Hi there!
Welcome to our October Finale for Stephen King's IT.
Trigger Warning: Everything you could think of. No seriously. Including Child Sex. Yeah.
Overall
I think we're just really over this book in several ways. Like- we understand that there were drugs involved with the creation of this monster, and we also understand that it came out a few decades ago- but we're just tired. We lost interest after the intense xenophobia described in the first half, and the second half was not much better. It was probably worse.
Pennywise
The great Spider in the finale was a lot less scary than we expected, and it doesn't help that the films that came out recently intentionally made the giant creature more comedic than anything. Indeed, the book's representation of Pennywise is an embodiment of all evil in the world, including the evils that are common and taken for granted- like racism, homophobia, and sexism. What was scarier, was what came after the kids kick It's ass the first time.
All of that being said, Pennywise is still frightening- especially to children. Becoming the nightmares that kids experience on the regular - we can see how Pennywise is so frightening to someone so young. Especially as the monsters and mothers that affected them greatly as children.
Interludes
These portions of the book felt nearly just for King himself- as an exercise in world-building. But in our opinion, he just rebuilt the world we already live in. There is already racism, sexism, homophobia, assaults, bullies, gangs, domestic violence, child abuse, and more that occur every moment in the contemporary U.S., they're just more acknowledged now as opposed to when this book was released. Perhaps this book did bring an eye to those things at the time of its release, but there isn't much said in the book itself regarding the improvement of these behaviors. Just an acknowledgment of the overarching presence of the nastiness of peoples' souls.
One could argue that defeating the creature is enough of a metaphor in itself, but we don't think so. How can we be sure that the evil in the world is defeated? Well, we really can't. It's a charming thought that we can "beat the devil" like the Losers in Derry, but we can only monitor our own behaviors, can't we? IT is in us, and we have to kill it inside of ourselves to improve the world in any way. A battle of wills.
That being said, the Interludes don't do much but build upon the ugliness that lies in Derry's community, which, in our opinion as readers, wasn't necessary. We already understand that these people look away from the evils that lurk from door to door. I would say the return of Henry Bowers is that character we didn't need- because he represents the same thing that Pennywise does. He's another part of the world-building. The Interludes would have been nice if they had been a second book, or removed altogether. This book is very world-driven and less character-driven. We've found that world-building books do not suit us as readers, as we want action- not the possibility of action.
The Adults
These characters are still more boring than the kid-versions of themselves, which seemed to carry over from the first half. The book seemed more focused on the kid story more than anything anyway, which we're okay with.
This book could have been so good if so much of it had been left out or adjusted to be more well-written. We are so frustrated with the Author -it's one thing for him to have written this - and then for it to have made it through an editor and publisher is CRAZY. It needed to be reduced significantly.
The Ritual of Chüd
We had a hard time understanding this. As a "Battle of Wills," the Ritual is nebulous at best. Do we as humans truly have wills? Do children? How is a child's will, if it exists, meant to compete with the will of true evil? This is where the metaphor with IT as the evils we experience in the every day begins to make sense - that innocence, optimism, and joy lead to the defeat of hate and violence. This is hopeful for sure, yet unrealistic. Humans are incredibly selfish, including children, naturally, so to imagine a group of kids who are treated like shit to defeat true evil itself is idealistic at best.
For an adult to return and attempt the ritual again, makes much more sense- as an adult's moral compass would far overpower true evil. Granted, the childlike imagination may be gone, but that doesn't mean an adult's sheer will won't kick some ass.
The presence of the Turtle was more funny than anything to us. We understand that the Turtle is meant to represent the force of good in the universe, and therefore, the fact that it was like, "You're on your own kid," to Bill cracked us up. It did help, however, which we appreciated.
Child Orgy???
This was incredibly distasteful and strange for us as readers. For Beverly to want to give back to her child-friends by giving them her body felt extremely misogynistic for King to write. Like that's her only value as a young girl? How incredibly obtuse and stolid to implement into the story, that she comforts her male friends with sex right after defeating IT for the first time. They could have had a normal relationship and that would have been more meaningful than her suddenly turning into an object for them to use. I can kind of get where King was going with it, but then I don't. Keeping their innocence would have made more sense to us.
Conclusion
If you should choose to read this book, good luck. It's dense and frankly offensive. We likely will not be reading King again any time soon, but that's for future us to decide. Here's a detailed summary if you're interested.
With love, see you soon!
Ceraya & Brieanna
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