Larissa has to run away
from Raoul and his magic showboat again. She takes refuge in the
swamps of Souragne, where she meets a spirit of nature known as the
Maiden. Up until this point the novel had been cruising at a median
depth—neither good nor bad, just plowing along in a workmanly
paperback fashion—but once we get to the scenes of Larissa and the
Maiden things plunge back into the terribleness I've come to expect
from a Ravenloft novel. You see, the Maiden endeavors to teach
Larissa...DANCE MAGIC! And the scenes in which Larissa learns to
channel elemental magic through the power of DANCE are more than a
bit like the scenes in Dirty Dancing where the Swayze teaches Baby to
shake it like a Polaroid picture. This is, horrifyingly enough, the
Gothic Fantasy equivalent to a training montage from Flashdance or
Fame.
But, being a Christie
Golden novel, it's got to get a bit sexually weird. The Maiden
demands that Larissa where something skankier to...make the MAGIC
DANCE better or something: “To Larissa's annoyance, the Maiden made
the dancer remove her clothes and tear them into pieces for new
garments. Larissa bound her breasts with a halter made of the
skirt's material and fashioned a skirt of the lighter-weight chemise.
She fastened the skirt about her slender waist and glanced at the
Maiden for approval. 'No,' the Maiden chided. She tugged the skirt
from Larissa's waist and retied it so it hugged her hips. 'The only
time I've ever worn this little is when I was bathing,' Larissa
muttered.” What happens in the swamp, stays in the swamp.
But then, this focus on
Larissa's body is pretty typical of Golden's writing style. I don't
know how else to put this, but she writes about women the way a
fourteen year old boy would. From the way the narrative lens glides
over feminine bodies throughout the novel it's clear that we, as
readers, are meant to be complicity elided with the male gaze that
evaluates and objectifies the physicality of women. For example, check out the weird pit stop this description of a woman's anger
takes to dwell on her tits: “Her cheeks were flushed and her green
eyes sparkling. Her low-cut dress, the same one she had worn at
dinner revealed the tops of her breasts. She was absolutely stunning
in her rage.” Translation: she is really mad but also she has
great titties.
