What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?
By Henry Farrell
Genre : Thriller, horror, psychological fiction,classics, best-twists, good prose, 2021-read, macabre
Rating : 5/5 🎈🎈
What a twist! Didn't see that one coming! It's true what they say - all that glitters is not gold. What looks beautiful on the outside need not be so on the inside. "Beautiful people could also be very bad".
This is a story of jealousy,hatred, selfishness, vengeance and the repercussions that one has to face when they can't keep these emotions in check. It's a classic story from the 1960s which got made into a successful movie with the same name starring Joan Crawford and Bette Davis who were arch rivals. It also was the book that kind of revived the slow going career of Henry Farrell and brought him back into the game with full force. 💃
Baby Jane Hudson was a star. She was hailed the most talented and famous child star by everyone. Mostly her father and family who felt they owed all their riches and comforts to her hard work and talent. It would perhaps have gone that way with no significant consequence but life takes a bitter turn. Blanche becomes the most successful,sought after star while Baby Jane is pushed to be her insignificant side as time passes.
Fast forward and the two sisters are locked away in their sprawling mansion. Both are old women in their fifties and Baby Jane is the care taker of Blanche,crippled and tied into a wheelchair. Blanche had lost the use of both legs in an accident at the peak of her career - which many suspect Jane was responsible for. Jane sure has a lot of reason to hate and feel jealous towards Blanche - and her resentment towards the cripple is overt. One day Blanche decides to sell their house without consulting Jane and when Jane finds it out, all hell breaks loose. She starts punishing the invalid - alternating edible and inedible food and effectively turning Blanche into a prisoner in her own house. Blanche makes several unsuccessful attempts to get help from outside. The house maid finds out her miserable situation and she is got rid of. A musician who comes to take up a job with Jane discovers her secret and he is silenced. Jane frightened and lonely of being caught by the police, takes Blanche and runs away. But being an inexperienced plotter, she gets caught.. how and what happens then? The ending is open to one's imagination and I imagine that while Jane,who seems to have lost her sanity, ends up in a mental prison - Blanche,the not so innocent beauty, gets access to a life she always craved for. Yes, Jane is guilty of her crimes but like she so often tries to convey, only at the end we see through her vulnerability. 😢😢
I kept thinking of Misery by Steven King while reading because some of the initial scenes happen to match with that story but the novel becomes it's own chilling horror😱 as the plot develops. The ending creates an eerie sense that sent a chill down my spine. So much was left unexplained. What really happens - who knows? Siblings hungry for their own self discovery and self recognition,fame have set each other on a path to mutual and self destruction - sad and bitter till the end. :/ :/
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