I Have Problems with Stephen King's "It"
I thought I might write about what, in my opinion Stephen King got wrong in the book “It.” I have heard the complaint that King’s largest problem is with how he finishes his books. I didn’t think it would piss me off as much as it did, though.
I’d like to start with the assertion that the book is not scary. The only unease that I felt while reading were the scenes where Pennywise is actually talking, of which there are less than a handful. The rest of the monster encounters just aren’t good. Consider the first encounter with the teen wolf. First of all, it’s a teen wolf with a letterman’s jacket. Second of all, they get away with sneeze powder and by hurling insults with an irish accent. This was funny when it should have been terrifying. The first big personal encounter with members of the Loser’s Club should be leaving the reader with a sense of danger for these kids that lasts throughout the book. Even when we already know that they live to adulthood, you can still give this scene stakes. Take something away from them, or leave them with something they can’t get rid of. A scar that only the kids can see, or biting off a finger, or taking the gun away so Bill has to face the music with his father. I understand the point of the scene is to establish the monster’s weakness, being confidence, apparently. You can do this and leave the Irish cop voice in as long as it is made clear that messing with the beast cannot be taken lightly. We have the same problem with the scene in the water tower. A bunch of giggling dead children could have been terrifying, but Stan gets away by shouting names of birds at them.
The “It” is incredibly disappointing and inconsistent. A set of rules are slowly established throughout the book. There is consistently something about the form that It takes that relates it back to the clown. The Mummy has a silver suit on beneath the bandages, like the one Pennywise wears. The children in the tower have fists full of red and silver buttons, like the ones on the silver suit. The Werewolf has red and silver clown buttons on his letterman’s jacket. After a chase scene, the only thing left of the creature is clown buttons at the base of the sewer grate. Then we get to meet the real It and learn that none of that had any reason involved. It can take any form it wants with or without the clown connection. It’s favorite form to take just happens to be the clown. Why so many connections to the other forms? Why make any connection at all? There are plenty of forms that don’t have a connection. This is even inconsistent throughout the book, as at one point it is revealed the the monster exclusively takes the form of whatever it thinks is your biggest fear. It knows what your fears are by reading your thoughts. This is demonstrably false in the case of Mike and the giant bird at the site of the exploded factory. Mike has no idea what it’s supposed to be until decades later when his father is on his deathbed and decides to tell Mike a story from his youth. He describes the same bird that appears at a chaotic event where a club burns down killing dozens of people. That bird couldn’t have been from either Mike’s thoughts or Mike’s dad’s thoughts as neither of them knew what it was.
The full background of the creature is that before the universe existed there were two beings; a giant turtle, and It. Then one day the Turtle throws up, and that’s how the universe is created. At some point It decides to wander into the puke and finds Earth. At some point the kids have a vision of the true arrival of It. They describe a spaceship that isn’t actually a spaceship that landed in the exact spot where the town of Derry will eventually be established thousands or millions of years later. Why It decided to wander into the puke and wait is never clear.
It’s actual true form is not the clown. In fact, It cannot be comprehended by the human mind so we are only seeing what our brains allow us to see. And it’s a creature that’s even older than our universe! I’m sorry, but that just doesn’t cut it for me. When things start with a small town in Maine and end on the cosmic scale, it really takes the wind out of its sails. The ONLY thing in existence from the beginning are this monster and a turtle that vomits the universe into existence. That turtle really bugs me, but I have to admit I still love the line “please don’t blame me for it; I had a stomach ache.”
The unfortunate thing is that King abandons what he already establishes. Bill Denbrough describes it as Derry. It is the city. The attitude of the town as a collective. The lust for blood. The mix of apathy and hatred towards children. While in distress and begging for help Beverly sees an elderly man fold up his newspaper and calmly walk inside. The attitude that Bill’s parents show him after Georgie’s death. The anxiety that Eddie’s mom has for him. Dorsey Corcoran’s step-father beating him to death. This makes so much more sense than “space alien from before time”. What does pre-time cosmic being even need to feed on? The book is very clear that the alien is literally feeding on the flesh of its kills. Walking through the nest during the confrontation there are many bodies that are being preserved for later consumption. So first of all, what was It’s diet before the universe existed? Then it lands on earth in what is and is not a space ship millions of years before humans evolve and colonize Maine, at which point It develops a hibernation/hunting pattern. If It’s a creature created by the energy of the city, it makes sense that it would hibernate while things are relatively peaceful and feed when tragedies start to re-occur. It would be feeding on the energy of Derry itself.
It shouldn’t be the one that brings about the disasters. The disasters should be the one to bring about It. The shootout with the gangsters had nothing to do with the monster. The monster joined in after everyone already started shooting. Pennywise only shows up after the gay man gets murdered on the bridge. The clown doesn’t start any of this himself. The 300 settlers that disappear could be re-tooled into a human tragedy tale that brings about the birth of the creature. Settlers that become so engrossed in their own fears that they end up slaughtering each other bringing about the birth of It.
The story begins with Derry, Maine and its citizens. That’s how the story should end as well. King, at times, seemed more concerned with giving his fictional city a history than he was with progressing the story line. Ending the story on a personal level with the city would bring meaning to what ends up being unnecessary backstory.
I’m okay with reading a book that isn’t scary. Frankly, the first thousand pages or so are pretty great. The characters and the world building are fantastic. They put you in the kids shoes, and you can relate to them really well. The problem the book has is that there are more than 1,100 pages, with the last 100 or so pages being pretty garbage. The worst part is that all King needed to do was not abandon everything that he set up in the first thousand pages.
Jumping back and forth between the timelines, one thing is stressed throughout the novel: how important it is that The Loser’s Club has seven members. How they only felt like a complete unit when Mike finally joins the gang. How they couldn’t defeat the monster the first time without all seven of them together, and how weak they felt in comparison when they came back decades later without Stan. This turns out to be another abandoned concept.
What I thought while reading when the bully Henry Bowers makes his return was that Henry would take Stan’s place. The annoying thing is that King set this up perfectly. Henry’s only two friends in the world get killed as kids in the crossfire by the creature. Mike nearly convinces Henry that It is his enemy as well. If Henry gets converted to the Loser’s Club to complete the circle, his story becomes that of the unlikely hero, rather than the insane bully with the weakest character conclusion in the book. He dies of shock when he sees It face to face… And even that is only mentioned in an aside. This rule of seven turned out to be meaningless in both encounters with It. There was no reason to have seven characters. Therefore there was no reason to have a child orgy scene. Did I forget to mention that the kids have an orgy in the sewer after their first face off with It?
The showdown was actually only between two people. The alien spider and one member of the Loser’s Club. Which brings me to my next problem:
When you are trying to establish a set of rules for the conclusion of your book, I suggest you not lie directly to the face of your reader on two different occasions.
The rules that are established in the Ritual of Chud (which is a ritual that the native Americans came up with to battle their own It’s. How many holes does this poke into the story? How many It’s were there? Were they only in North America? Were they all older than time?) say that one person faces off with the monster by biting on their tongue while they bite yours. Then you both telepathically tell jokes to each other until somebody laughs. I would be totally fine with the story that Bill reads out of a book to be slightly inaccurate. The problem is that It tells Richie as an adult before their last face off “you’ll never be able to think of the right jokes.” They didn’t tell any jokes the first time when they were kids. So Stephen lies to us twice, and we’re still counting. The tongue itself is a telepathic tongue and you “bite down” with what isn’t entirely clear. Your convictions, I believe is what he’s going for here. In the adult showdown they show that you can even have multiple people bite down on It’s tongue, as Bill is saved by Richie.
I believe this is bordering on deus ex machina. Creating more tension and excitement in having your main character start to lose, only to be saved by bending the rules as you go. Though the ritual of Chud in the first place is just lame. The Club has to face It and defeat It together. That is how Stephen writes the book for the first nine hundred and however many pages, only to abandon it when the time comes. The rest of the kids during the ritual are just standing around the room and watching Bill and the space spider sit in a trance.
The book does not have a happy ending, which I believe is the correct way to go after a story like this. It’s still not a good ending. They defeat the monster by thinking good thoughts. I believe the correct ending is that it doesn’t end. The energy of the group, proven to be a powerful thing when Mike needed help, would make sense to repress It until it’s next cycle. Which I believe should be the conclusion. The realization that there’s nothing they can to do to stop it completely. Only suppress it for another 30 years; and by that time they would be too old or dead to do anything. And the feeding would continue.
