Disquiet and desire. All the difference between world and want — the difference between being an adult who counted the cost and a child who just got on it and went, for instance. All the world between. Yet not that much difference at all. Bedfellows, really. The way you felt when the roller coaster car approached the top of the first steep grade, where the ride really begins.
Disquiet and desire. What you want and what you’re scared to try for. Where you’ve been and where you want to go. Something in a rock-and-roll song about wanting the girl, the car, the place to stand and be. Oh please God can you dig it.
(from It, page 1085)
I still don’t know how Serena talked me into reading It, given the fact that clowns really, really creep me out, but I’m glad she did. After being disappointed by The Birthing House by Christopher Ransom, I’d been looking for a book that would truly scare me, and while I can’t say I was terrified at any point while reading It, there were a few times when I didn’t want to turn the lights off until my husband came to bed.
Stephen King showcases his talent as a storyteller in It, which focuses on an evil entity living under the fictional town of Derry, Maine, that emerges every 27 years to feed on children (and the occasional adult) and the seven kids who join forces to beat it. Led by Bill Denbrough, whose little brother, George, is brutally murdered by It in the form of Pennywise the clown, the self-proclaimed “Losers” — Ben Hanscom, Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak, Beverly Marsh, Stan Uris, and Mike Hanlon — spend much of the summer of 1958 contemplating ways to rid Derry of It, an evil with many faces based on the fears of its prey and the ability to control the people and world around it.
The novel shifts back and forth in time, mainly between 1958, when the gang thought they killed It, and 1985, when Mike — now Derry’s librarian — realizes It has begun another killing spree and reminds his old friends about the blood oath they made 27 years before — that if it started up again, they’d come back and get rid of It once and for all. However, only Mike remembers what happened that day under the city in 1958, and as the others slowly remember, they wonder whether they can recapture the faith and power they had as children, because only that will rid Derry of the evil that has plagued it since prehistoric times.
King includes many details about Derry and its people, and at times he seems to ramble a lot. At first, I thought a large chunk of the book’s 1,090 pages probably could have been cut out, but after turning the final page, I changed my mind. He jerks readers back and forth in time and tells seemingly unnecessary and unrelated stories, and then a light goes on and you see how these details fit into the larger scheme of things.
Derry is a messed up town, a town with a violent past, a town with a lot of stories to tell, and only when these stories are told does the reader understand how long It has been on the prowl and how much of a hold It has on its inhabitants. Can you imagine anyone sitting at a bar and ignoring a gruesome ax murder occurring behind them? Can you imagine all the men of the town positioning themselves in various locations of downtown to massacre a notorious gang in broad daylight? You can once you learn that a clownish man or a man dressed in a clown suit was in the midst of the chaos. It’s both chilling and fascinating, and it’s a novel where you just have to go with the flow and know that you’ll “get” it by the end.
There are several things that surprised me about It, beyond the fact that I could read about Pennywise and not have nightmares. For some reason, I expected King’s writing to be more on the “fluffy” side (for lack of a better word), so I was surprised at his amazing use of language and description. I was also surprised by how well he juggled so many main characters. One could argue that Bill is the main character, as he is viewed as the leader, but the rest of the gang and even the bully Henry Bowers, who terrorizes them as children and as adults, get plenty of time in the spotlight. King’s characters are so well developed, each with their own unique personalities. They feel like real people, and you know them almost as well as you know yourself. Moreover, I was surprised by how invested I was in these characters, so much so that I cried at the end of the Last Interlude. I didn’t just tear up; I actually sobbed for a minute or two.
Readers shouldn’t be scared by the fact that It is a chunkster. I read it over a period of five months, and each time I picked up the book, it felt like I hadn’t put it aside for a few weeks, it was still so fresh in my mind. Readers also shouldn’t dismiss It as simply a horror novel. Yes, there are some gory scenes, and yes, King plays with your mind a bit, but there’s a lot more going on here. It is a coming-of-age story, a novel about friendship and love, and he touches upon the idea of childhood innocence, memory, and fear and how our perceptions of the world change as we get older. The plot picks up the pace so that by the last section, I couldn’t read it fast enough. It is a novel that is creepy, yet thought-provoking at the same time. And believe it or not, despite the page length, I think it’s one I would read again in the future.
Disclosure: I received my copy of It as a gift. I am an Amazon associate.
© 2011 Anna Horner of Diary of an Eccentric. All Rights Reserved. Please do not reproduce or republish content without permission.
We’ll be reading 
Despite my intense dislike for clowns — especially creepy looking ones — 
