I think Bill is definitely there as Rose's prize, I'd have just like him better if he'd felt more 3-D. King can definitely write good guys who aren't perfect (but are the perfect match for a particular woman) and Bill would've worked better for me if he'd been more along those lines.
The #notallmen character, I thought, was the guy at the bus stop who directs Rose to the women's shelter, and turns out to be the ex-husband of the woman who runs it. That's a bit of a an unfair take, though, because he did feel like a real person even with his little page time, and I think he's got more of a purpose than that to show Rose that not all men are monsters. It's to show her (or, really, the readers) than relationships can begin and end without horrible or even any abuse ever being involved - that "not getting along" is a perfectly reasonable reason to break up.
I thought the abuse narrative (from Rose's POV) was incredibly realistic. It's not like that for every woman, but for the women for whom it is like that, King absolutely nails it.
I got the strong feeling that his particular sex-violence-trauma axis was deliberately chosen so that the kind of person who would enjoy reading him assaulting Rose would just plain not be able to get off on reading about what he does do.
I suspect the same thing, just because the book has a bit of a didactic aspect to it - not to educate onlookers, but to be potentially helpful to someone in a Rose-like situation. So yeah, I think King thought carefully about it and probably did do that on purpose.
I like his villains best when we either don't get their POV, or they're supernatural and somewhat unknowable, or both. I find his villain-POV on villains who are basically regular sociopaths to be pretty tiresome/unpleasant/skippable in general. I did like the Flagg POV in The Stand because Flagg is supernatural, partly unknown to both himself and the reader, and has bigger fish to fry than being sadistic because he likes it, so he's less one-note.
I don't know if it's a thing with male authors in general but there does seem to be a theme with King that misogynist villains are also (conflictedly) sexually repulsed by women or by sexuality in general. (And his man-on-man rapists are the same way - they're getting off on power and sadism, not sex.) I think the idea of genuinely sexually desiring women while also hating them as people is hard for people who don't feel that way to wrap their heads around. I know it exists but it's actually a little hard for me to understand also.
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Date: 2016-07-22 07:55 pm (UTC)The #notallmen character, I thought, was the guy at the bus stop who directs Rose to the women's shelter, and turns out to be the ex-husband of the woman who runs it. That's a bit of a an unfair take, though, because he did feel like a real person even with his little page time, and I think he's got more of a purpose than that to show Rose that not all men are monsters. It's to show her (or, really, the readers) than relationships can begin and end without horrible or even any abuse ever being involved - that "not getting along" is a perfectly reasonable reason to break up.
I thought the abuse narrative (from Rose's POV) was incredibly realistic. It's not like that for every woman, but for the women for whom it is like that, King absolutely nails it.
I got the strong feeling that his particular sex-violence-trauma axis was deliberately chosen so that the kind of person who would enjoy reading him assaulting Rose would just plain not be able to get off on reading about what he does do.
I suspect the same thing, just because the book has a bit of a didactic aspect to it - not to educate onlookers, but to be potentially helpful to someone in a Rose-like situation. So yeah, I think King thought carefully about it and probably did do that on purpose.
I like his villains best when we either don't get their POV, or they're supernatural and somewhat unknowable, or both. I find his villain-POV on villains who are basically regular sociopaths to be pretty tiresome/unpleasant/skippable in general. I did like the Flagg POV in The Stand because Flagg is supernatural, partly unknown to both himself and the reader, and has bigger fish to fry than being sadistic because he likes it, so he's less one-note.
I don't know if it's a thing with male authors in general but there does seem to be a theme with King that misogynist villains are also (conflictedly) sexually repulsed by women or by sexuality in general. (And his man-on-man rapists are the same way - they're getting off on power and sadism, not sex.) I think the idea of genuinely sexually desiring women while also hating them as people is hard for people who don't feel that way to wrap their heads around. I know it exists but it's actually a little hard for me to understand also.