22/07/02
Whisper of
Death
I liked this book more the first time
I had read it a couple of years ago, but only because everything about the book
was a mystery. This time round, I
was able to pick up certain hints about the plot very easily and suss out what
was going to happen and how. The
most important aspect of the book I already knew was that the empty Salem that
Roxanne and Pepper “return to” isn’t real.
I vaguely recalled Roxanne dying at the end too, and these memories
ruined the book for me. So, my
first impressions don’t reflect what I would have thought about the surprises
in the book had I not read it in the past.
Ugh, I also knew how Pepper and Stan were going to die when I read the
short stories Betty Sue had written about them, which ruined the book for me. However, I remember being shocked and blown away by the book
the first time I had read it, and it’s easy to see why.
I loved the disturbed feeling I was
left with at the end, because the evil character had so blatantly won! So far, from what I’ve read, that rarely happens in a Pike
book. At the end, I was desperately
still hoping that Roxanne returned to her body and was reunited with her love
Pepper, but when her death was confirmed, I felt sad. However it fulfilled Roxanne’s idea of happiness never
lasting, which I completely agree with, so the end is quite fitting I guess.
Real love doesn’t exist, doesn’t last, because the evil always
manages to twist fate and bring misery. We all have our own Betty Sue,
whispering evil ideas into our heads and ensuring we destroy our own happiness,
whether it be through betrayal, jealousy, or any other undesirable human
characteristic. Betty Sue
“makes” Helter rape her, and Pepper sleep with her.
She gives Leslie a quality (beauty) that inevitably leads to her downfall
in the Lati Belle story. Evil sure
is unfair, but Pike suggests that nobody is able to resist the temptations
presented by Evil. After all, none
of the characters defy what Betty Sue has planned for them, even at the end,
Pepper still picks up the strange hitchhiker, after the love of his had just
died. She wins.
Evil wins. I have to
disagree with the analogy Pike has set up here, somewhere in the book, a
character should have resisted Betty Sue’s plans, and stayed alive.
The idea of Betty’s stories acting as the characters’ fate portrays
her as being omnipotent, suggesting that Evil, or the Devil, cannot be beaten.
It presents humans in a very cynical light, and I’m all for pessimism,
but not when it comes to beating evil.
Of course it can be done. Perhaps
Pike is implying that none of the characters have what it takes to resist an
evil force. Or maybe he just wanted
to disturb the crap outta readers like me hehe.
I thought Betty's reason for wanting to kill Stan was feebly justified, after all, he was the one who brought her the photo's before her death. But, in her Soda Radar story, the idea that Soda tries to trick the Beetle Queen suggests that Stan had attempted to back-stab or take advantage of Betty Sue when she was alive... doesn't seem believeable because Stan is described as probably the most decent character in the book, but the fundamental thought of EVERYONE being flawed can be used to rationalise Betty's motive here. Although I liked the way that Roxanne discovers Stan had slit his wrists after walking into a puddle of blood, I wasn't impressed with Pike's justification of Stan's death.
Actually, the only person who I think deserved to be killed was Helter. I also liked the fact that he shoots himself in the groin - ouch. As for her being God or "the devil himself", I'd have to disagree with ol' Betts there. If she was those things, she wouldn't have been able to fall in love with a mortal (Pepper), and wouldn't have been so intensely jealous of Roxanne having acquired Pepper's love. Then again, her tactics in encouraging, even hypnotising the characters to do 'wrong' (Helter raping her, Pepper sleeping with her whilst being with Roxanne) portrays her as that evil voice in your head that drives you to sin... so, maybe she is an evil creature, not the Devil but like the Devil's spawn or something, that is forced to feel some human emotion since she takes form as a human, and occupying a human body makes her possess some emotional human characteristics such as pain.
I felt uneasy at the end, knowing Betty Sue McCormick won. If it was a movie, I would have gotten freaked out at the end when she gets the fork out and pokes Pepper. Hehe. Oh, also, I began to question why she would claim to be Rox's unborn child, because it contradicts her statements of being a God-like creature, and doesn't make sense because she walks in on Pepper and Rox in the hay. But I think Pike was saying that aborting the foetus was the sin that caused Rox to be punished by Betty. Or maybe that Betty is a symbol of the innocent foetus' that are aborted by mothers, in the same way that innocent Betty is back-stabbed by Leslie and raped by Helter... and that the dead foetus' would get their revenge. Ha ha. I'm getting carried away to the point of not making sense.
Has anyone got any ideas for the significance of Betty Sue's and Rox's appearance being similar in a striking feature - the red hair? I mean, Rox could have easily been a brunette or a blonde, but Pike describes her as also having red hair. Why.
Toodles.
XxX