I did IT!

I am very proud to announce that I read IT.  And survived.  And can even take the dog out for a walk at night without fearing a horrible death by clown.  This is some serious progress from the first time I read the book.

And in rereading the book, I understood in part why it scared me so much the first time--and possibly why it would scare anyone.  When I was a kid, I used to volunteer at a historical museum and I often had to go into the creepy, dark basement by myself, where the modern plumbing and everything was (you went if you needed to get water, since we did not have a handy creek as they did back in the day).  Having to go down in the dark by yourself reminded me of the opening of IT, particularly the cellar part.  That really stuck with me.  So did Stanley's death and the haunted house.  And this is where SK gets you.  He takes moderately creepy everyday situations and turns them into actual terror (remember that garbage disposal in Firestarter?).  But I found it interesting how much did not stick with me, and I think that this book might have too much horror in it, in the sense that there are simply too many scenes to process and still be afraid.  In fact, by the time we were back in 1985 and reminiscing in the Chinese restaurant, I was getting a bit done with horror scenes (oh no!  The cookies have terrifying things instead of fortunes!).  Then later, there was a scene with Audra at the hotel where the TV came on by itself and there were horrifying noises from the bathroom.  This didn't scare me at all as a kid, which surprised me.  My first instinct was that perhaps I simply had not stayed in too many hotels by that point in my life, which is probably true.  But I think I may have read too much that was scary by that point and it started to blur together.

It's very clear that this book was a pivotal one for SK, because I think that it contained references to pretty much every single previous book that he wrote.  Entire town destroyed?  Carrie.  Group bands together to fight evil bullies?  'The Body.'  A werewolf?  The Cycle of the Werewolf.  Haunted house?  The Talisman.  Haunted town?  'Salem's Lot.  Scary stuff in a bathroom?  The Shining.  I think you get the idea.  Really, there was everything.  Even stuff coming in the future.  A reference to a bird from Africa?  Misery (I can't tell you where that happened, it was very brief but stuck with me). A group banding together to fight evil for the Turtle?  The Dark Tower.  Small town goes gradually insane as though possessed by an evil force?  Needful Things.  Violence at a lumberjack camp?  The Wind Through the Keyhole.  Seriously, this one runs deep.

The book, at its core, is of course not about an evil killer sewer clown or even an evil female spider, but really about the boundary between childhood and adulthood, and how these collide.  The idea that the characters had forgotten so much about their past didn't surprise me so much this time, as it did when I was a kid.  Of course we forget many things as we age, we can't possibly remember it all.  While the premise of IT was that the Losers forget because of the trauma that they experienced, it seems to me that perhaps it was the simple act of forgetting that we all encounter as we age.

I also was less disappointed by the ending than I was the first time.  I felt like SK just ran out of ideas when I initially read the book, but now I am more convinced that he had a much bigger story in mind, but couldn't put it all in this one.  I mean, it's not like he didn't try.  The whole thing comes in at 1142 pages, after all.  But this is the closest thing to the seven-volume Dark Tower that exists in his whole oeuvre, I think.  And there is a bigger story, with the Turtle and larger forces and galactic battles--in other words, exactly The Dark Tower.  But I think he hadn't quite formulated all of that yet.  He would get back to it soon afterward, churning out 2 and 3 in the series within the next five years.  And maybe this novel marks the bifurcation between the epic and the mundane in SK (not that they are ever fully bifurcated).  Books set more in reality took one path, while books that thrived on fantasy took another.  Considering that the next book is The Eyes of the Dragon, this idea of a split makes sense.

SK took four years to work on IT, which is virtually unheard of in his works.  I hadn't realized this until completing it, but he also did not have any real novels that came out during this time.  In fact, the previous novel was Pet Semetary, which means he went from a pretty dark place to an even more dark place (there was The Talisman, but that was co-written, and I am assuming that the Bachman books were earlier).  So despite the fact that SK appeared to be very prolific, he was in fact honing this one novel for a long time.  Certainly it shows in places.  The beginning, with George's death, is incredibly captivating and well-written.  The same can't be said throughout, which is not surprising to me since it is a very long novel.  But what bugged me the most was that it was unclear why the Losers kept getting away, while others could not.  With George, we see that he is tricked by IT because he doesn't know enough to be suspicious of a clown in the sewer (in fact, much of this reminded me of Erlkönig again, especially when IT tried to convince his victims that they were going to a more beautiful, fun world).  But it's not clear in other places why the Losers could escape him, unless you buy the 'protected by the Turtle' argument.

Oh, and you don't really need the clown, of course.  The situations in which the kids find themselves are all perilous and it seems pretty clear that they could have died regardless of what IT did.  For instance, Ben tried to walk home by himself in the cold, even though the adults had haphazardly tried to stop him.  Stanley should never have been in the Standpipe by himself, which was a known danger.  Beverly's father is clearly close to insane and unquestionably abusive, whether he is possessed by IT or not.  George never should have been playing in the storm water in the first place.  I haven't even mentioned the bullies yet, who pose yet another hazard.  In fact, the book serves as a reminder of just how perilous childhood can be, and how seemingly normal activities can, in fact, end tragically.

I was thinking that I would write multiple entries on the book and I may still have more to say later, but for now, I think that these are the most salient points from my rereading of IT.  I am super glad that it wasn't nearly as scary as the first time around, although I am still not quite ready to tackle the mini-series.  I did really enjoy this commentary on the book and recommend for more consideration of it: http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/09/the-great-stephen-king-reread-it

Skeleton Crew

Okay, I need to fess up about this book and the reason that it took me so long to read it.  I ordered a copy from the library in August, then when it didn't turn up, did some quick investigating and learned that:

1) There was only one copy at the library;
2) It was reported missing.

So that put me behind by a few weeks.

Then I ordered a copy from Amazon and started reading.  I had read this book before (summer of 1994, to be exact) and some stories I remembered well.  For instance, the leading story, 'The Mist.'  You can probably guess that it terrified me.  Soon after reading it, I found myself walking around a strange city somewhat late at night and that terrified me even more, because what if a mist suddenly rolled in with the accompanying terrifying monsters?  Naturally, that was not very likely, but you know how it is.

I also remembered a few more, like 'The Monkey,' particularly because I had the older copy of the book with the monkey toy on the cover:

This one

I also remember 'The Monkey' being pretty predictable and not that great, which was true in this rereading as well.  In fact, I did not remember all that many stories, and I have concluded that the reason for this is that several are not very good.  Here is my assessment:

Very good stories: 'The Mist' (don't read if you live in a foggy area); 'Mrs. Todd's Shortcut' (I feel like this one really tends to stick with people, it is a fun story); 'Survivor Type' (sort of a proto-Misery, only ickier); 'Nona' (sort of predictable but still good); 'The Reach,' 'Word Processor of the Gods,' 'Ballad of the Flexible Bullet,' 'Gramma,' 'The Jaunt.'

Stories that made me want to put the book down and possibly never ever read it again and OH MY GOD HOW PAINFUL WAS THAT: 'The Wedding Gig' (WHY??????) and 'The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands.'  Conclusion: I do not like stories that go to that gentleman's club in New York that is also featured in Different Seasons.

Stories that were meh: everything else in the book.  'The Raft' especially.

So that is my assessment: a mixed bag.  The good stories really are very good and if you have never read 'The Mist,' you really should.  Some fine stuff.  But I officially give you permission to skip over ones that you find to be less than intriguing.  They don't get any better.

Anyway, that is why it took me so long to get to this one, even though I had been trying to since August.  I promise that this was not solely an attempt to procrastinate from the next book.  Honest.  Even though the next book is.......

What have I got myself into here???