|
6-10-2003 - 3:06 p.m.
My Book Report: Blackwood Farm Back when I was in grade school, The U. of Kansas had a Summer Reading Program for all the kiddies. Working with the local public libraries, they had a reward/bribery program for reading. Gum and ice cream were big motivators, but for anyone who read 50 books and wrote as little paragraph book report over the summer got a spiffy certificate with your name calligraphed across the front and with a raised gold shield AND a letter of congratulations from Senator Bob Dole. I recently read Miss Anne Rice�s �Blackwood Farm� her latest entry in the Vampire Chronicles. Here is my book report: Like so many of the Vampire Chronicles, the book is a personal narrative, told to the notorious Vampire Lestat of how our protagonist, a young and dumb Louisiana lad named Quinn Blackwood came to be a vampire. Quinn has a problem; since birth he has had a doppleganger called Goblin. Goblin has also become a vampire. A ghost vampire with a taste for blood and mayhem. Quinn seeks out Lestat to help get Goblin under control.
There are rules to being a Vampire, you know
Quinn lives on an old plantation near a vampire infested swamp with degenerate family history, various eccentric loved ones and sassy black servants. Sounds like a Civil War novel, but this is a contemporary tale of Gothic Southern decadence. Quinn is actually a likeable character and Miss Anne creates a convincing enough portrayal of an angsty adolescent boy who is haunted by ghosts and sex. Or sex with ghosts. Or sex with witches. Or sex with sassy black servants. Although Miss Anne is a total fag hag, if you are looking for hot and sweaty M4M sex, probably better find another book. You have to read through a LOT of pages to find out exactly how our hero is turned into a vampire and it ain�t pretty. The swamp vampire is an unpleasant hermaphrodite who wants to bring Quinn over to the dark side. The ambiguous genitalia isn�t what makes this vampire so unpleasant. Miss Anne failed to give this creature any charm at all, unlike the rest of her cast of characters. I love the brat Prince Lestat. David is sexy, Marius is venerable and wise, but Petronia the he-she vampire is just a cranky he-bitch. Knowing that the Vampire has his fangs set for Quinn, his family takes him to Europe for 3 years for the Grand Tour, but the day he gets home, the damn fool heads out to the swamp, at night, to see if the Vampire is still hot for his blood. The boy is an idiot. Obviously he was made into a vampire because he was too stupid to live. I have heard it said, unkindly, that perhaps Stan Rice�s brain cancer was contagious, because Miss Anne has lost her mind. �Blackwood Farm� isn�t quite THAT bad, sometimes it is very good, but overall the book is a mess. Miss Anne introduces characters and situations and then never does another thing with them. Tutors come and go. Bastard children appear. Quinn starts a sudden torrid love affair with Mona the teenage witch, but wait, Mona is dying, so he heads for Europe. It�s like a ball of yarn after Alexander has been batting it around the living room for an hour. Threads going everywhere. Miss Anne needs a tougher editor. Anne dear, if you want to write another vampire novel. fine, I�ll read it, but no more vampire, witch, ghost story crossovers. The ending of the novel is rather abrupt. It�s like Anne got bored and slapped a finish together quickly so she could move on to something else. I hate it when that happens. Read the book if you can borrow it or get it from the library or your sister that manages a Borders.
| 
