Haven't read enough Stephen King yet to say if it's his best work, but it's my favorite one of his so far. I listen to it every year or two - Stephen Weber absolutely destroys the audio version in the best ways. ( )

Bogen har en god begyndelse. Jeg vil investere i fortællingen. Jeg er med. Efter nogle 100 sider, næsten 300, er jeg ikke så begejstret mere. Jeg kan godt læse langt, det er ikke det, men lige her, med udsigt til næsten 1000 ekstra sider, sætter jeg bogen tilbage i reolen. Den er på pause, som man siger i forhold der reelt set er finito. ( )

I can’t remember what inspired me, but one day I just thought “I should re-read It“. It’s a defining book of both an author and a genre. Two two-part movies have been made about it. It’s an intrinsic part of the cultural zeitgeist. It was Halloween time. A good reader re-reads the classics every once in a while.

It’s been about twenty years since my first reading, back when I was just starting as a writer (lowercase w). This time I was able to read it with a more critical eye. The eye of an author, knowing what I know about good writing and about Stephen King’s writing. Looking at each sentence, seeing what it’s doing here.

King writes everything with a microscopic level of detail. Especially during this era when he was coked out of his gourd. I’m not sure if that’s what people were looking for in 1986, but that was when you only had three channels to watch or you could read. I do know that people don’t write like that anymore (I don’t think). They do write big books, but they don’t usually overwrite. It became King’s signature to write doorstoppers.

At a certain point, I was looking at the copyright to see if I’d accidentally picked up the special edition. It just wouldn’t end. And the fact is, there really isn’t much of a story to It. They’re mostly long vignettes about the kids getting scared or fighting their bullies or growing up in the fifties. That’s about 75% of the book. The other 25% is the adults’ storyline where they’re getting ready to return to It’s lair. That’s the actual plot. The other parts, the kids parts, just sort of meander or sit in the book statically, not particularly connected to a goal or event.

So the question is, like the Lord of the Rings, is the medium of cinema a better place for this story? Well, yes and no. You lose the detail and you lose the structure in the movie. In the book, the adult storyline is sprinkled throughout, not segregated between kid years and adult years, and I think that’s an important facet. On the other hand, movies are much better at scaring you. ( )

This iconic King novel started out very strong for me, but it started to lull a bit, with extraneous details in the Derry Interludes. I was still, however, enjoying the novel. The ending dropped my rating a bit, however, as I was perplexed and disturbed at the ending. The sewer sex scene was gross, and the rationale for it fell flat to me. I am meant to believe that the Losers Club was not tight knit after spending 1000 pages with them, thereby necessitating such an act - I simply do not buy it, and it made for an extremely bizarre narrative choice. They all go separate ways again, forgetting, which I believe is meant to showcase the tragic way we can forget and leave behind close bonds in childhood - but the magic way it's done falls a bit for me and makes me not as fond of the ending of an otherwise solid King novel. ( )

a monstrosity of a book ... both literally and figuratively ( )