supper and also to book suites at the Windsor Court Hotel "of course I was hit with questions and objections" but then everyone agrees since they're so excited about the trip.
Jasmine is to run Blackwood Manor while they're gone but she's super nervous about it and doesn't think she's up to the task.
"Jasmine had the education to do it. Jasmine had the smarts. Jasmine had the good English to do it, and Jasmine also had the sophistication."
...it is really cringey to hear a white person praising a black person's good English. Like that's a significant can of worms there.
Also, there's been no mention of AQ or Quinn really doing shit as it is, so I'm not sure why them leaving is gonna make this an issue. Like is Jasmine not already doing everything anyway?
Yeah, according to what Quinn says next, she's already doing "ninety-nine percent of the work" anyway.
Anyway it all gets worked out and we move on to Mona, who is waiting for Quinn at the cafe and flies into his arms, wearing a big white blouse with white ruffles and bows at the wrists to hide "the intravenous port with its evil carbuncle of tubing and tape on the back of her inflamed right hand"
She thinks it's great he's going to Europe and says her condition is stable. She offers him to come to her room. He charmingly replies "I never made love to anybody who was wired up."
REAL ROMANTIC REMARK, QUINN.
She thinks so though, I guess, because she whispers "Good, because I have three or four baby quilts to ruin, and then we can read Hamlet to each other. I have a copy of Kenneth Brannagh's version with all the screenplay directions" and how he can recite Gertrude's speech about Ophelia drowning "and I will lie as if dead on the pillow. I've already strewn flowers all over the bed."
IS...IS THIS A FETISH?
THIS SEEMS LIKE A FETISH
He tells her that she's Ophelia Immortal and that's the name he'll write and email her with and there's a whole lot more weird Ophelia-related rambling, and she says their correspondence will be as famous as that of Heloise and Abelard and Quinn is like uhhh wasn't Abelard castrated for that and Mona is like well that's a metaphor for your restraint Quinn.
...because Quinn not getting to put his dick in Mona is the same as being castrated, I guess.
Quinn gushes about oh what fifteen year old knows things like that (about Heloise and Abelard, I mean, not castration) and Mona returns that she knows more about the stock market and bonds than anyone at the Mayfair and Mayfair firm who are "managing my billions"
...okay then.
Stirling comes over (I had forgotten they were still in the cafe) and Tommy gets introduced and he's going to be Tommy Blackwood on his passport and they eat and thankfully not a lot of time is spent on it. Tommy is "extremely bright" and "literature and history were his loves, thank God." The "thank God" bit makes me wonder how Quinn would behave towards this child if he wasn't bright or interested in these things. Then again maybe he means it like "thank god because endears him to Nash and Aunt Queen" because apparently they find Tommy "fascinating" which Quinn was hoping for.
After dessert "it was agreed my beloved family members would return to the hotel and I would go up with Mona to her room" Before Quinn does, he tells Goblin to stay with the family and to come to Quinn if Petronia shows up.
Like Quinn's previous hospital room, Mona has a "luxury suite" with a parlor and a double bed, which Mona has indeed covered with white eyelet baby quilts (is this a kink too?) as well as flowers like she said. She throws some more on and jumps on the bed and "Dr. Winn Mayfair stood by solemnly watching all these proceedings" and asks Mona (whom he addresses as Ophelia) if she's ready for him to insert the line. She gives him the go-ahead and adds for him to close the door after and "Quinn knows the line is the only thing that can be inserted, right, Quinn?"
HAHA WOW MONA
Winn is cool about, asks if Quinn understands the risks, Quinn says he does. Mona gets the needle put in, it's hard for Quinn to watch, but it's all done in moments and Winn leaves "and I was kissing her with all the drama I could effortlessly muster, calling her my eternal love and seeking only to pleasure her as she pleasured me. It was a long night of tender kissing and lovemaking, and the quilts probably bear their testimony to this time."
DEAR ANNE RICE, MENTIONING SEMEN STAINS ISN'T ROMANTIC IT'S NASTY like I guess kudos for remembering the less romantic aspects of sex but it just seems in-congruent at the end of prose like that and followed by prose like "Dawn had come, vague and pink like twilight over the city, and I said my farewell to Mona, and if anyone had told me that I would never see her again---this soft, drowsy child amid her lace and flowers, and her gloriously disheveled hair--I wouldn't have believed it. But there were many things I wouldn't have believed then."
We do see Mona again in this book and she does NOT die, so I guess he and Lestat meet up with her AFTER he completes this prolonged flashback story.
"And there were more good times to come."
Hoo boy
Quinn leaves her, gets the airline tickets and Tommy's passport, and they're on their way to Rome "with Goblin strong and visible and in his own expensive first-class seat" because Quinn just couldn't end the chapter without being sure to remind us his family is so rich they can buy the freaking GHOST not just a seat but a first-class one, and an EXPENSIVE one did you get that it's expensive?
I think it's very important to him that we know it was expensive.