It’s Mabon in the story’s timeline, and “witches” all over Oxford are celebrating.  And by “witches,” she means the Wiccans, specifically the group of Wiccans that the chick from last chapter invited her to.  Part of me wants to think “but she’s still using the term ‘witch’ and hasn’t brought up ‘Wicca’ in since the first time, it could still be considered unclear.”  Another part of me thinks that I’m just in denial and that an openly alternate-reality setting isn’t in the works for us.  I should probably just accept it.  This author, whether she really thinks this or not, is presenting Wiccans in this book as being not only fantasy-magic users, but a different species.  (Remember, Aunt Sarah called all the rest of us ‘humans.’)

She hasn’t directly made that link yet, mostly because she only actually used the word ‘Wicca’ once and ever since it’s been ‘witches’.  There’s still some wiggle room.  However, she has reached the point where there’s enough indirect links that she doesn’t have to say it.  She’s taken what should be obvious (Wiccans are not fantasy-witches) and muddled it until, if she wants to go back to reality, she actually has to say so.

And, wow, that’s insulting.

Instead of going to a Mabon celebration, Diana is back in the library and wants to check out some old, crumbling manuscript.  The lady at the desk says that it’s old and crumbling, and why not use microfilm instead.  Makes sense, yes?  No, you plebe!  This is Dr. Diana Bishop!  She went to Yale at 16!  She is the epitome of scholarly perfection and you will give her the old crumbling manuscript, damnit.  Nothing else will do!  The poor library worker’s boss comes to basically say all this.

Then, we don’t even get a good excuse for why she needed it.  She barely spends any time with the damn thing, instead going on to list everything else she’s done that day.  I guess we just really, really needed to know how special this woman is.  And apparently we need to know the full list of her chores, as well.

The upper shelves of the section of Duke Humfrey’s known as the Selden End were reachable by means of a worn set of stairs to a gallery that looked over the reading desks.

By the way, there is an incredible amount of padding in this damn book.  Just look at that.  Stairs!  Stairs!  Can you believe it!  The library has stairs!  Oh, what will these authors think up next?  Doors?  Windows?  Bookshelves?

Then we spend several whole paragraphs on the gripped dilemma of “how to reach a book on the top shelf.”  Uhg, I am so bored.

Apparently this book is so important, and finding a stepladder so inconvenient, that Diana is going to break her no-magic rule and use magic to get it down.  …Really?  All that drama last chapter, and this is what it takes to get her to break her rule?  A minor inconvenience?  She says it’s only the fifth time this year she’s used magic, and all I can think is that she must have a very convenient life if she’s only had to deal with odious problems like ‘tall shelves’ five times in a year.

Then she spends several pages telling us that the creepy-cold sensation on her back means that a vampire is watching her.  Wait, no, first she tells us that it’s not a witch and not a daemon, then she tells us that it’s a vampire. 

Diana then informs us that there’s lots of vampires working as scientists, because scientists are total losers with no social life so no one will notice if the same guy stays at a lab for decades while never aging.  No, really.

And thanks to their solitary work habits, scientists were unlikely to be recognized by anyone except their closest co-workers.

Hear that?  If you like science, you’re a loser and no one will even know/care what you look like.

…I just realized, but this book is starting to read like Marked if the author had been going for “pseudo-intellectual” instead of “vapid teenager.”  The ridiculous appropriation of new-age/pagan themes, the ‘Magical Indian’ trope adjusted for Wiccans, the overpowered and super-special main character, the not-so-subtle judging of everyone else as being a loser…  Yeah, this is Marked in grad school.

Anyone who has read paperback bestsellers or even watched television knows that vampires are breathtaking,

Excuse me while I pick my jaw up off the floor. 

Really?  Really?  Not only are you going to blatantly rip off clichés, but you’re going to tell us that’s what you’re doing?  And in the process you’re going to act like “television” and “paperback bestsellers” are…what, some paradigm of truth when it comes to the supernatural world?

Do you know what tradition says a vampire looks like?  A corpse.  They’re walking dead people, and until very recently, everyone thought they would look like walking dead people.  (Specifically, walking dead peasants.)

THEY’RE FUCKING ZOMBIES, ALRIGHT?

And if you want to change that and make them not, you know, obviously dead, that’s fine.  But don’t treat ‘television’ like it faithfully and reliably portrays…anything. 

Diana decides to forget about the vampire currently staring her down in the library and instead tells us about some completely unrelated vampire in a different country.  FOCUS, DAMNIT.

He’d slept with most of the women in the canton of Geneva […] What he did after he seduced them I had never wanted to inquire into too closely

…Wow.  I hate you. 

I mean, it hasn’t quite been said yet that vampires drink blood and kill people, but that would certainly fit with ‘television and paperback bestsellers.’  And it’s also already been said that vampires can do some sort of mind-control or trance on their ‘prey.’  So Diana’s friend her apparently has ‘entranced’ half the women of the city (more commonly known as rape) and then, by implication, eats them afterwards.  But Diana has no fucks to give about all this; she just plugs her ears and goes “tralalalalala, not listening.”

Finally we get back to the current vampire.  He’s hot.  His hotness spans several paragraphs and must be told in exacting detail.  (Then again, apparently we also had to be told that the library has stairs that go to the second story.)

But the most unnerving thing about him was not his physical perfection. It was his feral combination of strength, agility, and keen intelligence that was palpable across the room.

So far all he’s done is stand still and stare at Diana. 

I would like to offer a challenge to all prospective writers that might be reading my blog:  Do not ever, ever, ever say that someone has a ‘palpable’ intelligence, power, or – heaven forbid – agility while having them stand stock still and fail to do anything.  Don’t even tell me they have that while they’re moving.  Just show them being powerful, intelligent, and agile. 

Although, in this book’s case, intelligence might be asking a lot.

In his black trousers and soft gray sweater, with a shock of black hair swept back from his forehead and cropped close to the nape of his neck, he looked like a panther that could strike at any moment

Because…panthers wear soft gray sweaters now? 

This is Matthew.  He’s a biochemistry professor.  Apparently he knows all about her, because even though she’s scared of him (quite…randomly, too, after all her benign talk earlier), he walks up and starts talking about how much he likes her alchemy books.  He asks her to dinner, but she turns him down while being all scared and wanting to run away on the inside.  Again, without any justification.  When she spent pages and pages (and pages) explaining vampires for us, she sounded quite ambivalent on the subject, like they were not more scary than your average housecat.  Now, all of a sudden, she wants to make a run for it?  In fact, during that introductory spill, she even said there was already another vampire in town that frequented the library, and she called him ‘cherubic.’

He leaves after she turns him down for dinner, but Diana is so freaked out by the encounter that she decides to pack up and head out as well.  We then get a very exacting detail of her walking home and making toast.

This book is 500 pages long and probably only has 100 pages of actual plot.  A little bit of extraneous detail isn’t a bad thing, but when it comprises most of the book…

Diana calls home to talk to her Aunt Sarah and some family friend named Emily.  Sarah knows something is wrong, because her witchiness told her so.  Also, Sarah and Em are lesbian lovers, but tried to stay in the closet.  Apparently everyone in town knows about it and as cool with it, though.

Erm, what?  I’m happy as always to see homosexuality displayed positively, but there’s something really insulting about taking two gay characters and saying “why are you in the closet?  Come out, we’ll be nice.  You silly gays, getting all worked up over nothing.”  We don’t know why Sarah and Em were trying to be sly about it, and given the way homosexuals are treated in this country, I’d say they were probably careful for very good reason.  It’s pretty terrible to try and brush all that hate and prejudice under the rug with an implied “oh, you silly paranoid gays.”

The two of them were convinced I was going to see the light and begin taking my magic seriously now that I was safely tenured.

So, um, why aren’t you?  We’ve had a whole bunch of really vague comments on why she tried to avoid it in the first place, but only one really holds water: she doesn’t want to have her magic get away from her like it did with the acting thing.  (And possibly like it did with her dead parents.)  But we also don’t really know much about Diana’s magic.  For all we know, it only got away from her because she wasn’t studying it and learning about it, and therefore ignoring it was the worst possible way to handle the whole thing. 

And going from this comment, I think what we were supposed to take away was the idea that magic and scholarship don’t mix, but that doesn’t make any more sense now than it did then.

She tells them about Matthew, and they tell her to stay away.

“Witches, vampires, and daemons aren’t supposed to mix. You know that. Humans are more likely to notice us when we do. No daemon or vampire is worth the risk.”

Why?  Do you start sparkling in mixed company?

They try to figure out why Matthew asked her to dinner, since ‘vampires and witches don’t date,’ and Diana refuses to use any magic to figure this out, even though apparently the only options for his motives are bad ones.  So, she’s now so afraid of magic that she won’t use it for her own personal protection…but she’ll use it to get a book from a high shelf. 

“It’s a slippery slope, Em. I protect myself from a vampire in the library today, and tomorrow I protect myself from a hard question at a lecture.

Okay, but does it really work like that, or are you using the Slippery Slope Fallacy?  Because unless magic is literally a seductive force, then no.  You can set boundaries.  You can evaluate each situation individually.  There is no reason why you must use magic in a lecture if you use it now for this unrelated reason.  That’s like saying that if I drive my car on a highway, where will it end?  Before you know it, I’ll be driving to the kitchen!

If I start using magic, nothing would belong entirely to me.

You know…except for all that magic.  Which is yours, as well. 

Sarah and Em warn Diana to stay away from Matthew, because he’s probably not well-behaved, and then Em gives a really awkward hint that she’ll end up seeing the guy again.

Also, that was a seven page conversation between three women in which everything they talked about revolved around a man.  Does this book pass the Bechdel Test?