(Note: this is a translation from my post in spanish "
IT - Eso - Stephen King (Reseña y Comentarios)")
Since a new movie adaptation from this novel is coming, I decided to put this book on the number 1 on my waiting list. Certainly this book is not for children, maybe not even for teenagers. Due to some scenes, and I don’t even mean the horror ones, this book is mostly for analytic open-minded adults.
I’m just going to leave that comment there, it’s up to you to investigate why, otherwise I could be spoiling part of it. Nevertheless, I’m sure that many of those who have read it were not on the appropriate age.
Stephen King’s novel “IT” is one of his best known. Despite what is commonly thought of this novel, it is not completely of terror nor treats only about a killer clown. Even though King is one of my favorite authors I hadn’t read this novel, nor seen 90's movie, in fact, the only thing I knew about this novel was the fame of scary and the classic "Pennywise" image embodied by actor Tim Curry whom I identify more from his work on "Home Alone" than for "IT".
The first thing we find when dealing with this novel is the extension: 1500 pages. The novel starts by telling the present story (adults) of the 7 characters who doesn’t fully remember their childhood events. Afterwards, the novel starts to jump between present and their childhood as they continue remembering up until when both stories run in parallel with a pace where a childhood chapter ends with an unconcluded phrase that continues on the next chapter now as an adult (or viceversa).
The fact that the clown to be its biggest representative must be due to its continuous appearances and because there are traces of it in every form it embodies. Nevertheless, the malign entity called “IT” by the kids, takes different physical forms as per convenient to lure, scare or kill them. Even during on appearance, one of them will see a cut off head from one of their friends while the other will see a different one.
The novel is about the kids that makes up “The Losers Club” as they call themselves, and we’ll read about their struggles and fight agains “IT”, which results to be a very appropriate name for something that cannot be defined as immutable-fixed.
BUT, and this is the interesting and valuable thing about this novel, it is not only about atrocities and dismemberments but about (the same as other King’s novels) friendship, innocence of the childhood and the gradual loss of that innocence, sometimes by luck of fate, some others by their own decision after identifying the necessity to face their fears.
The chapters about the characters childhood are endearing, feels like portraits from other times (this stage occurs in the 50’s). The games, conversations, friendship and even the bully (who is so hateful that you can’t wait for him to pay all he does) are believable. Even fears are a reflection from childhood, except, of course, the fact that in the novel those fears are not unfounded. You care about the characters because if not for the extraordinary situation they live would be like you and me. Somewhere I read that it is better to narrate "ordinary characters in extraordinary situations than extraordinary characters in ordinary situations" and it seems that King has done precisely this in his novels.
As in other of his novels, there is phrase (two in this case) that repeats along the work (we’ll know of some other as we analyze those novels): “They all float down here”, and the most fearful due to the direct threat and implications regarding one of the main scenarios: “you’ll float too”
The novel scenarios are pretty varied and vivid, almost all of them are in Derry, Maine, USA: The civic center, the canal, the barrens, Kitchener Ironworks, the house 29 Neibolt Street, the standpipe, the library and so on. If you want to know a little more about this, you can visit the Wikipedia page (
Derry). King shows us the scenarios at different relevant stages in time: city foundation; 1957, which is when the protagonists are young and 1985, when they are adults.
For King’s fans, I must highlight that Derry is a city that has been shown in some other of his novels. This doesn’t necessarily means that those novels are connected. Or does it?. As soon as I read those other novels I’ll comment on that. I couldn’t tell if since the beginning, Stephen King created those novels to be set in the same universe, however, at least those share some scenarios but in different dates.
Derry (1)(2)
If you still haven’t read “IT” my recommendation for you is to not search more information about Derry. The map could be enough to avoid get lost and make the comprehension about characters journeys easier. For example, in the novel you’ll find about “Paul Bunyan” statue who attacks one of the protagonists. My mental image about that statue is fundamentally different than the one you can find on the internet. I don’t think that one is better than the other, but the thing is: what I imagine is mine and if I “pollute” mi mental images beforehand then the story could feel different when reading it.
The same happened with my images as adult Beverly and Audra. The image I had in my mind about them were substantially different (as for the face and a few “cup” sizes)
Going back to the topic: some characters have special appearances in King’s novels, but I couldn’t say if those have a special relevance or if it was just a tribute from the author to the character.
If you already read “The Shinning” the name Dick Halloran will be known to you. What I can tell you is that in “IT” this character (Halloran) makes an special appearance.
As it says in the novel and even in the dedicatory of the book from King to his sons: “the magic exists”. If you are adult and read this novel, you’ll probably remember not only the magic of have been a child but the magic that you took for granted that existed, maybe nightmares included. At some point in the novel, when the kids go into Neibolt Street house and they find a werewolf, I began to think that it was only a kid’s play, that there was no “It” and that the killings were unfortunate accidents and the adventure in the house was only a prearranged game, as when one plays to not touch the floor because “floor is lava”, or when playing with little plastic toy soldiers.
Some day we will all "float", I just hope that we still have enough time and that we do not forget the magic that we lived when were children and to have the strength to face our fears.
Greetings.
Recently it happened that I read a book and rated with 4 stars on GoodReads, but later I had to change it to 5 stars. According to my own rating scale (invented by me, for me... and well, for my brainy readers like you), I had to raise the rating.
