This book, spanning 30 years, is like a Ray Bradbury childhood in bloodlust; with a look behind the facade of lower-middle-class cities, and discoveries made by young people that no adult wants to believe in. That’s why the kids have to take their fate into their own hands in this thoroughly polluted city (for King, the fictional Derry was a symbol of everything bad). One of the boys wants to avenge his little brother who was murdered by “It”. He wanted to play with his paper boat in the rain. He was found with one arm torn off in front of a sewer shaft.
500 pages not enough
The fascination with “It,” which is repeatedly reissued in special editions and described in critics’ lists as the highlight of King’s work, remains unbroken. His biggest book to date, King had been working on it since 1982, also marked the end of his longest break to date (almost two years after “Thinner”), and was published – how irresponsible those responsible must be – in German by almost 500 (!) Pages shortened. The complete translation, published decades later, ran to more than 1,500 pages.
The brilliant title (is there a better title?) leaves room for all associations. But what made the book so classy? On the one hand, King wanted to say goodbye to the classic horror novel after “It” and, more importantly, wanted to have the last word, which is why he incorporated a number of monsters into the story. “It” is a shapeshifter: werewolf, mummy, vampire – they all parade here.
“It” includes two timelines, 1958 and 1985: The nameless creature falls into a deep sleep every 27 years; the first traces of the monster can be found in the chronicle of Derry, that demonized city, from the 14th century. As children and adults, the seven members of the “Losers Club” try to kill the child-eater. You will find him: in the sewers.
The best are the passages in which the joys of summer are actually described; here King becomes the hometown writer of his beloved Maine, where almost all of his stories are set. The children’s hiding place in the forest, the dams they built themselves, the ice cream they bought themselves on vacation. The first kiss, the butterflies in your stomach. Although King brings an additional – human – antagonist into the game with Henry Bowers, his action and that of his gang seem downright humorous; Like a game of cat and mouse, Bowers and friends always somehow catch one of the “club” on the street and chase them until the blood flows. And the parents are helpless.
Worse than Ronald McDonald
Anyone with even a little imagination must be frightened by clowns; King also reinforced these associations with “It”; even if Ronald McDonald had already done good preparatory work. Pennywise’s balloons flying against the wind or the children’s voices coming out of the sink are effective. One of the many fight scenes is successful precisely because the reader knows what to expect – what could be more exciting than horror that actually delivers on its promise? When they break into an abandoned house, the children immediately hear a rumbling from the attic, something scurries down the stairs, and there it is: the werewolf.
The ensuing chase – children’s bicycle versus lycanthrope – is one of the most exciting things King has put down on paper. The fact that the bike named “Silver” is a lovingly pimped-up piece of childhood joy further enhances the power of this scene, which ends well.
The mythology of “It” receives far too little attention in reviews of the novel. It is not a mythical creature that the devil created to plague humanity. “It” is an alien who landed on Earth on a comet thousands of years ago and then fell into a deep sleep. During an Indian seance, the children make this discovery, which is one of the greatest surprises in history.
But not all shockers are successful. The problem is the monster characters themselves: Who is still afraid of mummies, werewolves, vampires today? King relies on a disgust factor that quickly wears out (locusts in fortune cookies, maggots in rotting faces). Somewhere, King probably really wanted to know, his crazy murderer car Christine shows up. Later, “Shining” chef Dick Hallorann defends himself against racist arsonists.
King cannot teach the lesson in “ultimate horror” here, where there is little emphasis on imagination and instead on mutilation and murder. In the end, King uses a trick that he uses often, perhaps too often: he lets Derry, like so many of his wayward cities, such as Salem’s Lot or Haven, be drowned, drowned and burned by a storm, God’s just punishment.
The turtle becomes a helper
The ensemble of the “Losers’ Club” is certainly King’s most elaborate since the team of heroes from “The Stand”, but it is not without clichés. There’s chubby, hopelessly in love Ben; the red-haired, irrepressible Beverly, abused by her father; the asthmatic Eddie, who has to grow with the monster and defeat his breathing machine; the main character Bill – “Stutter-Bill”, who of course has to overcome his stuttering. With the god-like “turtle” introduced in the final spurt as “It’s” greatest enemy, King slows down the pace dangerously. While Bill switches to fight mode, the amphibian philosophizes about the cosmos, but actually wants to give him advice.
In the final pages, King gets us again – and it’s tear-jerking. The survivors from the “Losers’ Club” get older, move in all directions and begin to forget. Forgetting that they were once friends, forgetting each other, and forgetting that they once killed the worst creature in the universe, thereby saving the lives of countless children who would come later. They no longer know what once was.
King then goes into authorial mode as narrator and nudges us: What the “losers” experience is like growing up. You can’t bring back your childhood, on the contrary, most memories disappear. Unfortunately also the beautiful ones. This is perhaps the harshest, certainly the most honest conclusion that King could have presented to us here.
Bill gets on his “Silver” bike, which he loved so much as a child, one last time. He doesn’t even know why anymore. But it saves a life.