Book Review: It

Stephen King’s It has been on my To-Read List for quite some time.  With the movie’s release this fall, I finally set to it.  It was surprisingly difficult to get my hands on a copy; they seemed in scarce supply – possibly in preparation for a movie tie-in edition.  Itis a malevolent force that exists beneath the town of Derry, ME.  Manifesting as a person’s worst nightmare, It takes on various forms – from werewolf to leper to a gigantic Paul Bunyan statue – but its preferred appearance is as Pennywise the clown.
Ever since the founding of Derry, there have been an unsettling number of mysterious deaths.  No adults really want to talk about it.  They may hint about the phenomena, but they prefer to be resigned to the tragedies and to go about their lives in bitter and willful ignorance.

Children, on the other hand, can see It very clearly.  In fact, It tends to prey on children; every 27 years the number of deaths spikes, and then things settle down again, and life continues in a facsimile of normality.
"Good books don't give up
all their secrets at once."King carefully examines the wounded nature of childhood.  Bill loses his younger brother, Georgie.  Asthma-ridden Eddie is a victim of Munchausen-by-proxy, thanks to his mother.  Bev endures her father’s physical abuse.  Overweight Ben is bullied at school. 
King layers these day-to-day traumas against the supernatural terror of It.  “We make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones,” he says.  Primarily because the kids already face real-life difficulties, they discover they have the courage and fortitude to confront It. 
The novel is a hefty tome, at 1100 pages, which gives King plenty of room to explore of the lives of the seven members of the Loser’s Club.  He also examines the extensive history of Derry, which suggests that evil is a form of radioactivity, with a half-life measurable in geological time.
Okay, I'm creeped outWhat surprised me most about the novel – and this is something I never expected to say about a Stephen King novel – is that I was frequently bored.  Great concept, interesting characters, creepy villain … and tedious build-up.  King spends excessive time in relating the pervasive presence of the evil force, but all it does is cause the plot to drag its feet.  Every time I thought the pace was about to pick up, there was another pause in the action.
King uses an interesting parallel framework for the storytelling.  He alternates between the 11-year-olds of the Losers’ Club and their 38-year-old selves come back to Derry to confront It one last time.  This parallelism allows him to intimate what happened in the past through flashes of suppressed memories.
The technique reminds me of John Irving, whose novels often follow a circular nature so that the reader knows the fate of the characters but not the manner in which their lives unfold.  In King’s case, the parallel style should have developed a sense of anticipation, yet instead it felt like the dramatic moments were always being delayed.
Stephen King has many phenomenal works.  The ones that scared me the most are Pet Sematary, Misery, and Desperation (which was a fascinating meditation on faith and God-bombs).  My favorite novel is The Green Mile, and I learned a lot about writing from On Writing. 
Itcertainly feels like a seminal work of Stephen King, and the story will stay with me.  I saw the 1990 mini-series version and remember enjoying it.  And this week I plan to go see the 2017 version.  So there must be something in the story that intrigues me.  Yet, it surprises me to say that It is my least favorite Stephen King novel.