The Chronicler Recommends: Rosemary’s Baby & The Lost Apothecary
Welcome Readers,
Today’s recommendations—Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby and Sarah Penner’s The Lost Apothecary—are inspired by Soo-Won, the Elder Dragon of Water and Life, mother to all Elder Dragons.
Soo-Won’s tale is a tragic one. She was born when Tyria was but primordial energies. Only she and the Void existed for a time.
Her existence was a lonely one until she bore her children into the world.
“I created them as tools—mindless as Nature—to stay the Void’s unrelenting push toward entropy... But here, so long ago, there was a time they called me…"Mother."”
- Soo-Won, Mother of Elder Dragons.
With her children’s birth, Soo-Won was no longer alone. Soo-Won, Primordus, Jormag, Kralkatorrik, Mordemoth and Zhaitan were now a family. The first family of Tyria.
With their aid, Soo-Won stabilized the energies of the Void to allow the world to flourish around them. And so began her vigil over the world of Tyria.
While some may see Soo-Won as the creator/mother of Tyria, this reading of her story would be improper.
Soo-Won and her family are more akin to gatekeepers that allowed the world to be born out of pure magic by keeping the dangers of entropy behind lock and key.
She witnessed the birth of the various races of Tyria, the rise of civilizations and their inevitable destruction by her children as they hungered for more magic to consume.
“Mother…” - Kralkatorrik’s final words, Elder Dragon of Crystal and Fury, Son of Soo-Won.
Soo-Won’s relationship with her children and motherhood is a complicated one. On one hand, this act is what allowed Tyria to exist in the first place. She brought life into the world by holding the energies of the Void at bay for thousands upon thousands of years. On the other, she bound the world in an eternal cycle of life and death as her children would awaken every 10 000 years to destroy all civilization upon the world to reestablish the magical order of things.
“I turn their plight over and over in my mind. The Elder Dragons. The world consumed.” - Glint, Daughter of Kralkatorrik.
With time, she grew estranged and distant from the children she had raised to keep her company.
Their hunger for magic twisting their minds and pushing them to destruction made them too dangerous to be around.
From their inception, Soo-Woo had created them as tools to control magic and doomed their fate. All she could do was observe the world and cling on to hope that one day, the cycle could be broken.
Soo-Won justified her actions as a necessary evil, to avoid a worse fate for the world. She condemned her Elder Dragons to a life of suffering, torment and destruction, so she could know what having a family would be like and loving her children for the fleeting time she had with them.
“My brother's duty and my mother's destiny wouldn't have existed without my grandfather's hunger. If that's so, isn't a prophecy just knowing what must be done and who should do it?” - Aurene, Elder Dragon of Crystal and Light, Daughter of Glint.
After countless cycles, Soo-Won grew fond of humanity. She chose them as her new children that she needed to protect.
During the last Elder Dragon rising, Soo-Won offered her wisdom to the people of Cantha in hope the tides would shift.
With the aid of Glint, Aurene and Vlast—descendants of Soo-Won and her children—the races of Tyria banded together and defied the rules of the cycle.
Only through the death of her children and her own death could Soo-Won’s dreams of a better world become reality.
Soo-Won’s story is one of motherhood and it’s struggles at its core.
The desire to have children and a family, even if it comes at great personal and worldly cost.
The sacrifices one must make
The heartbreak of letting your own go off on their own.
The ability to see past one’s own desires when your children have gone past the point of no return.
The presence of mind to act and do what is right even if one must work against one’s own family.
Rosemary’s Baby
by Ira Levin
Levin’s 1967 classic Rosemary’s Baby follows the tale of Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse as they start a new chapter of their life at the Bramford—a luxurious apartment building in New York City.
“Hutch sent a telegram: The Bramford will change from a bad house to a good house when one of its doors is marked R. and G. Woodhouse.” - Ira Levin
With this new opportunity, Rosemary hopes to build a family with Guy as his acting career takes off. But as they settle in and meet the neighbors, her life is turned upside-down.
Rosemary’s Baby is a tale surrounding all the joys, fears and anxieties one feels when becoming a new mother. Reader’s discretion is advised as Rosemary’s time at the Bramford is also one of isolation, occults rituals, sexual violence and domestic abuse.
“He chose you, honey! From all the women in the world to be the mother of his only living son!” - Ira Levin
As Rosemary becomes pregnant under strange and disturbing circumstances, she must contend with her own personal feelings, hopes & dreams for the future while fighting against her husband’s newfound coldness, nosy neighbors that seek to isolate her from friends & family and ultimately the fear she has for her child’s future.
Rosemary’s Baby is not a book for all readers, but does hold interesting discussion on the topic of motherhood, bodily autonomy and the desire for recognition at any cost.
The Lost Apothecary
by Sarah Penner
Penner’s 2021 novel The Lost Apothecary is a tale that spans the centuries.
In modern day, Caroline Parcewell spends some days away from her husband in London contemplation the discovery of his infidelity.
In 1791, Nella is an apothecary selling poisons to women who seek to take revenge upon men in their lives who have wronged them. Her life changes when she meets Eliza—a young girl sent to retrieve one of Nella’s concoctions for her mistress.
“History might dismiss these women, but I would not.” - Sarah Penner
The lives of these three women become intertwined as Caroline seeks to uncover the history of this mysterious apothecary lost to the annals of history and the secrets she left behind.
“My mother had held tight to this principle, instilling in me from an early age the importance of providing a safe haven—a place of healing—for women.” - Sarah Penner
While the story mainly focuses on these characters, one of the major themes of this book is about interpersonal relationship between men and women within a family unit. How trust can easily be broken or abused. And how men are usually the ones remembered by history while women are often forgotten.
“My mother’s legacy embodied the brewing of potions to ease maladies, but it also meant preserving the memory of these women in the register—granting them their single, indelible mark on the world.” - Sarah Penner
Uncover the story of Nella, the secrets and life experiences she holds deep within that have made her into a poisoner, the influences left behind by her mother’s apothecarial teachings and her tense relationship with the young Eliza. All of these elements shape Nella’s worldview and what motherhood means to her.
In conclusion, Levin and Penner’s approach the subject of motherhood in very different ways. Levin tackles it head on through the story of a new mother going through the motions and struggles of her life, while Penner explores it as a wider spectrum: motherhood as a legacy that one receives, experiences, transforms and imparts upon the world.
I hope this post has inspired you to buy these books (visit your local bookstores!) or borrow them from a library.
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Keep an eye out for our next post on April 30th!