A part of the book I always found to be pure genius

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raperm

Active Member
Aug 22, 2016
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I've always loved King, and this book in particular is one of my all-time favorites. King is right up there with Patrick O'Brien for me in terms of writing style and character development, though the two couldn't write material any further apart, I guess.

The book is a masterpiece, in my humble opinion, and not just because it was a cracking good story and because he had a fully developed set of characters at two different ages. It was just a damn good idea, from start to finish, and for all it's complexity it's really just a simple tale of good vs. evil, but extraordinarily well told.

But one part of the book that always stood out to me as just amazingly well done was the incorporation of It having to deal with It's greatest power also being It's greatest liability. As King says in one of It's POV scenes:

"If 10,000 people imagine vampires are real, then there will be someone - probably a child - who will imagine the stake necessary to kill them."

The way that whole concept was done really sort of made the book for me. It's the only way anyone could possibly win such a confrontation, and King was dead on that kids would be the ones with the imagination and BELIEF necessary to do it. A werewolf is after you? Every werewolf movie made says silver will do the trick. They believe it without question, and hey, it works! And then Eddie with his "battery acid" and Stan with his birds; just amazing to me that King thought all that up and wove it into such a complex story the way he did.
 

recitador

Speed Reader
Sep 3, 2016
1,750
8,264
41
I've always loved King, and this book in particular is one of my all-time favorites. King is right up there with Patrick O'Brien for me in terms of writing style and character development, though the two couldn't write material any further apart, I guess.

The book is a masterpiece, in my humble opinion, and not just because it was a cracking good story and because he had a fully developed set of characters at two different ages. It was just a damn good idea, from start to finish, and for all it's complexity it's really just a simple tale of good vs. evil, but extraordinarily well told.

But one part of the book that always stood out to me as just amazingly well done was the incorporation of It having to deal with It's greatest power also being It's greatest liability. As King says in one of It's POV scenes:

"If 10,000 people imagine vampires are real, then there will be someone - probably a child - who will imagine the stake necessary to kill them."

The way that whole concept was done really sort of made the book for me. It's the only way anyone could possibly win such a confrontation, and King was dead on that kids would be the ones with the imagination and BELIEF necessary to do it. A werewolf is after you? Every werewolf movie made says silver will do the trick. They believe it without question, and hey, it works! And then Eddie with his "battery acid" and Stan with his birds; just amazing to me that King thought all that up and wove it into such a complex story the way he did.

i always thought that ben's musings on power were rather interesting as well. bill's power over beverly because of her crush, hers over ben because of his, adults over children, his mother's boss over hers, even little kids over adults via crying until they get what it is they need. everyone at the end of the day has some sort of power over someone else, due to a relationship, a job, or something else.