IT: Book Review
I have finally finished reading Stephen King's IT. I started this one
before Ocean at the End of the Lane and BoneMan's Daughters, but its length
extended my reading time quite a way beyond those other ones. The main reason
for reading IT was to be prepared for crossovers that are to come in The Dark
Tower series, as I am still working through that. My first impression is quite
positive. I don't regret the time spent or lament the length.
Summary (No Spoilers)
IT is a book about a town, and a collection of characters in that town,
who are terrorized by an evil entity that manifests as their worst nightmares
before killing them. The overall structure of the book is two plotlines that
are spliced into one another. One plotline takes place in 1958, when the
characters were 11 years old, and the other plot line takes place in 1985, when
they have begun to approach their forties. The story is presented largely from
1985, with the events of the first chunk of time being presented as flashbacks
as the character dwell on the events that had happened to them. The story is
largely a coming of age story, or seven of them woven together, as we follow
the lives of these interconnected characters in the town of Derry.
Strides (Spoilers)
Villain
The first thing that I want to talk about is the main villain of the story.
How could I not bring this up first? This book's villain is iconic, even fitted
with an iconic scene that almost everyone knows even without reading the books.
You know the one: a clown appears in a storm drain, speaking to a young boy.
Speaking honestly, I didn't actually know how that scene culminated until I
read it here, and I think that made the scene that much more enjoyable. There
are a number of things that I really liked about this opening scene, and I
think the best way to communicate them is to compare the scene in the book to
the scene in the most recent adaptation of IT from 2017. I promise this review
won't devolve into a full-fledged comparison. I will only do this for this
scene.
To start, I did not like the scene in the movie, and this was for one key
reason. I thought it really lacked the subtlety that King had in his novel.
This is a rather interesting critique, given King's notorious and glorious
tendency to beat you over the head with violence and terror, but I think his
books work so well because he can balance subtlety with explosive violence. The
scene in question is the first scene in either medium, so this is the first we
see of the monster. In the book, we do get violence, but we don't really see IT
in all his glory yet. The book mentions that the Clown's face changes and then
Georgie is yanked against the stormdrain, but we don't get to see what that
means. In the movie, there was a graphic depiction of the Clown biting off the
kid's arm that I thought revealed too much too soon. But that was only part it.
I also did not like the contrived music playing in the background of the movie.
Now, I understand that I am comparing this to a book, but that only highlights
why this scene fails. I thought the blaring soundtrack was redundant and ham-fisted,
like the movie was screaming into my ear, "Just wait! It's coming! It's
coming!" Yeah! I get it. That's obvious from the set-up of the scene.
Other than that, I just have minor grips that I won't bother mentioning.
The overall point is that I really liked the scene in the book. Some
highlights are when Georgie mentions that he shouldn't take things from
strangers and Pennywise, taking it in stride, decides to introduce himself to
Georgie, as if that does anything. This is one of the ways King can bring up
the obvious but make the scene still feel natural as the kid tries to take the
boat back anyway.
Expanding out to the villain's presence in the story as a whole, the very
premise of this monster is just creepy from beginning to end. The movies give
off the impression that the book is about a killer clown, but that really isn't
the case. The monster is actually an entity that adopts a form from your worst
nightmares to haunt you. It takes on the form of a clown to lure children into
its grip, as it feeds primarily on children. So, throughout the story, you see
the monster take the form of many different monsters from movies in those time
periods, anything from Frankenstein's monster to the teenage werewolf to a
leper who wants to give you a blowjob to the creature from the black lagoon.
Near the end of the story, IT's true form is revealed as an intergalactic
spider creature that has come down to earth to feed at regular intervals.
Apparently, some people were disappointed with this reveal, but I didn't mind.
I don't really put much stock in some jaw dropping reveal at the end of a
horror story when you see what the monster really is. That almost always ruins
the story, given that the unknown is what makes the monster terrifying in the
first place. That said, even after this reveal, I thought King did a good job
not explaining too much and having the reveal be beyond even human
understanding.
A quick aside, going off of what I mentioned above: the ending was fairly
abstract in many ways, where King tried to capture just how incomprehensible
the nature of this creature was, but I thought he did a good job making the
final clash grounded enough that I could make sense of what was going on in the
story. I heard through reviews that the ending of this book wasn't the
greatest, but I actually disagree. I was left feeling very satisfied by the
end, especially the gruesome end of IT, where Bill literally crushes IT's heart
in his hands.
Other Villains
Another villain I want to comment on is Henry Bower's. Henry is just a
young boy, about the same age as the rest of the cast, and he was a complete
terror on his own. Some of this is tied to IT, as it is revealed that IT is
taking control of him and exacerbating all of his worst characteristics, but it
is still rooted in who Henry is, and it is fucked up. Henry is the kind of kid
who not only bullies kids but will retaliate tenfold when confronted. He starts
by chasing them and hitting them, escalates to cutting with knives, and then to
hurling deadly firecrackers, to literally trying to kill his victims because
they dared to stand up to him. Watching his slow deterioration as the book
progresses is disturbing, to say the least.
Presentation of Life
Another thing that I really like, and something that I like in all of
King's books, is his brutal honesty about the darkest and the most intimate
aspects of human nature. He is not afraid to depict scenes or communicate
thoughts that are usually cut out of stories. All the while, the depictions
feel natural and never feel cringy or forced, at least for me. So, I
acknowledge that this is never for everyone. If you ever get the time, read
through the negative reviews on Goodreads to see what some people think about
this kind of approach to story-telling. Specifically, I am referring to a
number of things: the depiction of child abuse in its various forms, racism,
insecurities of a developing child, and suicide. I don't necessarily have the
child orgy scene in mind when I say this, but I will talk about that scene later
in this post, so I won't say anything about it here and now.
Story Structure
I also really liked how the story was spliced together. I didn't really
expect it; on paper, it seems odd; but, in execution, the structure of the
story actually works very well. Both movie adaptations have changed this
structure up, for understandable reasons, as they divide the book up into two
movies; naturally they depict each time period within each respective movie.
The book is different in that there are five parts to the book, with
interludes, and the two plotlines are constantly jumping back and forth. This
is to such an extent, that the two climaxes from each plotline happen
simultaneously, where the narrative cuts back and forth from chapter to
chapter. This was something I was not expecting. I guessed from the chapter
order that the first climax would happen at the end of part four, and the last
one at the end of part five, but they were both at the very end of part five.
And I thought this was actually very beneficial. I get a glimpse into what the
monster was in the first plot line, and I thought that pushing back that
revelation so that it came at the very end of the story maintained the mystery
of what the creature was. It also allowed the reader to easily juxtapose the two
scenes, showing how the fact that they had aged affects their ability to deal
with the monster, and showing how the final confrontation is going horribly
wrong, as it had not in the first instance.
Characters
And, of course, I have to mention the characters and the setting of the
story. King demonstrates time and time again his ability to create fully
realized characters and settings fit with a long history and a detailed present
that influences its relevance to the story in the now. I think King's settings,
in this case, a town, are basically characters in and of themselves. He spends
a lot of time developing the history of the town of Derry, and it really feels
like this town could actually exist. Some people don't like how King spends
page after page detailing scenes and events that aren't relevant to the central
plot, but once you understand that King is a character writer, and that his
settings are characters on their own, then you appreciate these interludes more
than ever.
As for the actual characters, I think Ben Hanscom was my favorite
character. I'm honestly not sure why. I don't think I relate to him in anyway.
Indeed, I think I'm his precise opposite. But I found that I appreciated his
development and progression the most. Notably, I liked his story of slimming
down and the fact that he managed to conquer that part of himself. That said,
every single one of these characters are fully realized and have a strong voice
that you can just feel. Most writers are incapable of developing even their sole
protagonists to the level that is done for seven, if not more, characters, in
this book. This primarily comes down to King giving his characters unflattering
characteristics when he needs to, and going through their traumas, when many
authors would rather gesticulate about how great and likeable their characters
are.
King is particularly good at convincing you of a character's behavior.
Everything they do is completely natural for them. One example would be Stan's
suicide. This kind of happens in reverse, but by the time the novel finishes
and you have seen Stan in flashback and understood who he is as a person, his
choice at the beginning of the novel makes sense. Notably, he is a man who is
neat and orderly, and he is traumatized by things that break with that order,
including the rules of reality, which IT flippantly trounces.
Sticking the Landing
Finally, I liked the ending of the novel very much. I particular, I am
talking about that last interlude that was written by Mike, as it slowly begins
to dawn on him and the rest of the crew that they are going to forget
everything that has happened again, including each other. This is a true
melancholy at the back end of a long and rich childhood and experience that
ought to define who these people are. They consider each other the greatest
friends they've ever had, but now it will be as if they had never met.
Missteps (Spoilers)
Given that I really enjoyed the book overall, there aren't too many
things that I want to go through in this section.
Overstuffed
Sometimes, I thought that King got a little carried away with his
descriptions of the town. While I do like, and definitely enjoy, a lot of the
details about the city that King provides in his stories, there are sometimes
when I think he goes a little bit overboard and I am left wondering why he did
not cut that part. One scene in particular stands out to me, near the
beginning, where Ben Hanscom was passing by the Barrens and King gives a
several page long prologue about the Barren, none of which contains any
interesting human element. He even finished up the prologue with something
along the lines of ~Ben was not aware of any of this~, which I thought was kind
of amusing. Perhaps we don't need to be aware, either.
Pointless Plotline
Another thing that comes to mind would be the plot line involving Tom and
Audra coming to Derry. The whole plot line feels tacked on and pointless. I was
expecting Tom to make a bigger fuss and to cause complications to compound the
threat of IT, but the way King wrote it, IT immediately enslaved Tom to his
will and then killed him off-screen. They only purpose he served was to bring
Audra to IT, which had no effect, in the end; it really only created the false
impression of escalated stakes. The falsity is particularly evident because Bill
cheats on Audra right before she is taken, and nothing comes of this
infidelity, and the act is presented as acceptable, if anything.
I especially did not care for the infidelity. I don't care about the
immorality of it; just that the scene muddled the supposed relationship between
Beverly and Ben at the end of the book. I got the impression that she would
express interest in Ben when they reunited, but she really doesn't; then, she
fucks Bill. And then she goes away with Ben. This is one of the few times where
I thought a character decision wasn't as well done as it could have been. I
understand that there was a love triangle there, throughout, but he let the Ben
and Beverly line drop on Beverly's end and it kind of fell flat. And I
especially did not like that the infidelity was never used to ramp up the
drama. Instead, it seems Bill will have forgotten his actions completely.
Child Orgy
And since we're talking about sex and relationships, I think it is time
to talk about the child orgy scene! Yeah! This scene, alongside the storm drain
scene, is one of the more talked about scenes and was particularly
controversial when it came out. And it remains controversial . . . perhaps for
good reason. I was actually fairly interested to see what the scene was, after
hearing about it in abstract. You know how people can get riled up over scenes
and make them out to be worse than the they are, but this scene is . . . very
much what it is suggested to be. Honestly, it reads like a conservative
strawman of the liberal vision of sex. It is unironically the most graphic sex scene that I have ever read, and it involves eleven-year-old children. Have you ever seen those Boomer memes
with the tagline "This is the future liberals want" tacked on to some
cherrypicked cringe picture? Yeah. Basically, this scene belongs on a boomer
meme.
I've looked at King's response to the controversy, and his response
is more or less confirming what I've said above: “I wasn’t really thinking of
the sexual aspect of it. The book dealt with childhood and adulthood — 1958 and
Grown Ups. The grown ups don’t remember their childhood. None of us remember
what we did as children—we think we do, but we don’t remember it as it really
happened. Intuitively, the Losers knew they had to be together again. The
sexual act connected childhood and adulthood. It’s another version of the glass
tunnel that connects the children’s library and the adult library. Times have
changed since I wrote that scene and there is now more sensitivity to those
issues."
Now, I always find controversies like these to be rather interesting from
a more objective standpoint. I don't tend to react to things emotionally,
especially when it comes to art, so I have thought a bit about the scene, about
King's intentions, and now I think I'll dump all those thoughts on you for
shits and giggles:
At the very least, I understand the symbolic aspect of the scene. The
notion that the children were being brought into adulthood works, and it brings
up a number of interesting ideas related to this. In this scene, children are
engaging in an adult act at too early an age, and this does draw a parallel to the
children being subject to terror, violence, and suffering at too young an age.
In fact, this is something the King's agent mentions in response to the
controversy, smugly suggesting that it was interesting that people didn't care
about the violence but cared a whole lot about the sex. Even then, I don't take
this comment very seriously. While the comparison exists, it does highlight a
key difference, as well. In particular, how the act was portrayed. In the case
of the violence, the children are subject to it, and the violence is not being
glamorized in any overt manner; but in the case of the sex, the act was
something they chose to do, and it absolutely was glamorized. Quite literally,
the scene comes off like a hippy group fuck session featuring eleven-year-old
kids.
Personally, I do think that this trivializes sex as an act. That might
come off as an odd criticism, especially given how the sex is used as a tool
for emotional bonding and reinforcing a series of friendships, but my comment
comes from the fact that the sex breaks with monogamy. Now, I'm not going to
push a particular perspective, I just want to talk about the implications of
our attitudes due to how we treat an act like sex. Generally, for any act, the
more control we exercise over our desires, and the less we share such an act
with others, the more sacred that act comes off. Applying this to sex, this is
why romantic love, where you have found "The One" is so romanticized
in our culture. If you fuck everything that walks, that elucidates the opposite
attitude towards sex, where you think there is less meaning behind it. There
are people out there who think sex is something reserved for romantic couples
precisely because they believe it to be a sacred, even spiritual, act. So, when
you try to apply this to a group of friends who aren't romantically involved
but have a strong bond (a really . . . strong bond) then it is almost
inevitable that people would look at this and think that sex is being
trivialized. Now combine that with the awkward fact that it is eleven-year-old
children doing it, and . . . well . . .
This might be controversial, but I am willing to extend an olive branch
and suggest that only a slight change is necessary; at the very least, I would
have made sure to have this alteration if I had been the writer. The one
change would be to alter how the characters feel about the scene as adults.
There is a brief moment where Beverly was awestruck upon remembering that she
made love to all of them, but the reaction could have been elaborated
upon. It would be more realistic, and less cartoonish in its portrayal of sex,
if the adults are horrified by the event. You can have the scene itself play
out the same way, you can even keep Beverly's attitude about it at the time,
but then, in retrospect, the adult versions of the characters are then forced
to confront with just how far they had been pressed out of innocence and into
adulthood. The scene is then portrayed as a disturbing part of their loss of
innocence, instead of a beautiful and necessary act.
But those are just my thoughts. Perhaps some images are just too much for you. Like the image of an eleven-year-old girl
questioning what the fluids streaming down her legs are—blood or something
else—all because that last guy's cock was unnaturally large. Yeah.
Conclusion
Overall, I really did enjoy this book, and it made me think, so that is
always a plus. I think will give it an 8/10.
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