I am 28. I was a columnist for the campus paper at ASU, and am the author of ALMASHEOL and the upco...
I am 28. I was a columnist for the campus paper at ASU, and am the author of ALMASHEOL and the upcoming POSTCARDS OF THE HANGING. I enjoy the music of Bob Dylan and consider the cheeseburger nature's perfect food.
Member since:12.02.2004
Reviews:8
When I was eleven I used to chum around with some of the kids in my town, exploring the secret corners unknown or unappreciated by adults. When I read this book Derry became my own hometown, and the Losers were my friends: the girl I had a crush on in junior high from my Am. Gov. class (a blonde, not a redhead, but still....), the black kid who protected me from the bigger meaner kids, my two best friends who lived on either side of me and who both moved away a few years later and fell out of touch. Sometimes I was Richie gibbering away in my many Voices; sometimes I was Bill, writing my stories and dreaming of making it as a big-time writer. Henry Bowers and his friends wore the faces of my own childhood bullies. The trainyards were a couple blocks away from my house. The house on Niebolt Street became an old falling-down warehouse up the street my buddy and I used to play in. The Barrens were an old playground we used to visit
that lay just over the tracks in the bad part of town. Keene's was the candy store up on the corner two blocks away. I lived It.
Mike Hanlon, once a poor black farmboy, is now the historian, the gatekeeper, and the midwife of fate, who makes a phone call to the old gang from 27 years ago.
There's "Stuttering" Bill Denbrough, whose brother was the first to die in 1957--a victim of something nasty that comes up from the sewers every three decades to eat and play. Bill blames himself for his brother's death; his writing is subconscious guilt and rage being screamed onto the white paper.
There's Stan Uris, the quiet Jewish kid and bird-lover who became a softspoken lawyer. He hangs up the phone and goes up for a bath. He never comes down.
There's Beverly Rogan, nee Marsh, the tomboy-turned-fashion designer, trapped in an abusive Freudian wet-dream of a marriage.
There's Ed Kapsbrak, sickly kid-turned-hypochondriac adult, also in a marriage of Freudian design. He owns a limo company.
There's Rich Tozier, nerdy kid, now a shock jock and impressionist, who perhaps never really grew up.
And there's Ben Hanscom, the fat boy who skinned off the weight and turned his talent for building into a career as an architect.
All bear the stink of Derry's sewers on them even after all these years. The stink's name is Bob Gray, or Pennywise the Dancing Clown, or whatever hell is inside your head. He likes kids....with gravy.
A promise made as kids now must be honored, as the seven (one or two in spirit, if not body) gather together to pool their Swiss-cheese memories and figure out how to purge this reawakened devil from their childhood Eden. Of course, Pennywise isn't the only demon that has come to Derry: Bowers, the kids' old tormentor, is called back like a faithful dog by the voice of a dark master, and two of the Losers' spouses--one drawn by love and one by vengeance--are cheerfully welcomed into this abode of the damned.
The story makes use of simple narrative, flashback and epistolary styles almost flawlessly (there is a chapter numbering error as the Losers explore the new Derry, and one place where a paragraph break before one of King's stream-of-consciousness parentheticals is left out and it runs into the main text)...and the language of the parts set in 1958, right down to the titles of the programs Ben Hanscom and that creepy little schmuck Patrick Hockstetter watch on TV, is so authentic and seamless that if there are anachronisms, I don't see them.
The only thing I would like to see, perhaps, is the after-story: what happened to the kids after they triumphed over their demonic tormentor in '58...and what happened to the adult Losers as their memories faded in '85? How old were they as they started to move away, leave Derry, lose touch? Did they talk about what they'd done after, into the years of junior high and high school? Will they be called back again in about thirty years, as 65-year-olds, the monster alive and really furious, to trudge about in Derry's sewers playing demon-hunters? One wonders if there are parts of the story written but cut for length lying forgotten in a dusty archive under the library of Orono or in Steve's personal files, that tell the rest of the story (like the two stories about Jerusalem's Lot in NIGHT SHIFT, or the return of Richard Dees from THE DEAD ZONE in "The Night Flier"?) and could show up in a future magazine or collection?
It's a possibility.
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Good review. I remember first reading this and getting very scared indeed, an excellent book, one of King's best I reckon. Ellie.
danielse 18.02.2004 09:32
I haven't read Stephen King because I don't like the idea of the supernatural in a book. It's too easy to make up whatever rules you like. I much prefer the ideas King has where the horror is real. I think I would find Misery terrifying and The Body and that Rita Hayworth short story far more satisfying than hell-spawned clowns and mystical rites.
Stephen King's idea for It came from a favorite childhood image: the entire cast of the ... more
Bugs Bunny Show coming on at the beginning. He thought of bringing on all the monsters, one last time: Dracula, Frankenstein's creature, the Werewolf, the Crawlin...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Stephen King's idea forItcame from a favorite childhood image: the entire cast of theBugs ... more
Bunny Showcoming on at the beginning. He thought of bringing on all the monsters, one last time: Dracula, Frankenstein's creature, the Werewolf, the Crawling Eye...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Stephen King's idea for It came from a favorite childhood image: the entire cast of the ... more
Bugs Bunny Show coming on at the beginning. He thought of bringing on all the monsters, one last time: Dracula, Frankenstein's creature, the Werewolf, the Crawlin...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Advantages: Terrifying, charming, utterly real, with a cast of characters ou'll hate saying goodbye to come the novel's end. Disadvantages: It's a biggie - not overwritten at all though, in my opinion. Well-judged, but not a quick read.
RichardW 06.01.2001 ·
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of It - Stephen King
Advantages: Terrifying, charming, utterly real, with a cast of characters ou'll hate saying goodbye to come the novel's end. Disadvantages: It's a biggie - not overwritten at all though, in my opinion. Well-judged, but not a quick read.
RichardW 06.01.2001 ·
Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of It - Stephen King
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