Book Review: 'It' by Stephen King
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| Dust jacket of the original 1986 hardcover edition. Art by Bob Giusti. Lettering by Amy Hill. (C) 1986 Viking Press/Penguin Random House |
I'm glad I don't live in Maine.
Oh, I'm not talking about the real New England state that was once part of Massachusetts and is famous for its lobsters and still very rural ambiance. I've never even been there, although I wouldn't rule out a tourist excursion at some point in the future, though if I do go, it would probably be in the summer, since winters up North are too chilly and snowbound for this Miami native's taste.
No, the Maine I'm talking about is the Maine that exists in the imagination of Stephen King. Quite a few of his novels are set there, most of them in the fictional towns of Castle Rock, Tarker's Mills, Jerusalem's Lot, Little Tall Island....and Derry. Here, in towns that have existed since before the American Revolution, the inhabitants of these communities have coexisted with vampires ('Salem's Lot), werewolves (Cycle of the Werewolf), guys that wake up from a coma with psychic powers (The Dead Zone), teenage girls with telekinetic abilities (Carrie), and demonic strangers with murderous methods of persuasion (Needful Things, Storm of the Century). Even some of King's "normal" stories (The Body, the novella that is the basis for Rob Reiner's coming-of-age film Stand By Me) are set in this supernatural state of Maine, with its closely-knit communities -- some of whose denizens have French surnames and sprinkle their sentences with ayuh and mayhap.
Of all these towns, two have given me the willies while I've read a Stephen King novel. One, of course, was 'Salem's Lot, King's second novel and his homage to Bram Stoker's Dracula. I still remember the strange sense of dread as I followed Ben Mears and his small band of "fearless vampire killers" as they engaged in a seemingly hopeless battle of wits against Barlow, the Vampire King clearly modeled after Count Dracula. I knew 'Salem's Lot wasn't a real town, that the Marsten House wasn't a real edifice, and that the novel was fiction, but all the same I was glad when Ben and Mark set the fire that burned most of it to the ground.
The other town that really scared me is Derry, which is where King's 1138-page novel It is set. Like most of King's Maine communities, it's a typical small town in rural America, with its mom-and-pop stores lining Main Street and its population leading seemingly routine lives, most of them trying to live the American dream of home, work, family, and church, some -- like Henry Bowers and his gang -- starting careers of their own in the crime business, while still others hide dark family secrets, such as Beverly Rogan's abusive dad's hideously bad temper. Derry is a town where tragedy and disaster often strike, but its inhabitants seemingly roll with the punches and carry on as if nothing had happened. As King writes early on, "In Derry such forgetting of tragedy and disaster was almost an art, as Bill Denbrough would come to discover in the course of time."
The idea of the small town as microcosm of society isn't unique to King, of course, but most of his novels explore the theme of the hidden darkness in small town America, and It is no exception.
It's plot revolves around a group of seven local kids who call themselves "The Losers' Club." They are kids who, for some reason or another, don't quite fit into any of the cliques or groups most kids normally form. Bill Denbrough, the one fated to be a best-selling author of horror novels, not only stutters but is also coping with the death of his little brother George; Mike Hanlon is the lone black kid in Derry; Stan Uris, the Jewish kid and future accountant whose experiences of the Summer of '58 will be buried for 27 long years; Beverly Rogan, the red-haired girl who must bear her father's towering rages and dark intentions; Eddie Kaspbrak, the overprotected and seemingly asthmatic boy with a loving but domineering mother; Richie Tozier, the group clown who is a great mimic and will grow up to be a successful radio DJ; and Ben Hascom, a boy whose tendency to be overweight makes him the target for other kids' meanspirited taunts. Together, these seven misfits will forge a bond of loyalty and love that links them together in and out of school and the playground...a bond that they'll need that fateful summer in 1958...the summer of IT.
For Derry also happens to be the hunting ground for a hideous creature known only as "It." What It is and whence It came from is a mystery, but King's fertile imagination endows It with many abilities, such as the power to control humans and manifest Itself in many forms, the most frightening being Pennywise the Clown:
There was a clown in the stormdrain. The light in there was far from good, but it was good enough so that George Denbrough was sure of what he was seeing It was a clown, like in the circus or on TV. In fact he looked like a cross between Bozo and Clarabell, who talked by honking his (or was it her? -- George was never really sure of the gender) horn on Howdy Doody Saturday mornings -- Buffalo Bill was just about the only one who could understand Clarabell, and that always cracked George up. The face of the clown in the stormdrain was white, there were funny tufts of red hair on either side of his bald head, and there was a big clown-smile painted over his mouth. If George had been inhabiting a later year, he would have surely thought of Ronald McDonald before Bozo or Clarabell.
The clown held a bunch of balloons, all colors, like gorgeous ripe fruit, in one hand.
In the other he held George's newspaper boat.
"Want your boat, Georgie?" The clown smiled.
George smiled back. He couldn't help it; it was the kind of smile you just had to answer. "I sure do," he said.
The clown laughed. " 'I sure do.' That's good! That's very good! And how about a balloon?"
"Well...sure!" He reached forward....and then drew his hand reluctantly back. "I'm not supposed to take stuff from strangers. My dad said so."
"Very wise of your dad," the clown in the stormdrain said, smiling. How, George wondered, could I have thought his eyes were yellow? They were a bright dancing blue, the color of his mom's eyes, and Bill's. "Very wise indeed. Therefore I will introduce myself. I, Georgie, am Mr. Bob Gray, also known as Pennywise the Dancing Clown. Pennywise, meet George Denbrough. George, meet Pennywise. And now we know each other. I'm not a stranger to you, and you're not a stranger to me. Kee-rect?"
George giggled. "I guess so." He reached forward again....and drew his hand back again. "How did you get down there?"
"Storm just bleeeew me away," Pennywise the Dancing Clown said. "It blew the whole circus away. Can you smell the circus, Georgie?"
George leaned forward. Suddenly he could smell peanuts! Hot roasted peanuts! And vinegar! The white kind you put on your french fries through a hole in the cap! He could smell the cotton candy and frying doughboys and the faint but thunderous odor of wild-animal sh-t. He could smell the cheery aroma of midway sawdust. And yet...
And yet under it all was the smell of flood and decomposing leaves and dark stormdrain shadows. The smell was wet and rotten. The cellar-smell.
But the other smells were stronger.
"You bet I can smell it," he said.
Sadly, this is an olfactory and visual illusion created by It to lure Georgie closer, for, as King describes the little boy's final moment of lucidity, "[w]hat he saw then was terrible enough to make his worst imaginings of the thing in the cellar look like sweet dreams, what he saw destroyed his sanity in one clawing stroke."
Oh, I'm not talking about the real New England state that was once part of Massachusetts and is famous for its lobsters and still very rural ambiance. I've never even been there, although I wouldn't rule out a tourist excursion at some point in the future, though if I do go, it would probably be in the summer, since winters up North are too chilly and snowbound for this Miami native's taste.
No, the Maine I'm talking about is the Maine that exists in the imagination of Stephen King. Quite a few of his novels are set there, most of them in the fictional towns of Castle Rock, Tarker's Mills, Jerusalem's Lot, Little Tall Island....and Derry. Here, in towns that have existed since before the American Revolution, the inhabitants of these communities have coexisted with vampires ('Salem's Lot), werewolves (Cycle of the Werewolf), guys that wake up from a coma with psychic powers (The Dead Zone), teenage girls with telekinetic abilities (Carrie), and demonic strangers with murderous methods of persuasion (Needful Things, Storm of the Century). Even some of King's "normal" stories (The Body, the novella that is the basis for Rob Reiner's coming-of-age film Stand By Me) are set in this supernatural state of Maine, with its closely-knit communities -- some of whose denizens have French surnames and sprinkle their sentences with ayuh and mayhap.
Of all these towns, two have given me the willies while I've read a Stephen King novel. One, of course, was 'Salem's Lot, King's second novel and his homage to Bram Stoker's Dracula. I still remember the strange sense of dread as I followed Ben Mears and his small band of "fearless vampire killers" as they engaged in a seemingly hopeless battle of wits against Barlow, the Vampire King clearly modeled after Count Dracula. I knew 'Salem's Lot wasn't a real town, that the Marsten House wasn't a real edifice, and that the novel was fiction, but all the same I was glad when Ben and Mark set the fire that burned most of it to the ground.
The other town that really scared me is Derry, which is where King's 1138-page novel It is set. Like most of King's Maine communities, it's a typical small town in rural America, with its mom-and-pop stores lining Main Street and its population leading seemingly routine lives, most of them trying to live the American dream of home, work, family, and church, some -- like Henry Bowers and his gang -- starting careers of their own in the crime business, while still others hide dark family secrets, such as Beverly Rogan's abusive dad's hideously bad temper. Derry is a town where tragedy and disaster often strike, but its inhabitants seemingly roll with the punches and carry on as if nothing had happened. As King writes early on, "In Derry such forgetting of tragedy and disaster was almost an art, as Bill Denbrough would come to discover in the course of time."
The idea of the small town as microcosm of society isn't unique to King, of course, but most of his novels explore the theme of the hidden darkness in small town America, and It is no exception.
It's plot revolves around a group of seven local kids who call themselves "The Losers' Club." They are kids who, for some reason or another, don't quite fit into any of the cliques or groups most kids normally form. Bill Denbrough, the one fated to be a best-selling author of horror novels, not only stutters but is also coping with the death of his little brother George; Mike Hanlon is the lone black kid in Derry; Stan Uris, the Jewish kid and future accountant whose experiences of the Summer of '58 will be buried for 27 long years; Beverly Rogan, the red-haired girl who must bear her father's towering rages and dark intentions; Eddie Kaspbrak, the overprotected and seemingly asthmatic boy with a loving but domineering mother; Richie Tozier, the group clown who is a great mimic and will grow up to be a successful radio DJ; and Ben Hascom, a boy whose tendency to be overweight makes him the target for other kids' meanspirited taunts. Together, these seven misfits will forge a bond of loyalty and love that links them together in and out of school and the playground...a bond that they'll need that fateful summer in 1958...the summer of IT.
For Derry also happens to be the hunting ground for a hideous creature known only as "It." What It is and whence It came from is a mystery, but King's fertile imagination endows It with many abilities, such as the power to control humans and manifest Itself in many forms, the most frightening being Pennywise the Clown:
There was a clown in the stormdrain. The light in there was far from good, but it was good enough so that George Denbrough was sure of what he was seeing It was a clown, like in the circus or on TV. In fact he looked like a cross between Bozo and Clarabell, who talked by honking his (or was it her? -- George was never really sure of the gender) horn on Howdy Doody Saturday mornings -- Buffalo Bill was just about the only one who could understand Clarabell, and that always cracked George up. The face of the clown in the stormdrain was white, there were funny tufts of red hair on either side of his bald head, and there was a big clown-smile painted over his mouth. If George had been inhabiting a later year, he would have surely thought of Ronald McDonald before Bozo or Clarabell.
The clown held a bunch of balloons, all colors, like gorgeous ripe fruit, in one hand.
In the other he held George's newspaper boat.
"Want your boat, Georgie?" The clown smiled.
George smiled back. He couldn't help it; it was the kind of smile you just had to answer. "I sure do," he said.
The clown laughed. " 'I sure do.' That's good! That's very good! And how about a balloon?"
"Well...sure!" He reached forward....and then drew his hand reluctantly back. "I'm not supposed to take stuff from strangers. My dad said so."
"Very wise of your dad," the clown in the stormdrain said, smiling. How, George wondered, could I have thought his eyes were yellow? They were a bright dancing blue, the color of his mom's eyes, and Bill's. "Very wise indeed. Therefore I will introduce myself. I, Georgie, am Mr. Bob Gray, also known as Pennywise the Dancing Clown. Pennywise, meet George Denbrough. George, meet Pennywise. And now we know each other. I'm not a stranger to you, and you're not a stranger to me. Kee-rect?"
George giggled. "I guess so." He reached forward again....and drew his hand back again. "How did you get down there?"
"Storm just bleeeew me away," Pennywise the Dancing Clown said. "It blew the whole circus away. Can you smell the circus, Georgie?"
George leaned forward. Suddenly he could smell peanuts! Hot roasted peanuts! And vinegar! The white kind you put on your french fries through a hole in the cap! He could smell the cotton candy and frying doughboys and the faint but thunderous odor of wild-animal sh-t. He could smell the cheery aroma of midway sawdust. And yet...
And yet under it all was the smell of flood and decomposing leaves and dark stormdrain shadows. The smell was wet and rotten. The cellar-smell.
But the other smells were stronger.
"You bet I can smell it," he said.
Sadly, this is an olfactory and visual illusion created by It to lure Georgie closer, for, as King describes the little boy's final moment of lucidity, "[w]hat he saw then was terrible enough to make his worst imaginings of the thing in the cellar look like sweet dreams, what he saw destroyed his sanity in one clawing stroke."
My Take
It is a huge novel, telling its complex story from various points of view and chronicling the Losers' Club's titanic struggles with It and Its minions at two different stages in their lives, first as 12-year-old children in 1958, then as adults in 1985.
It is a huge novel, telling its complex story from various points of view and chronicling the Losers' Club's titanic struggles with It and Its minions at two different stages in their lives, first as 12-year-old children in 1958, then as adults in 1985.
It's also very violent at times; one of the Losers
has Henry Bowers' initial "H" carved on his belly at one point, and
It manifests itself in various forms, mostly as the deadly clown but also as
various movie monsters that Bill and the rest of the Losers have seen in movies
-- the Mummy, a Wolfman, the creature from the Black Lagoon, and a vampire with
razors where his teeth ought to be. There is some intense non-supernatural
evil as well, mostly in racist attitudes toward the Hanlons in Derry, but also
domestic violence and abuse in Beverly's household.
King also inserts cameos by
characters from other novels he has written, particularly from The Shining
and Christine.
But behind the shockers and frights of It there are also many glimmers of humor, mostly centering on Richie Dozier, the joys of friendship felt by the Losers, and also the redeeming power of love. It's this human element that elevates most of King's horror novels above the usual bloody body-count-and-gore quotient that makes readers queasy about reading stories in this genre.
But behind the shockers and frights of It there are also many glimmers of humor, mostly centering on Richie Dozier, the joys of friendship felt by the Losers, and also the redeeming power of love. It's this human element that elevates most of King's horror novels above the usual bloody body-count-and-gore quotient that makes readers queasy about reading stories in this genre.
In some ways, It is the darker side of The
Body/Stand By Me; both stories explore the joys and sorrows of growing up
in the late Fifities (as King did), though It is more about nightmares,
boogeymen, the traumas of childhood, and things that go bump in the night.
Although the novel is long -- King admits that he suffers from "verborrhea of the word processor" -- and requires both patience and some intestinal fortitude, it is worth reading at least once. I like this novel mainly because King makes the unreal seem very real by grounding his story in a believable setting and adding in concrete details from real life, whether it is by dropping real brand names for food items or cultural references (such as comparing Pennywise with icons such as Bozo or Clarabell).
Although the novel is long -- King admits that he suffers from "verborrhea of the word processor" -- and requires both patience and some intestinal fortitude, it is worth reading at least once. I like this novel mainly because King makes the unreal seem very real by grounding his story in a believable setting and adding in concrete details from real life, whether it is by dropping real brand names for food items or cultural references (such as comparing Pennywise with icons such as Bozo or Clarabell).
I also like the way
his prose just flows naturally; as a writer I know how hard it is to
write in such a way that it is easy to read and get lost in. King's narratives
always "sound" as though the author was sitting in your front parlor
or living room and telling you the story; it never feels forced or like
you're having to read the words.
It has been adapted as a TV miniseries for the ABC network which was broadcast in 1990, but it didn't have the power of this 1986 book. It was decent but not exactly impressive. Like most TV adaptations of King's novels, much of the story was condensed and lots of "the good bits" were left out.
It has been adapted as a TV miniseries for the ABC network which was broadcast in 1990, but it didn't have the power of this 1986 book. It was decent but not exactly impressive. Like most TV adaptations of King's novels, much of the story was condensed and lots of "the good bits" were left out.
In 2017, Warner Bros. released IT: Chapter One, a feature film that focuses on the Losers’ Club
members as kids. Directed by Andy Muschetti, the movie version takes a few
liberties with King’s novel (mainly by setting the 1950s-era story in the 1980s),
but it is closer in tone than the miniseries adaptation.
If you watched the
miniseries and don't want to read the book because the TV version was
"sucky," I urge you to reconsider and read It with an open
mind.
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