JК
Danse Macabre :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 257 из 359Rosemary's Baby is a splendid confirmation of the idea that humor and horror lieside by side, and that to deny one is to deny the other. It is a fact Joseph Heller makes splendid use of in Catch-22 and which Stanley Elkin used in The Living End (which might have been subtitled "Job in the Afterlife").
Besides satire, Levin laces his novel with veins of irony ("It's good for your blood, dearie,” the Old Witch in the E.C. comics used to say). Early on, the Castevets invite Guy and Rosemary over for dinner; Rosemary accepts, on the condition that it won't be too much trouble.
"Honey, if it was trouble I wouldn't ask you," Mrs. Castevet said. "Believe me, I'm as selfish as the day is long.” Rosemary smiled. "That isn't what Terry told me," she said.
"Well," Mrs. Castevet said with a pleased smile, "Terry didn't know what she was talking about.” The irony is that everything Minnie Castevet says here is the literal truth; she really is as selfish as the day is long, and Terry-who ends up either being murdered or committing suicide when she discovers that she is to be or has been used as an incubator for Satan's child-really didn't know what she was talking about. But she found out. Oh yes. Heh-heh-heh.
My wife, raised in the Catholic church, claims that the book is also a religious comedy with its own shaggy-dog punchline. Rosemary's Baby , she claims, only proves what the Catholic church has said about mixed marriages all along-they just don't work. This particular bit of comedy grows richer, perhaps, when we add the fact of Levin's own Jewishness against the Christian backdrop of custom used by the Satanist coven. Seen in this light, the book becomes a kind of you-don't-have-to-beJewish-to-love-Levy's view of the battle of good and evil.
Before leaving the idea of religion and talking a bit about the feelings of paranoia which really seem to lie central to the book, let me suggest that while Levin's tongue is in his cheek part of the time, that is no reason for us to expect it to be there all of the time. Rosemary's Baby was written and published at the time the God-is-dead tempest was whirling around in the teapot of the sixties, and the book deals with questions of faith in an unpretentious but thoughtful and intriguing way.
Besides satire, Levin laces his novel with veins of irony ("It's good for your blood, dearie,” the Old Witch in the E.C. comics used to say). Early on, the Castevets invite Guy and Rosemary over for dinner; Rosemary accepts, on the condition that it won't be too much trouble.
"Honey, if it was trouble I wouldn't ask you," Mrs. Castevet said. "Believe me, I'm as selfish as the day is long.” Rosemary smiled. "That isn't what Terry told me," she said.
"Well," Mrs. Castevet said with a pleased smile, "Terry didn't know what she was talking about.” The irony is that everything Minnie Castevet says here is the literal truth; she really is as selfish as the day is long, and Terry-who ends up either being murdered or committing suicide when she discovers that she is to be or has been used as an incubator for Satan's child-really didn't know what she was talking about. But she found out. Oh yes. Heh-heh-heh.
My wife, raised in the Catholic church, claims that the book is also a religious comedy with its own shaggy-dog punchline. Rosemary's Baby , she claims, only proves what the Catholic church has said about mixed marriages all along-they just don't work. This particular bit of comedy grows richer, perhaps, when we add the fact of Levin's own Jewishness against the Christian backdrop of custom used by the Satanist coven. Seen in this light, the book becomes a kind of you-don't-have-to-beJewish-to-love-Levy's view of the battle of good and evil.
Before leaving the idea of religion and talking a bit about the feelings of paranoia which really seem to lie central to the book, let me suggest that while Levin's tongue is in his cheek part of the time, that is no reason for us to expect it to be there all of the time. Rosemary's Baby was written and published at the time the God-is-dead tempest was whirling around in the teapot of the sixties, and the book deals with questions of faith in an unpretentious but thoughtful and intriguing way.