Danse Macabre, Chapter 5
Jul. 12th, 2013 12:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lliiraCN: Anita Blake book
Chapter four ends pretty well: "We were so screwed without Jean-Claude and Asher." It's an amusing line that tells the reader Anita, Micah, and Nathaniel aren't good at diplomacy, witty banter, and "sly sedcution [sic]". It also sets up the idea that there's going to be conflict that will be difficult for the Three Stooges to resolve. Will this lead to something interesting?
Not yet. First we have to have a detailed description of the room. And what a room it is. I tried to re-create it in The Sims 2.
It took a long time because there's not much pure white, gold, and silver stuff for the game, even custom content. I don't know why there are chairs on either side of the fireplace. I have never seen a room set up like that. But that's what it says in the book. I just made a guess for the placement of everything else. I also guessed on the chandelier. There's normally a painting of Jean-Claude, Asher, and "their lost love, Julianna" above the fireplace, but it's been removed for the party. Why? We're not told.
Anita's terribly uncomfortable having to make small talk with these people. "I did the long blink, the one that means I'm thinking really hard, and trying not to show it" (34). I tried to do this. It's weird and forced. The Master of Chicago, Augustine, introduces himself first. Hm, Chicago vs. St. Louis. Chicago has a population of 2.7 million and is the third most populous city in the United States, after New York (which is really in a class of its own) and Los Angeles. St. Louis has a population of 318,069 and is not even one of the top fifty most populous cities in the U.S. I think the Master of Chicago would eat the Master of St. Louis for second breakfast. The human servant of the Master of St. Louis would be a very light snack. To become the vampire Master of Chicago, one would have to be smart, powerful, and willing to play dirty -- all on a level surpassing anything Anita should ever have seen before. Potential.
He goes by "Auggie". Eh, whatever. In a world where we're supposed to swallow names like "Requiem" without choking, "Auggie" sounds positively normal. That seems to be the point, as Auggie presents himself as a normal-looking guy. He is short. He should run away now, because every short guy in her orbit falls into Anita's crotch sooner or later, usually sooner. He kisses her wrist because he outranks her (oh brother), and she feels his power. "It tightened things low and intimate in my body" (36). Oh brother again. LKH likes to pretend she writes edgy, provocative, sexy works, but the "things low and intimate in my body" phrasing is anything but progressive. It's also easy to make fun of. Auggie made her small intestine cringe!
I looked into his eyes, until I saw that they were like the sky when it goes black, just before it falls down and destroys everything you own.
What. I think, as a fellow Midwesterner, I know what LKH was going for; she's trying to describe what the sky looks like when a tornado's coming. But this sentence just doesn't work. It's over-complicated and pretentious. (I've been watching Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, the UK version, and lots of what Gordon says applies to writing as well as it does to food.)
Anita pushes some of her necromantic power into Auggie to get him to back off. Later, in Bullet, a woman does something similar to try to get Anita to back off, and it ends very badly for the poor woman. But Auggie is not as vile as Anita and JC, so he apologizes and backs off.
Anita's power has made Auggie's defenses drop, and now she sees that "he'd been using mind games to appear less beautiful and more ordinary" (37). There are two paragraphs on his real appearance, two sentences of which are dedicated to his eyelashes. The amount of description in this book is just unreal. And I'm only on page 37!
The woman sitting on the white love seat asks Auggie why he chooses to "hide so much of [him]self", and we switch to her and the man sitting with her. The man is a vampire and "dark-haired, dark-eyed, and handsome in an ordinary sort of way." He will probably escape Anita's crotch, as he is not extremely lovely and beautiful and delicate and muscular. He's Samuel, Master of the City of Cape Cod. I hoped that the one-sentence description of him when Anita first looked at him would suffice, but no. LKH must tell us, in detail, about his hair ("dark, dark brunette, almost black, but I'd spent too many years staring at my own hair to mistake it for true black"); his height ("taller than Nathaniel, but not by much, maybe five-seven tops"); his build ("neat and trim, well-built but not obviously muscular"); what he is wearing (a "simple black suit" with a "nice green T-shirt" under it, yes really she wrote "nice"); what Jean-Claude would have dressed him in ("silk, and closer fitting" (38)); his jewelry ("a thin gold chain" with a coin on it, "one of those ancient pieces they find in shipwrecks sometimes").
Excuse me for a moment, I need to go to my happy place. Here, watch this while I sob quietly in a corner: www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi3337551897/
Samuel's animal to call is mermaids. What's that? Are you saying that's preposterous? Oh, sure, you say: I can believe that Anita is in two triumvurates with various vampires and werecreatures which give her amazing mystical powers, that she can raise zombies, and that Jean-Claude has the worst taste in interior design ever known, but I draw the line at mermaids! Well, Anita is here to assure us all. "No, really, mermaids." Take that, nay-sayers.
So mermaids are like werepeople, in that they can be a vampire's "animal to call". I wonder why that is. It doesn't seem like it would work, and it certainly seems something that would require explanation. But what's more important is how Samuel hypothetically might shake hands, along with a four-sentence description of his eyes that includes a reference to his t-shirt and that Anita has "high standards for true-green eyes."
Not so long ago, there was a day when I liked physical descriptions of characters. I especially liked to know their eye color. Eye color is an important thing to me irl, so I like to know about it in books. Or, rather, liked.
Misogyny time! "Jean-Claude had warned us all that Samuel's only weakness was his wife. She got her way most of the time..." Pfft. No wonder Samuel's not a pretty pretty prince whom Anita wants to fuck, he can't keep his bitch in line. Any man who lets his wife get her own way is just asking for trouble, amirite? (If you think I'm exaggerating about LKH's attitudes toward women who are not Anita, just wait.)
Samuel's wife, Thea, is a mermaid. "She was all whites and creams and pearls" but with black eyes. Also, she's tall and slim. I'll spare you the rest of the twelve lines describing her appearance. Just know that she's a tall, slim, blonde woman in an Anita Blake book, and watch what happens.
Anita is angry at Meng Die for causing Jean-Claude not to be there, because Anita doesn't know the protocol between her and Thea. I'd think it's pretty obvious that Thea would be the superior. Thea's the wife of a Master of a City, whereas Anita is only a girlfriend. In a very formalized, masculist society like this, it doesn't make much sense for a girlfriend to have any standing at all vis a vis a wife. Thea asks whether Anita is "helping me rise like a queen taking pity on a commoner, or do you acknowledge that I am your superior?" (39) Anita says she doesn't know "who tops who here."
For the next page, everyone licks Anita's ass about how blunt she is, how honest, what a breath of fresh air she is, etc. We also get a physical description of the big and tall wererat bodyguard Claudia and the dark-skinned wererat Fredo. Whereas the other men in the book so far, who all have light skin, have merited line after line after line of description, Fredo's description is mostly about how he's carrying a whole lot of knives. Nathaniel and Micah make noises. I'd clean forgot about the other Two Stooges.
Samuel and Thea have brought their three sons as pomme de sang candidates for Anita. It's something between pimping and marriage brokering, I guess. Thea notes, "they are lovely, my sons, are they not?" (41), and Anita claims, "I wasn't looking at them for that." I'd believe her if they were dark-skinned.
Before these sons may be introduced, Thea and Anita have to decide which of them is higher rank, because vampire society is ridiculous. It takes over two pages. Thea hugs all up on Anita to do it. This involves a description of Thea's breasts as "small and tight". When Anita realizes Thea isn't wearing a bra, she tells us "eeek" (42). Anita says that when they're pressed together, she has to talk staring at Thea's shoulder because "she was just too tall for me". Thea is 5'10 and Anita is 5'3. Among Thea's powers is apparently the ability to
make people unable to use their necks. Samuel says, "my wife is very competitive with other women". It's clear we're supposed to
think Anita isn't.
Thea says she's doing this to establish that she's Anita's superior, but also because "they" say Anita's a succubus, which Thea both is and is seeking. Then she starts to force a kiss on Anita, and the chapter ends, freeing me from physical descriptions for the time being.
Chapter four ends pretty well: "We were so screwed without Jean-Claude and Asher." It's an amusing line that tells the reader Anita, Micah, and Nathaniel aren't good at diplomacy, witty banter, and "sly sedcution [sic]". It also sets up the idea that there's going to be conflict that will be difficult for the Three Stooges to resolve. Will this lead to something interesting?
Not yet. First we have to have a detailed description of the room. And what a room it is. I tried to re-create it in The Sims 2.
It took a long time because there's not much pure white, gold, and silver stuff for the game, even custom content. I don't know why there are chairs on either side of the fireplace. I have never seen a room set up like that. But that's what it says in the book. I just made a guess for the placement of everything else. I also guessed on the chandelier. There's normally a painting of Jean-Claude, Asher, and "their lost love, Julianna" above the fireplace, but it's been removed for the party. Why? We're not told.
Anita's terribly uncomfortable having to make small talk with these people. "I did the long blink, the one that means I'm thinking really hard, and trying not to show it" (34). I tried to do this. It's weird and forced. The Master of Chicago, Augustine, introduces himself first. Hm, Chicago vs. St. Louis. Chicago has a population of 2.7 million and is the third most populous city in the United States, after New York (which is really in a class of its own) and Los Angeles. St. Louis has a population of 318,069 and is not even one of the top fifty most populous cities in the U.S. I think the Master of Chicago would eat the Master of St. Louis for second breakfast. The human servant of the Master of St. Louis would be a very light snack. To become the vampire Master of Chicago, one would have to be smart, powerful, and willing to play dirty -- all on a level surpassing anything Anita should ever have seen before. Potential.
He goes by "Auggie". Eh, whatever. In a world where we're supposed to swallow names like "Requiem" without choking, "Auggie" sounds positively normal. That seems to be the point, as Auggie presents himself as a normal-looking guy. He is short. He should run away now, because every short guy in her orbit falls into Anita's crotch sooner or later, usually sooner. He kisses her wrist because he outranks her (oh brother), and she feels his power. "It tightened things low and intimate in my body" (36). Oh brother again. LKH likes to pretend she writes edgy, provocative, sexy works, but the "things low and intimate in my body" phrasing is anything but progressive. It's also easy to make fun of. Auggie made her small intestine cringe!
I looked into his eyes, until I saw that they were like the sky when it goes black, just before it falls down and destroys everything you own.
What. I think, as a fellow Midwesterner, I know what LKH was going for; she's trying to describe what the sky looks like when a tornado's coming. But this sentence just doesn't work. It's over-complicated and pretentious. (I've been watching Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, the UK version, and lots of what Gordon says applies to writing as well as it does to food.)
Anita pushes some of her necromantic power into Auggie to get him to back off. Later, in Bullet, a woman does something similar to try to get Anita to back off, and it ends very badly for the poor woman. But Auggie is not as vile as Anita and JC, so he apologizes and backs off.
Anita's power has made Auggie's defenses drop, and now she sees that "he'd been using mind games to appear less beautiful and more ordinary" (37). There are two paragraphs on his real appearance, two sentences of which are dedicated to his eyelashes. The amount of description in this book is just unreal. And I'm only on page 37!
The woman sitting on the white love seat asks Auggie why he chooses to "hide so much of [him]self", and we switch to her and the man sitting with her. The man is a vampire and "dark-haired, dark-eyed, and handsome in an ordinary sort of way." He will probably escape Anita's crotch, as he is not extremely lovely and beautiful and delicate and muscular. He's Samuel, Master of the City of Cape Cod. I hoped that the one-sentence description of him when Anita first looked at him would suffice, but no. LKH must tell us, in detail, about his hair ("dark, dark brunette, almost black, but I'd spent too many years staring at my own hair to mistake it for true black"); his height ("taller than Nathaniel, but not by much, maybe five-seven tops"); his build ("neat and trim, well-built but not obviously muscular"); what he is wearing (a "simple black suit" with a "nice green T-shirt" under it, yes really she wrote "nice"); what Jean-Claude would have dressed him in ("silk, and closer fitting" (38)); his jewelry ("a thin gold chain" with a coin on it, "one of those ancient pieces they find in shipwrecks sometimes").
Excuse me for a moment, I need to go to my happy place. Here, watch this while I sob quietly in a corner: www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi3337551897/
Samuel's animal to call is mermaids. What's that? Are you saying that's preposterous? Oh, sure, you say: I can believe that Anita is in two triumvurates with various vampires and werecreatures which give her amazing mystical powers, that she can raise zombies, and that Jean-Claude has the worst taste in interior design ever known, but I draw the line at mermaids! Well, Anita is here to assure us all. "No, really, mermaids." Take that, nay-sayers.
So mermaids are like werepeople, in that they can be a vampire's "animal to call". I wonder why that is. It doesn't seem like it would work, and it certainly seems something that would require explanation. But what's more important is how Samuel hypothetically might shake hands, along with a four-sentence description of his eyes that includes a reference to his t-shirt and that Anita has "high standards for true-green eyes."
Not so long ago, there was a day when I liked physical descriptions of characters. I especially liked to know their eye color. Eye color is an important thing to me irl, so I like to know about it in books. Or, rather, liked.
Misogyny time! "Jean-Claude had warned us all that Samuel's only weakness was his wife. She got her way most of the time..." Pfft. No wonder Samuel's not a pretty pretty prince whom Anita wants to fuck, he can't keep his bitch in line. Any man who lets his wife get her own way is just asking for trouble, amirite? (If you think I'm exaggerating about LKH's attitudes toward women who are not Anita, just wait.)
Samuel's wife, Thea, is a mermaid. "She was all whites and creams and pearls" but with black eyes. Also, she's tall and slim. I'll spare you the rest of the twelve lines describing her appearance. Just know that she's a tall, slim, blonde woman in an Anita Blake book, and watch what happens.
Anita is angry at Meng Die for causing Jean-Claude not to be there, because Anita doesn't know the protocol between her and Thea. I'd think it's pretty obvious that Thea would be the superior. Thea's the wife of a Master of a City, whereas Anita is only a girlfriend. In a very formalized, masculist society like this, it doesn't make much sense for a girlfriend to have any standing at all vis a vis a wife. Thea asks whether Anita is "helping me rise like a queen taking pity on a commoner, or do you acknowledge that I am your superior?" (39) Anita says she doesn't know "who tops who here."
For the next page, everyone licks Anita's ass about how blunt she is, how honest, what a breath of fresh air she is, etc. We also get a physical description of the big and tall wererat bodyguard Claudia and the dark-skinned wererat Fredo. Whereas the other men in the book so far, who all have light skin, have merited line after line after line of description, Fredo's description is mostly about how he's carrying a whole lot of knives. Nathaniel and Micah make noises. I'd clean forgot about the other Two Stooges.
Samuel and Thea have brought their three sons as pomme de sang candidates for Anita. It's something between pimping and marriage brokering, I guess. Thea notes, "they are lovely, my sons, are they not?" (41), and Anita claims, "I wasn't looking at them for that." I'd believe her if they were dark-skinned.
Before these sons may be introduced, Thea and Anita have to decide which of them is higher rank, because vampire society is ridiculous. It takes over two pages. Thea hugs all up on Anita to do it. This involves a description of Thea's breasts as "small and tight". When Anita realizes Thea isn't wearing a bra, she tells us "eeek" (42). Anita says that when they're pressed together, she has to talk staring at Thea's shoulder because "she was just too tall for me". Thea is 5'10 and Anita is 5'3. Among Thea's powers is apparently the ability to
make people unable to use their necks. Samuel says, "my wife is very competitive with other women". It's clear we're supposed to
think Anita isn't.
Thea says she's doing this to establish that she's Anita's superior, but also because "they" say Anita's a succubus, which Thea both is and is seeking. Then she starts to force a kiss on Anita, and the chapter ends, freeing me from physical descriptions for the time being.
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no subject
Date: 2013-07-14 03:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-14 03:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-14 03:37 pm (UTC)think Anita isn't."
LOLOLOL
I am actually very intrigued by the merpeople, and saddened that, from what I know via the Wikis, we don't seem to learn much about them and how they work at all besides the existence of "sirens" among them. After this book though, they never show up again except mentions of Jason's offscreen mermaid girlfriend Perdita until he breaks up with her for being a jealous prude (no really)
no subject
Date: 2013-07-14 03:50 pm (UTC)Poly people sometimes get a bad rap; many people think they're critical of monogamous people, the way many monogamous people are critical of them, when most of them aren't. LKH, however, is. Though with her, I think it's not so much that she's poly. Rather, she hates other women and thinks she (or at least her self-insert) is entitled to every man's penis.
no subject
Date: 2013-07-14 05:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-17 07:34 pm (UTC)Room 101therapy?'I don't know about LKH, but given how Anita behaves, I can't imagine she's exactly the queen of polyamory.
'So lie down right here in the ritual circle while I spill a metaphysical date-rape drug all over you in order to enslave your mind and steal your powers...'
'...Wait, wasn't this a VILLAINOUS act in your first Merry Gentry book?'
'Oh, hush! Now my - er, Anita's - ARRRRDEUR will make it all lovey-dovey!'
'And that isn't metaphysical anything - it's just a jar of glitter powder mixed with... *squints* Is "Creamy Goodness" a brand of sour cream?'
'Will you shut up?! You're ruining the mood!'
'Yeah, let's just say this may be my first and last visit here...'
no subject
Date: 2013-07-18 04:31 pm (UTC)