Thoughts on IT.

[djm]

hello. just finished IT. Thought it was great, however I dont see the purpose of Bev giving herself to all six of the boys while trying to exit the caves under the barons. I just dont know why SK felt this was needed. Mabe someone can explain this to me. To me the best part of the book, by far, was when the adult "losers" went off on thier own after the inital get together with Mike. Very creepy...very fun.

Anyway I am very interested in SK novel chats. I new here so help me out please.

Gotta go now, I just started The Shining

[michal]

The Shinning... Mmm... Lucky you. I wish I were you - holding that fantastic unread novel with so many possibilities...

And as for Bev and that sexual incounter, I must say I haven't seen much point to it reading It at 13, and I don't today. Not that I mind it - I'm not prudent and it is just a story, and storytellers can choose what to tell, but I would have understand it better if they would all just hole hands or something.

It's a bit like one of the parts that Mr King cut out of Salem's Lot (you can find it in the uncut version at the end, as an addition of parts that were taken out), of the 16 year old girl exposing herself in a semi-erotic vampire encounter. I saw why THAT part was taken out of the original - very nicely written, but slightly too disturbing, and maybe just a bit too close to underage porn for my taste.

[Robert Gray]

That part of the book throws a large number of people. While only Sai King himself can truly answer this question with any real authority, I can give you my educated opinion. The Losers were able to fight It because they were being infused (touched if you like) by an outside agency which was allowing them to be more than just children. They were both children and adults at the same time. They needed that tinge of iron, calculation and responsibility to stand up to the monster. They likewise needed the imagination and power of being children. This is why when they returned as adults, that outside agency (the Other) put them back in touch with their childhood. That energy was back. It was Yin and Yang. As children they gained a touch of adulthood. As adults they were touched by the aegis of childhood. I'm not off on a tangent. We need to get this out of the way to tackle the sex scene.

After they defeated It the first time that outside agency started to withdraw. They were reverting to being just children. You see this in their terror and confusion. Not even Big Bill was immune. Beverly reversed that because the love they felt for each other, particularly in sexual expression, is something entirely adult. Whether you wish to believe the love they had for each other expressed in a ritualistic (sexual) act was the magic which held the Other's power to them, or whether you wish to define it as taking part in and adult act kept them in an adult mindset a little longer the end result is the same. It is probably a bit of both. Clearly Beverly was guided (as were all the Losers) into their circle for a reason (or several). Clearly this was part of it.

In closing, many people are jolted by that scene. Children having sex is not something our culture accepts. It is natural for us to find that upsetting, just as we should find it uncomfortable to think of 9-11 year old smoking. Everything must be taken in context though. This isn't a scene where an adult takes advantage of a child and has sex with her. It is loving children experimenting in a desperate situation. In context there is nothing unsettling about it.

[Lencho_of_the_Apes]

EXCELLENT analysis, RG,that''s the best idea I've seen yet on the subject of what purpose it might have served for them to do that.


HOWEVER (time for some minor nitpicking) :

Children having sex is not something our culture accepts. It is natural for us to find that upsetting, just as we should find it uncomfortable to think of 9-11 year old smoking.

We don't reallly know what's natural, we've never had access to 100% nature/00 % culture "natural" humans to examine. Everything that's described as "natural" or "common sense" or "normal" is called that because it corresponds exactly to the ideas (ideology) that our culture is based on, not because there's something inherently ''instinctual" about whatever it is.

Two more random thoughts about the Loser's group-sex scene, things that just occurred to me:

1) You notice that when Pennywise took over Bev's father and chased her through the streets, the one thing that (they) were most worried about was that Bev had started having sex with the boys she hung out with... Maybe the ability to love is one of the things that can be used as a weapon against IT...

2) Neat structural parallel between the Loser's sex-scene and the f-rt-lighting/c-rcle-j-rk scene that the Bowers gang did at the city dump...

We all float down here...

[robdraggoo]

I just finsihed reading IT myself. I had a few unanswered questions at the end. First there may have been one to many fart references or jokes. But thinking back on them I laughed at quite a bit if them. Especially cracked up when Henry and his friends were sneaking up on Mike. So, a couple of questions here.

1) we know from a few flashbacks that Henry had maybe killed his 2 freinds in the sewers. When the losers were running away from him and eventually cdame upon ITS lair, it never mentions what exaclty happened to Henry. One minute hes yelling from behind "ill get you". And then the losers escape from the sewers. If I missed something, let me know.

2) The last time we seen or heard about Tom rogan he was parked next to audra at the hotel. He did nothing. Then during the last interlude it mentions they left his body down in ITS lair with Eddies. What happened to Tom. once again if I missed something, let know.

[Robert Gray]

We don't reallly know what's natural, we've never had access to 100% nature/00 % culture "natural" humans to examine. Everything that's described as "natural" or "common sense" or "normal" is called that because it corresponds exactly to the ideas (ideology) that our culture is based on, not because there's something inherently ''instinctual" about whatever it is.

I agree with you. One could argue that whatever behavior humans engage is in is "natural" because human beings are part of the natural world. My commentary wasn't that children having sex should upset us because it is unnatural. I said it should upset us because that isn't part of our culture. Natural or unnatural is moot in that case. The culture in which you are raised largely determines what kind of behaviors will upset you.

People in the 50s probably didn't like to see little kids smoking, but they probably didn't react to an 9-11 year old lighting up any more than we do when we see young teenagers doing it. They disapproved but accepted it culturally as just something kids do. We might disapprove today of the 15-16 year old smoking but most of us will do little more than frown or say something. If we saw a 9-11 year old doing it we would likely intervene immediately. Children and sex is the same situation. Hell, what defined a child differs wildly too. In some cultures (past and present) children hardly older than the Losers are considered adults. In our present time and culture, we like to extend childhood as long as possible. We don't want our children engaging in sex, smoking, or drinking. We know it happens but we are conditioned to find it shocking.

[JohnDalglish]

Hi,

Exactly why I can't see how moving the timeline for the movie can possibly work, Robert.

Long days and pleasant nights

[Robert Gray]

Hi,

Exactly why I can't see how moving the timeline for the movie can possibly work, Robert.

Long days and pleasant nights

Yep. That is one good reason. My biggest beef with it is there is no positive reason for moving it. Sometimes there is a reason to change something in an author's work for the transition to film. The slightled altered ending of the Watchmen is a good example. However, there is no benefit whatsoever (and hence no need) to change the temporal settings of this story. It won't help people "connect" to the characters. If anything, it will make it harder to swallow. They will have to change all sorts of things because kids in the eighties would not have been frightened by the same things as the kids in the fifties. "It" would have taken different forms.

Another good reason is the fact that there is very a much smaller cultural difference between the 80s and today than there was between the 50s and the 80s. The world had moved on (as Sai King would say) from the 50s and the 80s. They truly were different worlds across time. Going from the 80s to modern day is hardly earth shaking. The video games have better graphics. You have a fully operational internet and more cable stations. Beyond that the lives of our children are pretty much the same. The story isn't about changes in the world's politics or technology. Those don't matter. It is a story about the lives of children and remembering what it was like to be a child in a different time. All that is going to be lost.

*If you want an example of the failure of this concept you need look no further than "That 80s Show" which was a spinoff of the wildly popular "That 70s Show." The shift in culture between the 70s and modern times was more than enough to give them grist for the story mill. The spinoff literally had nothing particularly interesting of different to write about.

[wally wonder]

i thought it had something to do w/bev knowing how to get them out of there. isn't that what she said to ben, who looked at her with a bewildered expression? maybe something to do with light/dark. bev said, 'i know how to bring us back together. and if we're not together we'll never get out.' ka. ben is bewildered, terrified. 'something that will bring us together forever.'

kinda ties in w/the beginning, no? they've been apart since that time. they've forgotten. they've forgotten how to get out. but then they remember. ka.

[Telltelatoo]

I just finsihed reading IT myself. I had a few unanswered questions at the end. First there may have been one to many fart references or jokes. But thinking back on them I laughed at quite a bit if them. Especially cracked up when Henry and his friends were sneaking up on Mike. So, a couple of questions here.

1) we know from a few flashbacks that Henry had maybe killed his 2 freinds in the sewers. When the losers were running away from him and eventually cdame upon ITS lair, it never mentions what exaclty happened to Henry. One minute hes yelling from behind "ill get you". And then the losers escape from the sewers. If I missed something, let me know.

2) The last time we seen or heard about Tom rogan he was parked next to audra at the hotel. He did nothing. Then during the last interlude it mentions they left his body down in ITS lair with Eddies. What happened to Tom. once again if I missed something, let know.

As I haven't read the book's end for awhile, I can't remember the exact details, but if I'm remembering correctly:
1.) Obviously Henry somehow escaped from the sewers, because he ended up in the asylum 28 years later. How he escaped seemed inconsequential, although it's likely IT was so preoccupied with the Loser's club that it didn't bother with Henry.
Another factor could be with IT's tendency to use Henry Bowers as a "puppet" of it's dirty work. IT obviously used its influence on Bowers later in the book, and possibly that influence began during his childhood years.

2.) If I'm recalling correctly, again, Tom was somehow exposed to the deadlights and driven to insanity before being killed by IT.