A few weeks ago, on a very dark, cold, rainy night, I found an old paperback of Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin at the free book shelf at the Education Alliance. Rosemary's Baby is one of my all-time favorite movies and the novel proved to be no disappointment. It's pretty much an exact blueprint for the film, down to the most minute of details. And so while I think Roman Polanski did an excellent job directing the film, many of the dark and wonderful touches that I formerly attributed to him (Laura-Louise with the magnifying glass, the Japanese photographer, "I won't have an abortion!") were actually Mr. Levin's creation. Polanski barely changed a thing.
It confirmed for me what I heard many years ago at University of Michigan, at a lecture given by Chuck Palahniuk. I had a bunch of friends who read his books religiously and I tagged along for fun. (Personally, I think he's a good writer, but once you've read one Palahniuk book, you've read them all.) That night, he read some revolting stories from Stranger Than Fiction, but the one that I found most compelling was an essay entitled "Dear Mr. Levin."
The piece is a personal letter to Ira Levin and while time has dulled some of the initial wonder I felt while hearing it, the key points are still very resonant. Some excerpts:
Your books take some of the thorniest issues in our culture and charm us into facing the problem. What's creepy is, these are issues the American public is years away from confronting, but in each one - in each book - you ready us for a battle you seem to see coming. And, so far, you're always right.
In Rosemary's Baby, published in 1967, the battle is over a woman's right to control her body. She's controlled by her religion, her husband, by her male best friend, by her male obstetrician. All this you got people to read - to pay money to read - years before the feminist health-care movement. The Boston Women's Health Cooperative. Our Bodies, Ourselves. And consciousness-raising groups where women would sit around with a speculum and flashlight and look at changes in each other's cervix.
Mr. Levin, your skill to tell an important, threatening story through a metaphor, maybe it comes from your experience writing for television's "golden age," shows like Lights Out and The United States Steel Hour. This was television in the 1950s and early '60s, when most issues had to be masked or disguised to avoid offending a conservative audience and the even more conservative sponsors of a program. In a time before "transgressive fiction," such as The Monkey Wrench Gang, American Psycho, and Trainspotting, where a writer could stand on a soap box and shout about a social issue, your writing career started in this era, in the most public form of writing, when the mask, the metaphor, the disguise was everything.
In addition to what Palahniuk touches on, what I find so striking about Levin's work is the mundaneness of evil, right down Minnie Castavet's ill-fitting green toreador pants. And while I can't articulate exactly why, I think it's brilliant.
So if there's a stormy night coming up, I plan on watching Rosemary's Baby for the hundredth time, vodka blushes in hand.
Mr. Castevet came in, holding in both hands a small tray on which four cocktail glasses ran over with clear pink liquid. “Mr. Woodhouse? A Vodka Blush. Have you ever tasted one? They’re very popular in Australia." He took the final glass and raised it to Rosemary and Guy. “To our guests,” he said. “Welcome to our home.”
The Vodka Blushes were tart and very good.
VODKA BLUSH RECIPE
1. Chill a martini glass by filling with ice. Set aside.
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