Progress Report No. 1
May 24, 2000
IT is my fourth Stephen King novel to read. First, I read The Green Mile, after seeing the movie. Wow! Was I impressed in the movie and the book. Next, I read The Stand. This I read before watching the movie, and though the movie followed the story closely, the book is much, much more gripping. Soon after reading The Stand, I read The Dead Zone. It was so good, I had to read another, and I was getting down to nothing left but the scary ones. Darn if I didn't pick a winner in IT. Not only have I found it to be scary, well-written, but also a very good thing to use in telling my kids the story as I go along.
They are ages 11 and 10, so they are near in age to the characters in the book that so many bad things happen to. It's tough relating to kids on a daily basis. If I can read stories and enjoy them listening with real interest to me tell them about it, I feel like I've discovered a gold mine. Of course, they read too, but they aren't yet up to speed on 1000+page book--in addition to their reading assignments at school.
Before you call me cruel to children, let me tell you that my kids just loved letting ME go in to the Alien Encounter exhibit at Disney World this last January, and letting me tell them all about it when I got out. They enjoyed every detail, but even knowing what it was all about, they still wouldn't go in even though their tickets were already bought. I guess it'll have to be another time for Alien Encounter. They do seem interested in IT, though.
The story takes place in Derry, Maine, a small seacoast town. The whole town seems to have a haunted history. Way back, while Indians were still around, the whole population of around 300 or so suddenly disappeared in a single day. Nothing seemed disturbed except there was one burnt house in the middle of town. It didn't appear to have been the work of the Indians, but that was the only thing the chronicles hinted might have been the cause.
The story begins in 1957, with the death of a young boy out sailing his paper boat his brother and he made one rainy day. He encounters a clown in the storm drain-with balloons. The clown offers the kid back the boat that sailed down there, and when the boy reaches for it, the clown turns into a monster so horrible-looking the kid goes insane at first sight, just as the monster yanks off his arm. The kid bleeds to death before a neighbor, who hears his scream, runs over to find him dead.
There is a subsequent similar meeting with this monster by others in a scene set in 1984. This subsequent reappearance of IT causes the town librarian to start making calls to his old childhood friends, who live all over the country now, doing different and interesting, normal things. With one exception, they all suddenly drop what they are doing and head for Derry.
They all have different stories to tell, and in these the puzzle starts getting put together about what happened with this monster and these kids right after the kid lost his arm and other things began happening. Why did they promise to come back "if it started happening again?" What did they do to stop it, a ring of seven kids? What can or will they do now? Stay tuned.
The numerous mention of kids-eye-view social life and memories of the fifties, and times since then, make this book remarkable in even a "side" benefit to the fascinating main drama of the story. King did this very well in The Dead Zone, too, from the viewpoint of young schoolteacher characters. King's characters and I are near the same age, so it has been a special treat for me. The realistic intricate detail of the characters' lives and memories do add to the pages, but who cares as long as it reads well, right?
© 2000 Herman Fontenot
My name is Herman, and my e-mail address is: kfonteno@flash.net.
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