Is it possible that people misinterprete the adult Bill/Beverly affair in It?
Was re-reading It and had a thought. Aside from the scene people find more controversial (for obvious reasons) I find a lot of people seem to have hang ups about the adult Bill and Beverly affair, and they seem to find no real reason for it to happen. I think it's an essential part of the story, and a huge element of what the thesis of the story is.
Is it a hugely conflicting moment? Yes. Is it way more about trauma than anything else? Definitely.
They're becoming the children they were, and the desire they have for each other comes back. This exemplifies what It as a story is really about. The past can be terrifying and give you scars that you still feel as an adult, but it can also be sweet. Bill and Beverly influenced one another profoundly, being one another's first real image of love. Their scene together is intense and sexual, but carries the feeling of sweethearts at a high school reunion recreating what once was. They are in a state in which the past has come back and their feelings are at full throttle. Beverly holds the memory of Bill all the while as she sets off for Derry as an adult, he was her childhood protector. All the abuse she suffered, the returning memories are a retreat back to a symbol of safety she experienced as a girl, someone halfway between her father and someone radically different. She breaks this cycle of abuse.
Bill is a little less compelling as his feelings are more driven by lust, but he also realises that the image he subconsciously held of Beverly was what drove him to speak to Audra in the first place. I find it hard to see Bill as cheating on his wife in a thoughtless way, the book might stumble at times but I see these feelings as being too powerful to control, especially considering the effect of Derry itself.
This book is about trauma its effect, but its also about firsts. First fear, first love, and how those good and bad experiences follow us into adulthood whether we like it or not, or if we remember it or not. They influence us and guide our behaviour. Take a look at the end pages of It, about driving away and leaving Derry in the rear view. You have to look back and face the past, but you can't stay there.
Bill and Beverly's scene is them at these crossroads. Ben is positioned as Beverly's future, with Bill reflecting that it 'should have been Ben. I think that's the way it was really supposed to be.' Ben is the one who was always meant to be endgame, but it wouldn't make sense for it to be Ben with Beverly in this moment. What goes around comes around. Bill is the element of the past which needs to be reckoned with. The feeling we as readers get, the idea that none of this should be happening, that's the point. Audra represents this. She's a character I feel for and love but is ultimately a plot device. Her presence ends up anchoring them both. Being Bill's true love, she snaps Bill and later Beverly, back into reality of how time has moved on.
I think 'Ka', or 'fate' plays a factor in this encounter as well, in the more cosmic sense. The affair and the unfortunate (but important) scene in the sewers, they answer one another. In the sewers the kids experience the act of desire to become adults, and the bond they form as a result is part of the reason why they are bound to come back 27 years later. The later scene between adult Bev and Bill is the opposite, the adults become children again. Then they go down into the sewers and the past and present merge. The act of 'Desire' is the key word here, the desire of being a child, the act which separates children and adults.
I think Stephen King's writing of the scene gets in the way a little bit, and makes the message a little skewed.
Bill and Bev part as friends and crossed back into adulthood together. Ben and Beverly's exit symbolises the true course of adulthood taking place.
Anyways, apologies for the yap fest. I just think this part of the book is misinterpreted quite a bit and explained away as King being horny, which might well be, but I don't entirely think is right. This might not be as interesting for anyone else as it is for me, but this book is just so damn compelling, I could write pages and pages about any part of it! If anyone has thoughts, let me know.