...my work here is done for the dayJeebus! Scared crap out a me..
Thanks for the welcome though!
....Reading "It" - Thoughts on each chapter SPOILERS
- Thread starter Rick Aucoin
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Part 2 June 1958
Chapter 8 - Georgie's Room and the House on Neibolt Street
Now we’re with Richard Tozier (of the many Voices) as our modern era character who’s flashing back to 1958 so he’s our connection for the narrator in this chapter. And what a chapter it is! This is a LONG chapter indeed!
So, they get in trouble for the dam. They get a bit of a lesson on how the rainwater and greywater sewers of the town work (figure that’s important in the story? Maybe?). But there's a problem with how the author explains this stuff. Where it seems he's gotten something wrong, basically.
One thing he’s got to get straight though is that grey water doesn’t include people’s urine. Black water outflow is from the toilets. Grey water outflow is from all the rest of your house. Yes, sewer systems are usually divided into black water handling and grey water handling (yes, I worked in city utilities, water dept. For some years). How do they do this? Well, the plumbing coming out of your house runs your toilets to one pipe leaving your property, that’s the black water outflow. All of the other drains in your house, be they sinks in the bathroom, the kitchen, drain hoses on the washing machine or the dishwasher, all of those lines go to another outflow pipe, grey water.
So which of those is going to have all of the urine? The black water line. Because that’s where everyone pees, in their TOILETS.
This chapter saying that the grey water line has the town’s pee in it makes me wonder why the hell these weird people in Maine pee in their bathroom sinks.
Anywah, that struck me as an odd thing, like maybe even an error on the author’s part. But I’m not going to jump on it and assume he screwed up. Maybe I just don’t know all the facts.
But it IS a very odd thing. Grey water is everything BUT the toilets. Which means that grey water isn’t urine sewer. It’s old soapy water from the washing machine. It’s drain water from the kitchen sink. It can still be quite gross but it's’ NOT “sewage’ in the sense people think when they think the word “sewage”.
Anyway, the boys have to tear down the dam and so they do.
On the way home Richie of the Many Voices does what I (and Bill) can’t believe: suggests they go to Bill’s house and Georgie’s room and check out the photo album.
Which is good because it lets Richie convince Bill that Bill isn’t responsible for Georgie’s death. And it also gives us one of the classic horror moments of the entire book, the photo album and seeing themselves in the old photos and moving around and the thing in the photos coming for them or pulling them in. And it cut the hell out of Bill’s fingers so they knew it wasn’t just imagination or hallucination. Now two of them have seen even more that tells them something is going on, something real, something hard core.
That was great.
Long chapter. Next Richie and Bev (yay!) and Ben go to the movies and see a double feature with werewolves and frankensteins. Then they get in a big fight with the local bullies, headed up by Psycho Henry and his friends. But unlike Ben getting beaten up alone now it’s Ben and Richie and Bev and they kinda sorta fight back. Not so much fighting back but fighting to get away and it works! So now they’re bonded by battle! Now Bev’s part of the group, sorta! Come on, now invite her to hang out with you guys at The Barrens!!
***
'Let's go down in the Barrens,' Richie proposed.
And so that was where they went . . . or where they escaped. Richie would think later that it set a pattern for the rest of the summer. The Barrens had become their place.
***
Alright, Richie! Now we’re set!
We learn Bev’s got a crush on Bill. Well, Bill’s pretty and he’s got charisma. His only problem is the stuttering thing and she doens’t mind that so much looks like. Interesting observation by Richie that Ben isn’t jealous of Bev having a crush on Bill. Because it’s just so obvious that Bill’s the guy girls should have crushes on so why would you be jealous of that? It’s certainly an odd thing and doesn’t fit my experience with mixing girls and boys into social groups, especially when there’s any attraction amongst them (and there always is SOMEWHERE).
But I’m not calling BS on it. I’m just saying it doesn’t fit my experience. The whole thing with Bev becoming a member of the group and what they all act like is 100% something I just have to trust the author with because my real world experience is 0 on this sort of thing back when I was a boy. There WERE NO GIRLS.
Then later Bill tells Richie they’re going to go check out the house at 29 Neibolt Street. Looking for the leper or the hobo or whatever IT is. And they’re bringing Bill’s dad’s pistol. Because Bill’s figured out that if the thing that scared Eddie is the same as the clown that Ben saw and the clown is responsible for killing kids then… that means the f@*^er killed Georgie. Thus, dad’s pistol.
Then, of course, Bill and Richie go after It at 29 Neibolt Street, in the basement of the old house.
What I liked: Well, again, just about everything. This is a LONG chapter, a lot of stuff happens. And all of it is awesome. The long, detailed, confrontation at 29 Neibolt with the werewolf and such is very well done and scary as hell.
And, hey, Bill Denbrough. How can you not love this kid?
***
The gun went off again with a second deafening bang. Bill Denbrough shouted, 'YOU KILLED MY BROTHER, YOU ****ER!'
***
Oh, gosh Bill, I'm a fan now, completely. I mean… that’s a man’s job you just did there, kid. Hat’s off to you, 100%. You are awesome.
What I didn’t like: Um… nothing?
What really got me: Bill, going after It, on purpose, with deliberateness. That just… really got me in the heart, man. He does what all of us hope we are man enough to do in that situation. Good on you, Bill the Badass!
I still want more Bev in the story though. We’re still going at this piecemeal. Bill and Richie instead of the Losers Club. So, come on, get it together, Club!
Onwards to Ch 9!
Chapter 8 - Georgie's Room and the House on Neibolt Street
Now we’re with Richard Tozier (of the many Voices) as our modern era character who’s flashing back to 1958 so he’s our connection for the narrator in this chapter. And what a chapter it is! This is a LONG chapter indeed!
So, they get in trouble for the dam. They get a bit of a lesson on how the rainwater and greywater sewers of the town work (figure that’s important in the story? Maybe?). But there's a problem with how the author explains this stuff. Where it seems he's gotten something wrong, basically.
One thing he’s got to get straight though is that grey water doesn’t include people’s urine. Black water outflow is from the toilets. Grey water outflow is from all the rest of your house. Yes, sewer systems are usually divided into black water handling and grey water handling (yes, I worked in city utilities, water dept. For some years). How do they do this? Well, the plumbing coming out of your house runs your toilets to one pipe leaving your property, that’s the black water outflow. All of the other drains in your house, be they sinks in the bathroom, the kitchen, drain hoses on the washing machine or the dishwasher, all of those lines go to another outflow pipe, grey water.
So which of those is going to have all of the urine? The black water line. Because that’s where everyone pees, in their TOILETS.
This chapter saying that the grey water line has the town’s pee in it makes me wonder why the hell these weird people in Maine pee in their bathroom sinks.
Anywah, that struck me as an odd thing, like maybe even an error on the author’s part. But I’m not going to jump on it and assume he screwed up. Maybe I just don’t know all the facts.
But it IS a very odd thing. Grey water is everything BUT the toilets. Which means that grey water isn’t urine sewer. It’s old soapy water from the washing machine. It’s drain water from the kitchen sink. It can still be quite gross but it's’ NOT “sewage’ in the sense people think when they think the word “sewage”.
Anyway, the boys have to tear down the dam and so they do.
On the way home Richie of the Many Voices does what I (and Bill) can’t believe: suggests they go to Bill’s house and Georgie’s room and check out the photo album.
Which is good because it lets Richie convince Bill that Bill isn’t responsible for Georgie’s death. And it also gives us one of the classic horror moments of the entire book, the photo album and seeing themselves in the old photos and moving around and the thing in the photos coming for them or pulling them in. And it cut the hell out of Bill’s fingers so they knew it wasn’t just imagination or hallucination. Now two of them have seen even more that tells them something is going on, something real, something hard core.
That was great.
Long chapter. Next Richie and Bev (yay!) and Ben go to the movies and see a double feature with werewolves and frankensteins. Then they get in a big fight with the local bullies, headed up by Psycho Henry and his friends. But unlike Ben getting beaten up alone now it’s Ben and Richie and Bev and they kinda sorta fight back. Not so much fighting back but fighting to get away and it works! So now they’re bonded by battle! Now Bev’s part of the group, sorta! Come on, now invite her to hang out with you guys at The Barrens!!
***
'Let's go down in the Barrens,' Richie proposed.
And so that was where they went . . . or where they escaped. Richie would think later that it set a pattern for the rest of the summer. The Barrens had become their place.
***
Alright, Richie! Now we’re set!
We learn Bev’s got a crush on Bill. Well, Bill’s pretty and he’s got charisma. His only problem is the stuttering thing and she doens’t mind that so much looks like. Interesting observation by Richie that Ben isn’t jealous of Bev having a crush on Bill. Because it’s just so obvious that Bill’s the guy girls should have crushes on so why would you be jealous of that? It’s certainly an odd thing and doesn’t fit my experience with mixing girls and boys into social groups, especially when there’s any attraction amongst them (and there always is SOMEWHERE).
But I’m not calling BS on it. I’m just saying it doesn’t fit my experience. The whole thing with Bev becoming a member of the group and what they all act like is 100% something I just have to trust the author with because my real world experience is 0 on this sort of thing back when I was a boy. There WERE NO GIRLS.
Then later Bill tells Richie they’re going to go check out the house at 29 Neibolt Street. Looking for the leper or the hobo or whatever IT is. And they’re bringing Bill’s dad’s pistol. Because Bill’s figured out that if the thing that scared Eddie is the same as the clown that Ben saw and the clown is responsible for killing kids then… that means the f@*^er killed Georgie. Thus, dad’s pistol.
Then, of course, Bill and Richie go after It at 29 Neibolt Street, in the basement of the old house.
What I liked: Well, again, just about everything. This is a LONG chapter, a lot of stuff happens. And all of it is awesome. The long, detailed, confrontation at 29 Neibolt with the werewolf and such is very well done and scary as hell.
And, hey, Bill Denbrough. How can you not love this kid?
***
The gun went off again with a second deafening bang. Bill Denbrough shouted, 'YOU KILLED MY BROTHER, YOU ****ER!'
***
Oh, gosh Bill, I'm a fan now, completely. I mean… that’s a man’s job you just did there, kid. Hat’s off to you, 100%. You are awesome.
What I didn’t like: Um… nothing?
What really got me: Bill, going after It, on purpose, with deliberateness. That just… really got me in the heart, man. He does what all of us hope we are man enough to do in that situation. Good on you, Bill the Badass!
I still want more Bev in the story though. We’re still going at this piecemeal. Bill and Richie instead of the Losers Club. So, come on, get it together, Club!
Onwards to Ch 9!
Damn if you aren't making me want to read this again, for the umpteenth time.
I know I recognize your name and picture...are you in music? Writer? It will come to me, I know.
I know I recognize your name and picture...are you in music? Writer? It will come to me, I know.
THere was the make up guy, Kevyn Aucoin.Damn if you aren't making me want to read this again, for the umpteenth time.
I know I recognize your name and picture...are you in music? Writer? It will come to me, I know.
Rereading IT myself, and wanted to provide my thoughts on this. Chapter 2 illustrates the attitudes of adults towards the strange circumstances surrounding the many deaths and disappearances in the town of Derry. It gives us a look into the inextricable relationship between It/Pennywise and the town of Derry itself -- how much a part of the town and how embedded in the fears and psyche of its folk It has become. The adults refuse to acknowledge It because of how crazy it sounds to do so -- the cops know it will ruin their case when prosecuting the punks who beat up Adrian Mellon and pushed him off the bridge, so they ignore it, and Don Hagarty never testifies to having seen the clown under the bridge. In his talks with the cops, though, Hagarty makes it very clear exactly how he feels about Derry. The town itself is a scary place.
The lines you quoted are great -- the imagery of a "dead strumpet with maggots squirming out of her cooze" is... well, vivid. And it foreshadows some of the elements of sexual perversion that come into play later. But I also really love this exchange, which I think is just as revealing:
"...and the clown looked back. I saw its eyes, and all at once I understood who it was."
"Who was it, Don?" Harold Gardener asked softly.
"It was Derry," Don Hagarty said. "It was this town."
"And what did you do then?" It was Reeves.
"I ran, you dumb ****," Hagarty said, and burst into tears.
I think it's important to know, like I said, how inextricably tied It is to the town of Derry, because in the next chapter, Six Phone Calls, most of our cast has done the same thing as Don. As adults, except Mike, they got the **** out of Derry...
Got it. You sell yourself short--you're a good writer. And I'm off topic and I'll hush up nowAnd a hockey player in Canada but that's as close to fame as I ever brushed.
Part 2 June 1958
Chapter 9 - Cleaning Up
Gah, okay, we start this chapter from modern era Bev’s POV. It’s already hard to read anything from her POV because of how horrifying her situation with her abusive husband is and how she constantly enables that horror. It’s just depressing and horrifying all at once but… it is what it is I suppose.
We get to see her and her father, who’s unbelievable. He hits her in the arm so hard it leaves bruises the next day then hits her in the stomach hard enough to knock the breath out of her. Why? Because she screamed in the bathroom. Wow, what a crime.
I hated, hated, his line after she lied about why she screamed. She lied and said she saw a spider. His reply:
'Oh' He smiled a little at her now, as if pleased by this explanation. 'Was that it? Damn! If you'd told me, Beverly, I never would have hit you. All girls are scared of spiders. Sam Hill! Why didn't you speak up?'
Unreal! Like any other reason was a good enough reason to be hitting her, you ****ing *******!
I’ve spent my adult life being daddy to all daughters. Every scene with Al Marsh makes me sick at my stomach. It literally nauseates me.
She felt her love for him. I never hit you when you didn't deserve it, Beverly, he told her once when she had cried out that some punishment had been unfair. And surely that had to be true...
I swear, I hate Al Marsh more than I hate anyone else in this book, even more than Patrick Hockstetter or Henry Bower. Reading through this and later chapters with him in them I can feel the hate for him come up so strong it almost takes my breath away and it brings tears to my eyes more than once. Credit to Stephen King, I guess.
The boys coming over and helping clean up the blood in the bathroom was awesome. And speaking of the blood in the bathroom, the symbolism there wasn’t exactly subtle, was it? The only girl in the group and terror of unexpected blood all over the bathroom? Yeah, we get it, Mr. King.
Oh, and we get to hear about the friggin’ Standpipe. This utterly creeps me out and here and later in this chapter when Stan tells his story of encountering IT at the Standpipe just… really gets to me. I worked for a city municipal water department and stood looking down into more than a few deep and dark pools of very still water in ground tanks and standpipes and such and they always, always, creeped me the hell out. I’d have nightmares back then of getting stuck in one of the ground tanks, holding onto the metal rungs that make the only flaw in the otherwise smooth walls, but unable to open the lid above the rungs because they’re locked, don’t you know.
So, yeah, I didn’t much appreciate the Standpipe section of this chapter. :/
The Second Interlude is at the end of this chapter, also, since this is the end of Part 2 June of 1958. This is the story of the Black Hole as told to Mike Hanlon by his dad. This story was so immediate and clear that it just draws more attention to the idea that Stephen King might be a brilliant novelist, but he’s a GENIUS short story teller. He comes up with these occasional digressions in this book (The Black Hole fire, the section where we get to know Patrick Hockstetter just before he’s killed, some others) where the story just falls away completely and you’re THERE. Sometimes it’s painfully real, so much so you want to turn away. But yeah, it’s surely genius.
What I liked: I hate that I have to like how much I hate Al Marsh. I must give credit to the author for creating a character I hate so much. The incredible narration of the Black Hole story… I was simply floored by that by the end of it. Words fail to illustrate how impressed I am by this chapter all in all.
Chapter 9 - Cleaning Up
Gah, okay, we start this chapter from modern era Bev’s POV. It’s already hard to read anything from her POV because of how horrifying her situation with her abusive husband is and how she constantly enables that horror. It’s just depressing and horrifying all at once but… it is what it is I suppose.
We get to see her and her father, who’s unbelievable. He hits her in the arm so hard it leaves bruises the next day then hits her in the stomach hard enough to knock the breath out of her. Why? Because she screamed in the bathroom. Wow, what a crime.
I hated, hated, his line after she lied about why she screamed. She lied and said she saw a spider. His reply:
'Oh' He smiled a little at her now, as if pleased by this explanation. 'Was that it? Damn! If you'd told me, Beverly, I never would have hit you. All girls are scared of spiders. Sam Hill! Why didn't you speak up?'
Unreal! Like any other reason was a good enough reason to be hitting her, you ****ing *******!
I’ve spent my adult life being daddy to all daughters. Every scene with Al Marsh makes me sick at my stomach. It literally nauseates me.
She felt her love for him. I never hit you when you didn't deserve it, Beverly, he told her once when she had cried out that some punishment had been unfair. And surely that had to be true...
I swear, I hate Al Marsh more than I hate anyone else in this book, even more than Patrick Hockstetter or Henry Bower. Reading through this and later chapters with him in them I can feel the hate for him come up so strong it almost takes my breath away and it brings tears to my eyes more than once. Credit to Stephen King, I guess.
The boys coming over and helping clean up the blood in the bathroom was awesome. And speaking of the blood in the bathroom, the symbolism there wasn’t exactly subtle, was it? The only girl in the group and terror of unexpected blood all over the bathroom? Yeah, we get it, Mr. King.
Oh, and we get to hear about the friggin’ Standpipe. This utterly creeps me out and here and later in this chapter when Stan tells his story of encountering IT at the Standpipe just… really gets to me. I worked for a city municipal water department and stood looking down into more than a few deep and dark pools of very still water in ground tanks and standpipes and such and they always, always, creeped me the hell out. I’d have nightmares back then of getting stuck in one of the ground tanks, holding onto the metal rungs that make the only flaw in the otherwise smooth walls, but unable to open the lid above the rungs because they’re locked, don’t you know.
So, yeah, I didn’t much appreciate the Standpipe section of this chapter. :/
The Second Interlude is at the end of this chapter, also, since this is the end of Part 2 June of 1958. This is the story of the Black Hole as told to Mike Hanlon by his dad. This story was so immediate and clear that it just draws more attention to the idea that Stephen King might be a brilliant novelist, but he’s a GENIUS short story teller. He comes up with these occasional digressions in this book (The Black Hole fire, the section where we get to know Patrick Hockstetter just before he’s killed, some others) where the story just falls away completely and you’re THERE. Sometimes it’s painfully real, so much so you want to turn away. But yeah, it’s surely genius.
What I liked: I hate that I have to like how much I hate Al Marsh. I must give credit to the author for creating a character I hate so much. The incredible narration of the Black Hole story… I was simply floored by that by the end of it. Words fail to illustrate how impressed I am by this chapter all in all.
Part 3 - Grownups
Chapter 10 The Reunion
So, Part 3! Now the s&(+ is really gonna hit the fan.
Just starting this chapter I felt butterflies in my stomach. That’s how much anticipation had been built up by this point. Sure, we’re not at the climax yet, that’s well on at the end of Part 4 really. But still, the anticipation of what was going to happen now that all (but Stan) of the Losers Club are back and sitting down at a table looking at each other… oh yeah, very exciting!
I like how Mike is everyone’s guide here, still. Not only was he the guy watching the canary in the coal mine (not really a lighthouse watcher, which is what both Ben and Bill call him in this chapter, but more the guy watching to see if the canary dies) all these years but he’s also the guy who is organizing and shepherding his old friends through at least the start of their new relationships and their new mission. Without the work Mike put into this, work put into it AFTER calling them all back to Derry, things would have been much more difficult for all of them. All of the club, including Bill, are here feeling a bit lost and unsure of what the hell they are supposed to do and it’s Mike who does them all the great good service of providing them with simple “next steps” so that they can get used to being on the bicycle again, so to say.
He starts out by simply being the go-between. The person everyone is speaking to on the phone. The ONLY person they are speaking to on the phone. Due to the magical amnesia they’re all inflicted with (and yes, I know there’s an inworld reason for that amnesia but it’s also pretty damn convenient for the purposes of building and sustaining dramatic tension where if they all remembered 1958 still half the story would be sorta pointless and certainly a lot less dramatic!) most of them barely remember each other, at least in detail. Mike, since he was designated by chance as the one who stayed behind - and it was chance, not so much a choice by the kids; they didn’t move away from Derry to get away from Derry; all of them were moved away from Derry by their parents in the way that kids get moved around by their parents - Mike’s the one who’s done things like taking newspaper subscriptions in the towns they all settled in just so he could keep an eye on the obituaries. He kept up with their phone numbers (more difficult back in the days before you could just take your phone number with you to your next home in the next town, like you can now). And now that they’re all here he’s arranging things like where they’ll all meet for their initial reunion and what they all need to be briefed on as far as current events goes and what they ought to do once their initial reunion is done. Sure, Bill’s the leader of the Losers Club but at least here at first he’s not really capable of doing what needs to be done.
So Mike is the guy who stands in that role and he does a damn good job of it. In some ways Mike is an underappreciated character, I think. Even at the emotional climax of the novel (yes, that scene, the one that drives so many people crazy because they’re all 11 years old) Mike gets the short shrift.
***
What matters is love and desire. Here in this dark is as good a place as any. Better than some, maybe.
Mike comes to her, then Richie, and the act is repeated.
***
Yah, Richie sort of gets short shrift there too, but dang, Mike just gets his name mentioned in passing? Ouch. Part of the fact that he's black and it's sex with a white girl so the author just lets it be mentioned so that there's less attention to that potential flash point fact?
Anyway. Underappreciation of Mike, it’s a thing.
So here he sets up their reunion lunch at a nice restaurant in the new part of town in the most 80’s sort of place imaginable: at the restaurants surrounding the new mall! Hehheh, so very 80’s.
I was a little disappointed that Mike didn’t ask Bill on the phone before they all arrived in Derry how he wanted to go about their initial meeting. Like, if it’s on Mike’s $11,000/year salary they’ll have to meet for lunch at McDonald’s. There’s no way Mike could afford to take 6 people out to Jade of the Orient with a private room for the dinner. Surely he talked it over with Bill? Made sure the expense would be taken care of? I guess that’s just something that happened off screen but it struck me as something missing, a detail that would make it feel more real to me I guess.
Mike and Bill talking here at the first of the chapter is about the only reference made to how this feels a bit like going to your school class reunion.
***
'Just like when you go back to your high-school reunion ten years later, huh?' Bill said. 'You get to see who got fat, who got bald, who got k-kids.'
'I wish it was like that,' Mike said.
***
We get a bit of a tour of the modern Derry as Bill rides to the lunch in a taxi driven by a typically Stephen King-ish over-character’d taxi driver. “Pardon my French if you’re a religious man.” But caricature cabbie or not it’s still an interesting scene, seeing how the town has changed.
We learn the mall is built atop the ruins of the Ironworks. But no clues if there’s any bad juju hanging around due to that.
I liked that Bill hesitated outside the door to their private room at the Jade of the Orient. Who wouldn’t be a bit nervous, wondering what he’d see and wondering how they’d see him? He just went through a shock seeing Mike, who looks over 40 instead of just 38. Mike gets it, he understands and probably went through similar with each of the others. Since he’s the guy who stayed to watch the canary Mike got to keep more of his memories, got to keep the knowledge of what they did in 1958 in a more immediate way. So yeah, he looks older, that knowledge is heavy. But he had to keep it so he could do this job, guiding the rest of them to this lunch and to what to do next, at least till today, this day where they have their reunion finally.
When Bill enters and sees everyone, it’s a Moment, eh?
***
It was one of the strangest moments Bill Denbrough ever passed in his life.
***
And that’s saying something.
I love the lunch and their interactions. I really like how Richie falls back into his habit from adolescence of casually insulting people and here at 38 he pulls up short and apologizes for being such an ass where at 11 he had to be told he was being an ass. He’s shocked at how rude he was to Eddie in a casual insult he just throws out there. It draws a distinction between how kids are with each other and how adults are with each other, even adults who are friends and comfortable around each other are a damn sight more nice than kids are.
We get one of those awesome digressions, one of those little side stories here. The story of how Ben lost all his weight. It’s a great story and it ends with Bill saying something that didn’t ring quite right to me. Because while I understand why it was written it seems like something far too rude for Bill to actually say. At the end of the story Bill says to Ben,'All of that sounds wonderful, Ben . . . but the writer in me wonders if any kid ever really talked like that.'
He really just called Ben a liar to his face like that? (No one takes it like that, which is also a bit odd?)
But Ben didn’t take it that way and his answer is very telling for what life was likely like for all of the Losers (except Mike) as they moved away from Derry and went on with their lives after 1958.
***
“I doubt if any kid who hadn't been through the things we went through ever did,' he said. 'But I said them . . . and I meant them.”
***
And that’s a statement about how they were all marked by what happened. They were all far more adult than their peers by the time they all reached 7th grade and likely were more mature and focused than their peers for many years. This likely added to their success in life, where they all seemed to do quite well for themselves (except Bev, who might have made $$ but who let an abusive ass take credit for it and she continued to live in a miserable abusive situation).
They talk about how Derry is still far above the national average in deaths and missing people, how violent the place is. Mike explains all of this so they understand the new uptick in deaths and disappearances are noteworthy. So noteworthy that someone finally brings up something that had been bothering me greatly:
I had noticed that there wasn’t any big attention paid to all of these deaths. And that simply isn’t plausible. We’ve made national villians out of serial killers who “only” killed 4 or 5 people. For nine to have died so far in Derry in this one year and no one to have heard about it? That’s just not plausible. As Bev says.
***
It can't be!' Beverly cried. 'I would have read about it in the paper . . . seen it on the news! When that crazy cop killed all those women in Castle Rock, Maine . . . and those children that were murdered in Atlanta . . . '
***
So they talk about that and I was glad they did. Helped settle that issue, reassured me that the author didn’t expect me to just not notice that sort of thing. I always react badly when authors expect me to be an idiot.
And they find out It wants them to come back now that It is back healthy again after the events of July 1958. “Come home come home come home” written in the blood of victims.
They talk about how all of them (except Mike) are wealthy far beyond statistical norms. How none of them have children, another fact far outside statistical norms.
It’s a great meeting and I very much enjoyed reading it. Good chapter, very good.
And Bill the Badass. Of course.
***
He raised his hand slowly and said, 'Let's kill It. This time let's really kill It.'
***
Still the badass, ol’ Bill is!
Gruesome horror scene with the fortune cookies was nicely done if a bit predictable. Then Mike offers the last bit of leadership needed from him now that the group is really back together and have all reasserted their intention to kill It. He suggests they all wander about the town for the day and meet at the library that evening to talk about next steps.
I read that and thought “Oh, man, that’s a TERRIBLE idea!! No splitting up!!!” Hehheh. But yeah, I get it. They need to see what It has to say to them, in a way, and starting out apart, so that they can see what It has to say by themselves, before coming together and meeting to plan their next steps that night, it’s a good idea ultimately.
But I was SURE Mikie would end up dead before the meeting that night. He’d done everything he needed to do, his role was complete, so it felt like at the end of the Jade of the Orient lunch he stepped outside, put on a red shirt, and walked off to his sure doom. Fortunately, I was wrong.
Great chapter. Just really loved it!
Chapter 10 The Reunion
So, Part 3! Now the s&(+ is really gonna hit the fan.
Just starting this chapter I felt butterflies in my stomach. That’s how much anticipation had been built up by this point. Sure, we’re not at the climax yet, that’s well on at the end of Part 4 really. But still, the anticipation of what was going to happen now that all (but Stan) of the Losers Club are back and sitting down at a table looking at each other… oh yeah, very exciting!
I like how Mike is everyone’s guide here, still. Not only was he the guy watching the canary in the coal mine (not really a lighthouse watcher, which is what both Ben and Bill call him in this chapter, but more the guy watching to see if the canary dies) all these years but he’s also the guy who is organizing and shepherding his old friends through at least the start of their new relationships and their new mission. Without the work Mike put into this, work put into it AFTER calling them all back to Derry, things would have been much more difficult for all of them. All of the club, including Bill, are here feeling a bit lost and unsure of what the hell they are supposed to do and it’s Mike who does them all the great good service of providing them with simple “next steps” so that they can get used to being on the bicycle again, so to say.
He starts out by simply being the go-between. The person everyone is speaking to on the phone. The ONLY person they are speaking to on the phone. Due to the magical amnesia they’re all inflicted with (and yes, I know there’s an inworld reason for that amnesia but it’s also pretty damn convenient for the purposes of building and sustaining dramatic tension where if they all remembered 1958 still half the story would be sorta pointless and certainly a lot less dramatic!) most of them barely remember each other, at least in detail. Mike, since he was designated by chance as the one who stayed behind - and it was chance, not so much a choice by the kids; they didn’t move away from Derry to get away from Derry; all of them were moved away from Derry by their parents in the way that kids get moved around by their parents - Mike’s the one who’s done things like taking newspaper subscriptions in the towns they all settled in just so he could keep an eye on the obituaries. He kept up with their phone numbers (more difficult back in the days before you could just take your phone number with you to your next home in the next town, like you can now). And now that they’re all here he’s arranging things like where they’ll all meet for their initial reunion and what they all need to be briefed on as far as current events goes and what they ought to do once their initial reunion is done. Sure, Bill’s the leader of the Losers Club but at least here at first he’s not really capable of doing what needs to be done.
So Mike is the guy who stands in that role and he does a damn good job of it. In some ways Mike is an underappreciated character, I think. Even at the emotional climax of the novel (yes, that scene, the one that drives so many people crazy because they’re all 11 years old) Mike gets the short shrift.
***
What matters is love and desire. Here in this dark is as good a place as any. Better than some, maybe.
Mike comes to her, then Richie, and the act is repeated.
***
Yah, Richie sort of gets short shrift there too, but dang, Mike just gets his name mentioned in passing? Ouch. Part of the fact that he's black and it's sex with a white girl so the author just lets it be mentioned so that there's less attention to that potential flash point fact?
Anyway. Underappreciation of Mike, it’s a thing.
So here he sets up their reunion lunch at a nice restaurant in the new part of town in the most 80’s sort of place imaginable: at the restaurants surrounding the new mall! Hehheh, so very 80’s.
I was a little disappointed that Mike didn’t ask Bill on the phone before they all arrived in Derry how he wanted to go about their initial meeting. Like, if it’s on Mike’s $11,000/year salary they’ll have to meet for lunch at McDonald’s. There’s no way Mike could afford to take 6 people out to Jade of the Orient with a private room for the dinner. Surely he talked it over with Bill? Made sure the expense would be taken care of? I guess that’s just something that happened off screen but it struck me as something missing, a detail that would make it feel more real to me I guess.
Mike and Bill talking here at the first of the chapter is about the only reference made to how this feels a bit like going to your school class reunion.
***
'Just like when you go back to your high-school reunion ten years later, huh?' Bill said. 'You get to see who got fat, who got bald, who got k-kids.'
'I wish it was like that,' Mike said.
***
We get a bit of a tour of the modern Derry as Bill rides to the lunch in a taxi driven by a typically Stephen King-ish over-character’d taxi driver.
“Pardon my French if you’re a religious man.” But caricature cabbie or not it’s still an interesting scene, seeing how the town has changed.We learn the mall is built atop the ruins of the Ironworks. But no clues if there’s any bad juju hanging around due to that.
I liked that Bill hesitated outside the door to their private room at the Jade of the Orient. Who wouldn’t be a bit nervous, wondering what he’d see and wondering how they’d see him? He just went through a shock seeing Mike, who looks over 40 instead of just 38. Mike gets it, he understands and probably went through similar with each of the others. Since he’s the guy who stayed to watch the canary Mike got to keep more of his memories, got to keep the knowledge of what they did in 1958 in a more immediate way. So yeah, he looks older, that knowledge is heavy. But he had to keep it so he could do this job, guiding the rest of them to this lunch and to what to do next, at least till today, this day where they have their reunion finally.
When Bill enters and sees everyone, it’s a Moment, eh?
***
It was one of the strangest moments Bill Denbrough ever passed in his life.
***
And that’s saying something.
I love the lunch and their interactions. I really like how Richie falls back into his habit from adolescence of casually insulting people and here at 38 he pulls up short and apologizes for being such an ass where at 11 he had to be told he was being an ass. He’s shocked at how rude he was to Eddie in a casual insult he just throws out there. It draws a distinction between how kids are with each other and how adults are with each other, even adults who are friends and comfortable around each other are a damn sight more nice than kids are.
We get one of those awesome digressions, one of those little side stories here. The story of how Ben lost all his weight. It’s a great story and it ends with Bill saying something that didn’t ring quite right to me. Because while I understand why it was written it seems like something far too rude for Bill to actually say. At the end of the story Bill says to Ben,'All of that sounds wonderful, Ben . . . but the writer in me wonders if any kid ever really talked like that.'
He really just called Ben a liar to his face like that? (No one takes it like that, which is also a bit odd?)
But Ben didn’t take it that way and his answer is very telling for what life was likely like for all of the Losers (except Mike) as they moved away from Derry and went on with their lives after 1958.
***
“I doubt if any kid who hadn't been through the things we went through ever did,' he said. 'But I said them . . . and I meant them.”
***
And that’s a statement about how they were all marked by what happened. They were all far more adult than their peers by the time they all reached 7th grade and likely were more mature and focused than their peers for many years. This likely added to their success in life, where they all seemed to do quite well for themselves (except Bev, who might have made $$ but who let an abusive ass take credit for it and she continued to live in a miserable abusive situation).
They talk about how Derry is still far above the national average in deaths and missing people, how violent the place is. Mike explains all of this so they understand the new uptick in deaths and disappearances are noteworthy. So noteworthy that someone finally brings up something that had been bothering me greatly:
I had noticed that there wasn’t any big attention paid to all of these deaths. And that simply isn’t plausible. We’ve made national villians out of serial killers who “only” killed 4 or 5 people. For nine to have died so far in Derry in this one year and no one to have heard about it? That’s just not plausible. As Bev says.
***
It can't be!' Beverly cried. 'I would have read about it in the paper . . . seen it on the news! When that crazy cop killed all those women in Castle Rock, Maine . . . and those children that were murdered in Atlanta . . . '
***
So they talk about that and I was glad they did. Helped settle that issue, reassured me that the author didn’t expect me to just not notice that sort of thing. I always react badly when authors expect me to be an idiot.
And they find out It wants them to come back now that It is back healthy again after the events of July 1958. “Come home come home come home” written in the blood of victims.
They talk about how all of them (except Mike) are wealthy far beyond statistical norms. How none of them have children, another fact far outside statistical norms.
It’s a great meeting and I very much enjoyed reading it. Good chapter, very good.
And Bill the Badass. Of course.
***
He raised his hand slowly and said, 'Let's kill It. This time let's really kill It.'
***
Still the badass, ol’ Bill is!
Gruesome horror scene with the fortune cookies was nicely done if a bit predictable. Then Mike offers the last bit of leadership needed from him now that the group is really back together and have all reasserted their intention to kill It. He suggests they all wander about the town for the day and meet at the library that evening to talk about next steps.
I read that and thought “Oh, man, that’s a TERRIBLE idea!! No splitting up!!!” Hehheh. But yeah, I get it. They need to see what It has to say to them, in a way, and starting out apart, so that they can see what It has to say by themselves, before coming together and meeting to plan their next steps that night, it’s a good idea ultimately.
But I was SURE Mikie would end up dead before the meeting that night. He’d done everything he needed to do, his role was complete, so it felt like at the end of the Jade of the Orient lunch he stepped outside, put on a red shirt, and walked off to his sure doom. Fortunately, I was wrong.
Great chapter. Just really loved it!
having read this book many times over, i'm liking the analysis. i've got a thought or two on a couple of your points. all i really have to say about this one is he's hardly the only author to ever throw a line like that out, nor in the first chapter, a lot of books open with an immediate killing. about a character never seeing another again. it's not necessarily a bad thing to me. it sets the stakes a bit early. even knowing what you're getting into the descriptions are vivid enough not to ruin it for me
Part 1 The Shadow Before
Chapter 2 - After the Festival (1984)
Things I didn't like: Eh, you can't tell what the hell this has to do with anything. The entire chapter seems just a random "Pennywise killed this gay guy, possibly by magically influencing the three thugs behavior to a degree". It's hard to see the point of it other than that, what does this chapter mean to the narrative?
And it's a bit wordy.
Things found interesting: The aforementioned reminder of what it used to be like for LGB citizens. The idea that maybe Pennywise or IT might affect people's behavior. That's not really so much mentioned as maybe being what we're seeing, so it was an interesting idea that came to me while reading this chapter.
On to chapter 3, the much longer "Six Phone Calls" chapter which introduces us to the real cast of our story...
i'm with Auturgist here. this chapter is good at establishing early exactly what kind of hold It has over the town. how deep the rot runs. and someone else i believe brought up the nature of the sacrifices that preceded and followed each cycle. the more you read along the more the chapter fits into the book, especially later at the reunion lunch when mike starts drawing parallels between the 1957-8 and 1984-5 cycles
this point, and i think i saw you make one about it being weird that they have a girl in their group (i lost it somewhere after i read it lol), i think actually were addressed by king. you should be far enough in your reading to have seen reference to it already as well. there was talk of the 7 of them being drawn together by an outside force. something even outside the turtle. the conclusion seemed to be that nothing was as random as it seemed. those 7 individuals for whatever reason, needed to be the ones. so even if ben found himself completely incapable of striking up friendship before, he had a little outside help in this case.
this magical bond is even addressed near the end, after the aftermath of their first fight with It, when they immediately started to drift apart until bev initiated their, um . . . rebonding. there was a little magic directing these friendships
maybe he was good at saving money lol. even so we're talking 80's prices so maybe it wasn't as bad as it sounds. i think the main reason he did it to begin with is that he knew just how disoriented the others would be after so long away and only just now coming back into their memories
i didn't take it like him calling him a liar either. let's face it, the things ben said are not your average high schoolers dialogue. i think ben's response illustrated this as well
he may have been taking as much credit as possible, but it was still under her name, i think most people were fully aware of the real talent. as mike said "the most sought after designer in such and such area" (can't remember the exact words)
Yeah, same. I'm finding so much relevance in the side stories this attempt through the novel... they interest me and seem to fit way more than they did when I was 10.
Recent studies in human memory indicate that our memories are less like photographs we store in our mind than paintings our minds produce each time we think about them. Each time we remember something, our memory of it deteriorates. We remember fewer of the details that are irrelevant to why we are recalling it in the first place, until it's less a representation of what happened and more a representation of how we feel about what happened. And feelings... well, they often change over time as well, so... Both of these thoughts can be terrifying in their own right, which is why I love the way memory plays into IT.