Rose Madder is the first King book I read (as a young teen) and, maybe partially due to nostalgia but it remains a favorite. Rosie's flight from her marital home is probably one of the most intense scenes in a novel I've ever read. From the moment she spots the drop of blood on the sheets until she arrives at the shelter in a faraway city and tells Anna the truth about where she came from, I was practically having a panic attack. Absolutely immersive.

There are problems with the book- some passages and scenes are corny in a way King seldom is. The male characters in particular feel underdeveloped, though that could be intentional. And I know a lot of people rolled their eyes at the alternate universe Rosie unwittingly finds herself in.

But it seems to me there is so much going on in Rose Madder that the constant reader might not see at first. First of all being... Who is Rose Madder? Is she Rosie's alter ego, the dark and determined part of her? Is she Parsiphae, lover of the Cretan white bull and the mother of the minotaur? Is she Persephone, dragged into the underworld by Hades and forced to reside in his realm, though to all the world it seems she accepts this arrangement of her own free will? Is she a mix of all? The pomegranates, the labyrinth, the bull, the baby... King mixes all these motifs in a brilliant mix of contemporary and mythological.

And then there's Norman. I think the allegory of the minotaur touches on his formation as a person. Norman was abused, born to a bull of a father. Some of his nature could not be helped, it was decided before he was born. And yet that doesn't excuse or preclude him from being a monster who must be kept away from society-or perhaps permanently bumped out of it.

But there's still so much about this book that puzzles me, that's left hanging in question. Like what is up with the river of amnesiac water, other than being a plot device for Rosie later on? What about the gold armband, the rose madder chiton? The blemishes all over 'Rose'? The vixen in the woods?

I'd love to discuss what is 'going on' in this book, especially in the context of classical Greek mythology.