edgar's beautiful, caring wife. (the real monster)

[billyboy]

Anyone else impressed with misses F's selfishness? My opinion? she was dreaming of getting out even before the accident. What good is marriage if it wont even see a couple through.... 1 YEAR??!! of rough times?

[~Ally~]

Yup, I really didn't like Pam. I found her extremely selfish.

I understand Edgar had suffered a head injury which could change his personality so drastically that he may no longer have been the same man she fell in love with. The accident/amputation caused severe mood swings and memory loss so those changes would be difficult for a partner to accept. However, Edgar was learning how to adapt and adjust to his new lifestyle yet the impression was Pam never really tried to also change and support her husband. Her actions did not imply she loved her husband, but that she was looking for the perfect opportunity to leave him, and he supplied her with this when he attacked her. With the correct therapy and time he could have returned to the husband he had been previously, and I don't believe Pam stood by him long enough to see whether he could have improved.

[bobledrew]

Before I start, let me say how fun I think it is that people discuss these characters in this way here.

Pam is definitely an unsympathetic character. However, part of the reason that I like King is that he can write a character like her. Keep in mind that Edgar even tells Illy to take it easy on her at one point in the book (I believe after she breaks up with Gospel Boy .)

One of the interesting things that I've been learning about this whole cancer thing is that it affects both people. My partner is affected by my cancer. She has reactions to it that are uniquely hers, and emotional impacts that are uniquely hers. What happened to Edgar also happened to Pam. Did she react to it in an ideal way? Probably not. I just did a brief scan of some literature about divorce and brain injury, and apparently, it's more epidemic than common.

Could she have stayed? Yes. But she chose not to. I don't think that makes her a monster. People are faced with nasty choices all the time, sometimes ones that make them look like jerks. But our judgement, from outside, only takes us so far.

[~Ally~]

I agree with you 100% Bob, and have seen first hand how brain injuries do affect people. A few years back I worked on a neurological ward and saw how much a persons personality would change and how their relationships with others changed because of that. And yes, families and marriages were often broken up because of it, which is extremely sad.

I always remember one woman telling me the person I was nursing was not her husband. He was extremely crude with his language and would say some terrible sexualised comments to me, and often grab me and try to make me sit on his lap. He would even tell people I was his wife...while his wife was there! She was mortified and it took her a long time to realise we were not judging him as we understood his behaviour was part of his condition, but unfortunately "outsiders" wouldn't understand that. It took a long time for that man to recover but he eventually did and luckily his marriage survived it. When he was back to "normal" he was a very sweet, softly spoken man and I could see that his wife was right...the man we nursed was NOT her husband.

I was not judging Pam merely based on the action of leaving Edgar, I just truly found her to be an awful, self centered character.

[omm poppa mow mow]

I don't think Edgar is blameless. As Pam said, “Just once I’d like to meet a man who was not a pill-popping Magic 8-Ball.” And isn't that just one of the reasons why the affair w/Tom ended? Cause he too was a pill-popping s.o.b.? There are some hints, subtle perhaps, that Edgar was popping pills, before the accident. Ilse warns her old man about the pills, "Oxycontin’s suppose to be sort of a Trojan hose. Not that I’m telling you anything you didn’t already know.”

Too...as I recall, maybe there's something there about the tide...remember the Debbi Harri song....the tide is high and I'm holding on...etc etc.

Anyway, no, I think you ought to cut her some slack. He did beat her, choke her, whatever. Why dismiss that?

[GNTLGNT]

Again, the mere fact we are having a discussion about these folks as if they were people down the street-beautifully illustrates the power of King's writing-such that these characters rise from the page as living/breathing souls to us...what a gift from Gan!..

[~Ally~]

Anyway, no, I think you ought to cut her some slack. He did beat her, choke her, whatever. Why dismiss that?

Not sure who you are responding to here, but we are all entitled to form our own opinions of King's stories and his characters. I did not like the character, that is my choice. Where you see subtle hints that possibly suggest things to you, I may see those hints as suggesting something else. That's where King leaves us to form our own opinions or he would just spell everything out simply to make sure there was no grey area. He doesn't do that, he is a good writer and knows there's no need to spoon feed his readers. As individuals we each take away what we want from his stories, and opinions will differ, but there is no right or wrong way to think.

As for dismissing Edgar's abusive behaviour? I know I didn't do that, and don't see where any of the other posters in the thread did that either. I experienced a physically abusive partner myself, and my sister almost died because of physical abuse from her ex partner, so believe me, I would never "dismiss" that.

[bobledrew]

...There are some hints, subtle perhaps, that Edgar was popping pills, before the accident. Ilse warns her old man about the pills, "Oxycontin’s suppose to be sort of a Trojan hose. Not that I’m telling you anything you didn’t already know.”

Anyway, no, I think you ought to cut her some slack. He did beat her, choke her, whatever. Why dismiss that?

I don't think it's an issue of dismissing Edgar's actions, or of condemning Pam's. My perception is that Edgar WAS violent after suffering a major brain injury, and that he did take pills for the pain. Given the extent of his injuries, I'd be shocked if he could survive without some sort of pain relief.

Pam made a choice, and just like people in our "real" lives who make choices, they have consequences, and we who look on judge their choices according to our own biases.

[omm poppa mow mow]

My last read of Duma Key, I came away w/the sense that Perse was working on Edgar before the accident. What would that do to his anger? His arms? His missing, or not, arms? Whose arms? Why'd those arms do what they did?

Perse is a very real character in the story, an influence, and to dismiss that influence is catamaran to not reading the story.

Ilse, too, had issues. I didn't like the way she left everyone at the death of Pam's father. What does that say, if anything?

I repeat: Perse was operating on Edgar--as Perce operated on Wireman--before they ever arrived on Duma. I like, too, how as the story progresses, when they leave Duma, that influence seemed to wane. Edgar is still on the run, too, isn't he? Down there in that mountain village in Mexico where he narrates the story?

[bobledrew]

Catamaran?!

My last read of Duma Key, I came away w/the sense that Perse was working on Edgar before the accident. What would that do to his anger? His arms? His missing, or not, arms? Whose arms? Why'd those arms do what they did?

Perse is a very real character in the story, an influence, and to dismiss that influence is catamaran to not reading the story.

Ilse, too, had issues. I didn't like the way she left everyone at the death of Pam's father. What does that say, if anything?

I repeat: Perse was operating on Edgar--as Perce operated on Wireman--before they ever arrived on Duma. I like, too, how as the story progresses, when they leave Duma, that influence seemed to wane. Edgar is still on the run, too, isn't he? Down there in that mountain village in Mexico where he narrates the story?