Published: June 27th 1996 by New English Library Ltd (first published 1995)
Characters: Rose McClendon Daniels, Norman Daniels
ISBN: 0340640146 (isbn13: 9780340640142)
Recommended to : Those who are into thriller spiced up by imaginary world.
Lu’s Review:
Rose Madder is the first novel of Stephen King I read. I am not used to reading his novels, thus I can’t compare how good or bad it is to his other stories. This book is indeed quite thick ; 608 as you read above , but I guess so are his other novels?.
Rose Madder is a story of a young woman who has been abused, sometimes brutally by her husband, who happens to be the Alpha cop; a Top detective!. Her husband, Norman, is a kind of Top Cop who doesn’t think that killing, and abusing are misbehavior. I think he thinks that he is the law itself.
Rose Madder manages to escape from her house, and most importantly from her abusive husband. It takes sometime until she finally settles down, has a job, is in love again, but she has been haunted by her husband’s image that he will talk to her up close sooner or later, the most horrible thing is that will happen when she least expects it. “Voila!! I am here Rose!”
But what needs to tell more about this novel? It is the mystery behind a painting that Rose Madder buys in a gallery, where she meets her second lover. It is another world behind the painting that makes this novel is called “Yes, this is Mr.King; a horror writer.” It is the fight among Rose Madder, Norman, and other characters in the imaginary-but-real world inside the painting. Scratching your head now? Ha! that means you are not used to reading his novel, hehe.
Some plots are quite funny though, but I won’t be telling you more about them. Go, and find them yourself!. Sometimes I get the impression that Mr.King uses too many metaphors in some of his plots to make them interesting, but honestly there was the time, I think around page 4oo something, when I felt like I wanted to skip reading some parts. by saying “Come on, come on!! hurry, I don’t need this.” I think it would be better if he didn’t use too many metaphors just to make the situations/plots become more intense, and suspenseful. A little is sometimes better than too much, perhaps Mr. King got carried away?
When it is near to the conclusion, you won’t be able to put the book down, and you hope that there won’t be any distractions as you want to go on reading to know how the story ends. It happened to me!
I kinda like the ending. Well I can’t call it as a happy ending, but it should end that way otherwise this story would lose its charm. When one is traumatic about some circumstances, then one often has to struggle all his or her own life to get rid of the traumas. He or she often fails. But, I slightly remember one of the quotes I like in this story
“Those who forget the past will likely repeat it.”
or something like that. So better not to forget the past even though it’s somekind of traumatic incident. Last, but not least I guess the main character has repaid “successfully”.
Oh I happened to find out that Rose Madder is actually a name of a color ; A pale shade of pink.
