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May 7th, 2009
 | 05:59 pm - Icon has only a little thematic resonance with post
Damn you, Stephen King. I always forget how easily your people grab me until I read another one of your books.
For those of you who know what I'm talking about: I just finished reading It for the first time.
I think I was crying mostly because of the ending and how they're all forgetting each other again. OMG SADNESS. Because yeah, I teared right up and choked when the last few sentences of Mike Hanlon's last entry were "I loved you guys" (or words to that effect). Because I just spent well over a thousand pages getting to love all seven of these people, loving their love for each other, their dedication and courage and reality.
Nobody writes believable people like King does. I keep forgetting this.
Well, that, and the longing (desire!) in my own heart for the wild uncaring freedom of childhood, the invincible daring, the "HIIIII YO SILVER AWAY!" that's so tough to hang onto as a grownup. (You can, I've seen people do it; it changes, it shifts, but it's at root the same thing.)
Things I think will be stuck in my mind or vocab permanently:
"Beep-beep, Ritchie."
"love, desire, and the dark. If they didn't have the first two, they'd be left with the last." (I swear I've heard the phrase "love, desire, and the dark" somewhere else, before, but I can't remember where.)
the poem Ben wrote for Beverly.
The image of the glass tunnel between the library buildings, and Ben considering it, how you stand in the darkness and learn to love the light.
For a horror story, this is very upbeat. The moral is if you stand, if you're brave and tough and stand, you can win against the wildest evil that exists. That things turn out right a surprising amount of the time. That anyone who looks at this world and thinks that God doesn't exist needs a serious reality check.
This is one I may read again someday.
Current Mood:  indescribable
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"HIIIII YO SILVER AWAY!" makes me so happy and sad at once ever since reading this book. *chokes up a little* Like you say, it's the wild invincibility of being a kid. I liked that as kids they actually had a much easier time taking down It than they did as adults. Because as kids they had more instinctual faith, in God or in their own strength (or in bald eagles).
I'm so glad you liked this (for a Steven King value of "like" which tends to involve at least some wishing you could scrub your brain and/or crawl into a corner and cry for a while). Truly, no one can write characters like he can. And I'm glad you've read it, because now when I re-read it (not now, because ha, I am so not mixing this book with crazy pregnant girl dreams) I can ask you to point out all the God for me. Because I'm not as good at finding him as you are, but I know he's in there all over the place.
I want to know what you thought of the experience in the...what did they call it? Where they dug that pit and got it all smoky and a couple of them had a spirit vision, and saw IT coming to Earth from outer space. At first I was like "Um...really?" about that but I realized that it was more a Lovecraft, "Color Out of Space" thing and less a "Mars Attacks" alien invasion thing. But it still sorta bugged me. I kinda wanted It to be something more organic, of this world.
'm so glad you liked this (for a Steven King value of "like" which tends to involve at least some wishing you could scrub your brain and/or crawl into a corner and cry for a while).
Dude, seriously. There are a few bits in here I could really have done without. (Sociopathic kids make my skin effing crawl. The bit where Bev's dad chases her was even worse.)
because now when I re-read it (not now, because ha, I am so not mixing this book with crazy pregnant girl dreams) I can ask you to point out all the God for me.
Yeah, no King for you till after William is born and so on. I'll be glad to discuss God-in-the-works-of-King anytime you like, though I thought it was less obvious in this book than in anything of his (Stand, Green Mile, Dead Zone) I've previously read (except The Gunslinger). As you say, definitely there, though.
I was a little weirded out by the "IT is from outer space!" reveal, but as you say, it's less an "aliens coming!" thing and more a, I don't know, IT isn't Satan, but the image of the devil being cast down to earth could sort of apply to the craziness of that vision. Even though all the imagery is very science-history-scifi, in only that one scene. Perhaps the idea was supposed to be that IT is not really native to our world (hence some of the horror), but IT *is* native to our universe (like the Turtle or whatever) in some sense.
Oh, gosh, the other thing I'm going to remember from this book is the phrase "the deadlights." Ridiculously evocative and creepy as all hell. |
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