Flowers in the Attic - Pt. 4 or "In Which Nothing F*cking happens"

Hello again, it's been a while hasn't it?
Mostly because rereading this book so often makes my brain hurt...

Not much happened in the last chapter except the Doll. siblings (oh wait, Cathy did say the neighbors called them the "Dresden Dolls"... forgot about that) received breakfast and a list of rules from The Grandmother and they began to wait until they maids were done cleaning the rest of the floor so they could go and investigate the attic.

The next chapter opens with them looking up in the attic.

Go figure.

Admittedly, the description is rather impressive - as I said back in chapter one - this book isn't complete trash. Cathy describes the wide planks in the floors, the different dormer alcoves jutting off to each side, and the wide assortment of old furniture and junk that seems to be piled up literally everywhere.

They start digging through some old trunks and look through several decades worth of moldy, moth ridden clothes, and yet Cathy is still able to fantasize about wearing some of them:

"How I would love to flounce about in a frilly chemise over pantaloons, with dozens of fancy petticoats over wire hoops, all bedecked in ruffles, lace embroidery, with flowing ribbons of velvet or satin, and my shoes would be of satin and over all of this bedazzled finery would be  a lacy parasol to shade my golden curls, and keep the sun from my fair, unwrinkled complexion. And I'd carry a fan to elegantly cool myself, and my eyelids would flutter and bewitch. Oh what a beauty I'd be!"

There is not a single character in this book of narcissistic sociopaths more in love with herself than Cathy is.

She's pulled out of these thoughts by the twins whining about how it's hot and they don't like it up in the attic. She more or less ignores them and there's more description of the attic as they start looking through old albums and moldy books and Chris starts lusting after a dress dummy that belonged to one of the pretty girls in the photos they'd found - which then instantly shifts to him talking about their mother:

" 'But this girl is only pretty,' Christopher concluded. 'Our mother is beautiful.'
The silence of that space was so deep you could hear your heartbeat."

I can't do paragraph indents on this thing, but that next line is an entirely new paragraph. Still, it reads like there was just this awkward pause after he says that.

After the line about the silence, Cathy is back to talking about what's in the attic and how they could even look in every trunk stored up there for something to do and discover what secrets the attic might be keeping. All I say is - wait a few years.

This immediately jumps to Cathy getting worried over why their grandparents would hate them so much, Chris tries to reassure her, without much success, and they once again start looking around the attic.

If this chapter could pick a tone or a center of focus, that'd be great.

The twins start whining about it being dusty and Chris finds a little school room full of books and a couple of desks and toys in the back of the attic. This is actually an interesting detail because the desks have names, ages and dates carved into them that implies the four of them probably weren't the only kids to be locked away in this attic. I doubt any of this is ever explored - since the Dollanganger series mostly just follows these little shits and their offspring - and most of the later books in the series weren't even written by Andrews at all. If these names were supposed to come into play later, we'll probably never know (but correct me if I'm wrong - but I refuse to read any more of this series than I already have)

Cathy starts looking through some of the books and then screams when one of them is full of centipedes. So that happened.

Honestly so little actually happens in this chapter that I have to resort to mentioning centipedes.

They manage to open some of the windows and let in the air, and Chris mentions leaving one of them open at night, hoping an owl might fly in:

" '...I've always wanted an owl for a pet.' 

'For heaven's sake, why in the world would you want on of those things?' "

Everyone is fond of owls

" 'Owls can turn their heads all the way around. Can you do that?' "

For some reason this exchange has always amused me a little. Cathy wonders why a bird as wise as an owl would even want to come in and be locked away with them, to which I feel obligated to mention that owls are dumb as Hell.

The twins start whining that they want to go outside and play in the garden and swing, which obviously they can't, and Chris tells them to pretend that the attic is outside and he manages to make swings for them out of random rope and garbage that's up in the attic and hangs them from the rafters. This bit is important because it's the scene where they decide to make the attic into a garden, which is where the title comes in.

As someone who was fascinated with attics as a child, I actually relate to this a lot more than I probably should...

They go back downstairs for lunch and Chris and Cathy start talking about what they'll do when they're rich as kings. Cathy talks about wanting a horse or a pony or some generic thing that twelve year olds in the 50's wanted, and says when she's a famous prima ballerina she'll eat nothing but cheese and ice cream all day and work off the fat by dancing. This is not how anything works.

They discuss other things like which games to ask their mother for to make the week go by faster, the twins brat out again and Cathy reads them stories to get them to shut up, following that paragraph with "Thank God we weren't going to be shut up here long" again.

There's really nothing else of consequence to mention here, if I try and recap anything else in, it's just going to be typing the same thing over and over.

Until next time, here's hoping something happens in the next chapter.

Upcoming things (If I ever get around to them)

Not that I get enough people looking at this, but this is mostly a note for my own benefit anyway, if only to remember things I may or may not get around to writing.

So then,

What I'd like to do is:

•  motivate myself to continue the Flowers in the Attic recaps, once I can get myself to look at that book again. Really, I've read it far too many times than is probably healthy.

• Do something for Halloween, since I watch a good amount of classic horror films anyway, I'd like to do a recap or at least a short review of one per day leading up to Halloween. Not sure when I want to start those. Starting on friday the 13th would be an obvious choice, but I also have a wedding that weekend, so that would probably complicate things a bit. Either way, something like that is to come. 

• Being the sucker for classic 90's cartoons and the fact I'm slightly obsessed with a new phone game I got a few days ago, I plan to do a full series rewatch of the original Digimon anime (you know the one) which may or may not lead up to finally doing a cosplay group from that, but we'll see how that goes - there's a lot of campy 90's cartoons to watch! 

That's about it for now, I will be trying to post more on here, but until then, see you around~