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I've just got to the fourth interlude in It, so slightly ahead of some people. Just about to start jumping back-and-forth in the narrative 
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Dec 13, 2013 17:31
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Well count me in too I guess. I'm about 80% done with my current book and then I will start on IT.
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Dec 13, 2013 17:36
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I jumped the gun and started early. After the Festival, the Adrian Mellon chapter, is an amazing bit of writing. I know somebody mentioned it before, but I thought I'd bring it back up, because it's an example of what King does best: his third-person limited (sometimes omniscient) point of view that narrates the history of locations and characters without ever becoming boring. It's a hell of a trick, being able to make people come alive and be interesting, even when their stories don't matter at all to the larger narrative. But there's something else that's happening with this chapter now, something that only someone as long-term prolific as King can do, and it's a function of time. That chapter oozes a kind of Reagan-era homophobia, where even generally good guys like Harold Gardener feel a sort of low-key disgust toward the homosexual lifestyle of Adrian and Don. The whole section works as a snapshot of an ugly part of American life in the late twentieth century--it almost comes off as a piece of journalism about that time, one that's true not factually, but emotionally. That isn't to say that homophobia's gone or anything--I mean, it obviously isn't--but compared to how things were in the 1980's, it's certainly improved. And I think what gives King a lot of his legitimacy and lasting power is that he kind of lays claim to the dirty little cultural corners of whatever decade he writes about. It's a kind of 20th century American Naturalism. I think he achieved the same thing in Under the Dome, for what it's worth; he nails the partisan divide that's been so prevalent over the last decade and a half and came to a head in 2008. But he did a much better job in It. Asbury fucked around with this message at 17:54 on Dec 13, 2013 |
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Dec 13, 2013 17:50
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17 people are going to read this thing at once? Complete madness. Madness I'm all for. I mean, it's Friday the 13th and it's cold as all hell outside... plus other people have already gotten their reading going. I think it may be the right time to delve back into Derry.
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Dec 13, 2013 17:59
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So is that 19 or 20 now?
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Dec 13, 2013 18:23
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FreezingInferno posted:17 people are going to read this thing at once? Complete madness. Madness I'm all for. I mean, it's Friday the 13th and it's cold as all hell outside... plus other people have already gotten their reading going. I think it may be the right time to delve back into Derry. I'm tempted to jump on the bandwagon myself. I'll probably finish my current book on the plane tomorrow, so I can pick up IT on sunday.
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Dec 13, 2013 18:23
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Whats the full list of King stories(not just novels) that take place in Derry? I don't think its all that many, It and the recent Kennedy book are the only ones that come to mind right away. The Mist?
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Dec 13, 2013 18:31
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Basebf555 posted:Whats the full list of King stories(not just novels) that take place in Derry? I don't think its all that many, It and the recent Kennedy book are the only ones that come to mind right away. The Mist? Insomnia and Dreamcatcher immediately come to mind. I'm not sure what short stories or novellas happen in Derry.
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Dec 13, 2013 18:34
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I can't believe I'm reading IT again.
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Dec 13, 2013 18:55
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I'm in. Been a King fan for a long time and have never read IT. I also had never given The Long Walk a second thought before this thread and boy am I glad I took the advice here and read it... Amazing. Buying IT tomorrow.
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Dec 13, 2013 19:20
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I was going to start last night, but went to my shelf of Stephen King books and I realized I didn't own a copy. I have just about everything else (including both versions of The Stand), so that surprised me. I do own the movie. Though I'm going out of town next week, I'll whip by the local library and start reading a copy. My state has one of those nice library databases that includes everyone and though I'm out in the unpopulated sticks, I'll make sure one of the branches around here has it.  What have y'all started?
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Dec 13, 2013 20:18
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I haven't started poo poo. I just finished The Shining a week ago so I'm trying to burn through Doctor Sleep while everything is fresh in my mind.
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Dec 13, 2013 20:19
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I envy those of you who are reading IT for the first time.
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Dec 13, 2013 21:11
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When I first read IT, I was so terrified I had to wrap the book in a sweater and bury it in my closet every day before the sun set. I could not tolerate the idea of that book being out and free while I slept. gently caress no. But that's what you get when you read a book about a monster which kills children by antagonizing their own fears back at them, while you yourself happen to be like, 10 or 11. Thank god libraries don't enforce ages for books, I read so much King before I even hit puberty 
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Dec 13, 2013 21:59
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I started reading IT early as well and am at Bev's part of the "Six Calls" portion. And I wonder if the little things that try to stop the six from going, like Eddie's wife and Bev's husband, could be influenced by IT. But nothing really seems to try and stop Ritchie and Ben from going, so I don't think that theory holds water. Could IT control people from across the country?
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Dec 13, 2013 22:05
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Blade_of_tyshalle posted:
King's the reason I ended up becoming a novelist. First thing of his I ever read of was Cycle of the Werewolf (an illustrated version; I think I was 8 or 9) and then I went through his entire body of work one book at a time. A lot of it I put down because it wasn't all that compelling to me when I was younger--The Stand, for instance, which ended up becoming my favorite book when I was 13 or so--but King's the reason I am where I am now. I wanted to do to other people with my writing what he did to me with his own. Gonna be a sad day when he goes.
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Dec 13, 2013 22:08
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Helsing posted:I envy those of you who are reading IT for the first time. All this It talk has convinced me to put it on my Kindle devices, because I can't put my hands on my hardcover. $7.77 at Amazon seemed like a... fortuitous price.
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Dec 13, 2013 22:31
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All right, count me in for It. I've only read it once, and it's only 7.77 on Kindle right now, so I guess I'm not sleeping this weekend. Will there be a quiz after we're done? 
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Dec 13, 2013 22:34
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bean_shadow posted:I started reading IT early as well and am at Bev's part of the "Six Calls" portion. And I wonder if the little things that try to stop the six from going, like Eddie's wife and Bev's husband, could be influenced by IT. But nothing really seems to try and stop Ritchie and Ben from going, so I don't think that theory holds water. Could IT control people from across the country? I really love some of the subtler stylistic flourishes that King employs in IT. For instance, did you notice when you were reading that the narrative starts our describing Tom Rogan's perspective and then switches to Beverly's at the exact moment that she finally asserts herself and regains her agency? Details like that, or the way that, later in the book, the description of Patrick Hoeckstetter's psychology closely mirrors the psychology of IT, in that both are narcissistic sociopaths who think they are the only real things in the universes and who each feel extremely threatened by the idea that another 'real' person might actually exist really add to the depth of the book and help elevate it above being just another horror novel. As for your question... just keep reading.
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Dec 13, 2013 22:37
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Helsing posted:I really love some of the subtler stylistic flourishes that King employs in IT. For instance, did you notice when you were reading that the narrative starts our describing Tom Rogan's perspective and then switches to Beverly's at the exact moment that she finally asserts herself and regains her agency? Details like that, or the way that, later in the book, the description of Patrick Hoeckstetter's psychology closely mirrors the psychology of IT, in that both are narcissistic sociopaths who think they are the only real things in the universes and who each feel extremely threatened by the idea that another 'real' person might actually exist really add to the depth of the book and help elevate it above being just another horror novel. Tom could be described as that as well. Funny enough, I've read the whole book before but not for at least ten years. So I remember some of the memorable scenes and who dies but not the subtle literary nuances. So it'll be a fun read, I think.
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Dec 13, 2013 22:58
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Of all the mutant Not Sees, killer robots, level 4 vampires, ghouls, reborn dead kids, haunted hotels ghosts etc, I still think Patrick Hockstetter is one of Kings most terrifying creations. It was like a glimpse into Ted Bundy's brain.
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Dec 14, 2013 01:00
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I just started reading and already I'm picking up on stuff I didn't notice first time around - like George recognizing the turtle on the Turtle Wax can, but not knowing where from.
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Dec 14, 2013 01:44
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I'm glad to see everyone reading It. I always thought it was one of his best books, easily his best long book. I liked it considerably better than the Stand. While the horror elements and how eerie and real he made the town are fantastic, I have to say what I love the most is the characterization. At 12 when I first read it, I remember thinking that It was the only story I had encountered where the kids acted and talked like the kids I knew in real life. The swearing, the smoking, the bullying, the way the friendships formed and developed, the typical stuff they did in the day to just hang around around outside, how they reacted upon learning that one of them was skilled at something, etc. It was all very believable. I loved how King presented Ben as someone who never had a friend but would never have considered himself lonely or sad. The moment in the beginning where Ben is first making friends and connecting with the kids is some of the sweetest Stephen King chapters. When I think about re-reading It, I mostly want to re-read it for parts like that more than anything to do with Pennywise.
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Dec 14, 2013 01:48
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Super Ninja Fish posted:The swearing, the smoking, the bullying, the way the friendships formed and developed, the typical stuff they did in the day to just hang around around outside, how they reacted upon learning that one of them was skilled at something, etc. It was all very believable. The other side of this coin is that, on re-reading IT as an adult, I found the bullying scenes more intense and frightening than the majority of the IT scenes. And yes I was an unpopular dork in middle school.
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Dec 14, 2013 01:53
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Goddammit y'all, look what you made me do. I don't have time for this.
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Dec 14, 2013 02:50
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Helsing posted:There was a clown in the stormdrain. The light in there was far from good, but it was good enough so that George Denbrough was sure of what he was seeing. It was a clown, like in the circus or on TV. In fact he looked like a cross between Bozo and Clarabell, who talked by honking his (or was it her?--George was never really sure of the gender) horn on Howdy Doody Saturday mornings--Buaffalo Bob was just about the only one who could understand Clarabell, and that always cracked George up. The face of the clown in the stormdrain was white, there were funny tufts of red hair on either side of his bald head, and there was a big clown-smile painted over his mouth. If George had been inhabiting a later year, he would have surely thought of Ronald McDonald before Bozo or Clarabell. This is from a few pages back (wow this thread is moving quickly with all of us re-reading It at the same time!) but I just read the part near the beginning where Ben has a flashback to a creepy thing that happened to him in the winter, and there's some further description of the clown's outfit that is pretty inconsistent with the artwork I usually see: "The figure was dressed in what appeared to be a white-silver clown suit. It rippled around him in the polar wind. There were oversized orange shoes on his feet. They matched the pom pom buttons which ran down the front of his suit." It's interesting that the suit is "white silver" when it's often shown to be yellow. 3Romeo posted:stuff about homophobia and King`s strengths I don't have much to add to this but just wanted to say this was a great post.
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Dec 14, 2013 03:55
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I just have to point out one thing in this chapter about Adrian Mellon that aggravates me. One of the gay guys is said to be wearing eye makeup, and Adrian is protrayed wearing nail polish. Most gay men are not cross-dressers or even very effeminate, but King seems to believe in some weord stereotype; he's equally strange in protraying lesbians - they're always extremely butch. But I guess that's part of what makes him King, these weird oddities and missteps with certain things.
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Dec 14, 2013 04:29
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Pheeets posted:I just have to point out one thing in this chapter about Adrian Mellon that aggravates me. One of the gay guys is said to be wearing eye makeup, and Adrian is protrayed wearing nail polish. Most gay men are not cross-dressers or even very effeminate, but King seems to believe in some weord stereotype; he's equally strange in protraying lesbians - they're always extremely butch. But I guess that's part of what makes him King, these weird oddities and missteps with certain things. Yeah, it's true, it felt off when I was listening to the audiobook last night, Now I get it though, that's literally the Stephen King brainstorm, "How will I make it clear to my readers that everyone in town knows these guys are gay?" It's even funnier when the description of their flamboyant makeup comes within a few paragraphs of the description that states that the owner of The Phoenix bar is clueless for many months that his clientele is nearly all gay men - he never noticed the makeup or nail polish prior to this, I guess. It's a weird "off" stereotype, and though I don't buy that it's malicious, it's trademark King at this point. I don't think he could write a lipstick lesbian, either.
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Dec 14, 2013 05:21
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Sharkie posted:The other side of this coin is that, on re-reading IT as an adult, I found the bullying scenes more intense and frightening than the majority of the IT scenes. And yes I was an unpopular dork in middle school. That's kind of what I'm encountering right now. Just got to Chapter 5 (Bill Denbrough Beats the Devil) and while I really like the horror elements, I find the human characters in this to be a lot worse than It at this point. Between the homophobic high schoolers, wife beating maniac, and insane kids in middle school, this is just a lovely place. These are the parts that kind of frighten me the most, simply because I know things like this are real and have happened/still happen in the world.
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Dec 14, 2013 06:48
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Pheeets posted:I just have to point out one thing in this chapter about Adrian Mellon that aggravates me. One of the gay guys is said to be wearing eye makeup, and Adrian is protrayed wearing nail polish. Most gay men are not cross-dressers or even very effeminate, but King seems to believe in some weord stereotype; he's equally strange in protraying lesbians - they're always extremely butch. But I guess that's part of what makes him King, these weird oddities and missteps with certain things. Uh huh. I think a lot of the weird stereotypes of gay men in IT are attributable to the stereotypes found in American society when the book was written; King was trying to draw a sympathetic character but was unfortunately too informed by stereotypes and was just kind of ignorant about gay men's lives. I think the gay character in Cell was an attempt on King's part to rectify this. On the other hand I don't recall King doing anything similar with regard to lesbian characters (edit - I mean, trying to make less stereotyped portrayals, btw). edit - This conversation got me looking into the murder of Charlie Howard, which was the basis for the murder in IT as has been mentioned. According to wikipedia (the citation link for this is broken), Howard was known for being out and occasionally accessorizing with make up, women's accessories, etc. So that may have informed Mellon's portrayal, though King didn't necessarily have to use these characteristics, so my preceding point still stands. And I might add, as an LGBT person in a rural, conservative area, for Howard to do his thing like that in Bangor Maine in 1984 he must have had nerves of steel and a backbone of solid granite. Oh, and in May 2011, "vandals spray-painted graffiti and an anti-gay slur on Charlie Howard's memorial," which I thought was a particularly Derry-esque touch. poo poo like this is why I found the people in IT scarier than the spiderclown monster. Sharkie fucked around with this message at 17:45 on Dec 14, 2013 |
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Dec 14, 2013 13:51
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well poo poo, i don't want to be left out. i've got a book to finish, then i'm dusting off my copy of IT too. I think this will probably be my third time through. Im curious to see if the stuff that captivated me as a kid, is the same stuff that grabs me now.
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Dec 14, 2013 15:23
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Roydrowsy posted:Well poo poo, I don't want to be left out. I'd be curious to hear about this. I only read it for the first time 6 years ago so I doubt I'd interpret things or feel things any differently at this age. I wish I'd read it as a kid.
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Dec 14, 2013 15:52
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Pheeets posted:I just have to point out one thing in this chapter about Adrian Mellon that aggravates me. One of the gay guys is said to be wearing eye makeup, and Adrian is protrayed wearing nail polish. Most gay men are not cross-dressers or even very effeminate, but King seems to believe in some weord stereotype; he's equally strange in protraying lesbians - they're always extremely butch. But I guess that's part of what makes him King, these weird oddities and missteps with certain things. When IT was written this wasn't a stereotype peculiar to King but rather the stereotype of gay men. King's depiction of homosexual people in his writing has always been a reflection of the popular attitudes at the time the book in question was written - Jack's description of gay dudes propositioning him in the Talisman is '70s/early '80s as can be, for example, in its charming depiction of gay dudes as a gaggle of pedarasts.
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Dec 14, 2013 16:37
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Jazerus posted:When IT was written this wasn't a stereotype peculiar to King but rather the stereotype of gay men. King's depiction of homosexual people in his writing has always been a reflection of the popular attitudes at the time the book in question was written - Jack's description of gay dudes propositioning him in the Talisman is '70s/early '80s as can be, for example, in its charming depiction of gay dudes as a gaggle of pedarasts. You may be right about it reflecting the attitudes of the time. I was living in San Francisco at that time, so probably had a clearer view - a very different experience from someone living in Maine. I agree with another poster that King actually was doing his best to portray Adrian sympathetically, but he was probably influenced in part by that local murder of a gay man who was a bit flamboyant. As far as lesbians, the one I remember the most was in The Stand - she was almost laughably butch, and an illustration of her in one edition of the book made her look like a man. Which didn't really bother me, but one scene involving her and Larry was really off - he gave her an unsolicited deep kiss then mused that it was okay for him to do that because she was a lesbian.
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Dec 14, 2013 17:25
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Pheeets posted:As far as lesbians, the one I remember the most was in The Stand - she was almost laughably butch, and an illustration of her in one edition of the book made her look like a man. Which didn't really bother me, but one scene involving her and Larry was really off - he gave her an unsolicited deep kiss then mused that it was okay for him to do that because she was a lesbian. Nope, SHE kissed him and it left him confused because it was apparently a really REALLY good kiss. He was further confused because she didn't conform to lesbian stereotypes, he'd see her doing something feminine or acting 'soft' and wonder 'lesbian? really?', it was actually a pretty nice revision of the popular stereotype of the time.
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Dec 14, 2013 19:14
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Pheeets posted:As far as lesbians, the one I remember the most was in The Stand - she was almost laughably butch, and an illustration of her in one edition of the book made her look like a man. Which didn't really bother me, but one scene involving her and Larry was really off - he gave her an unsolicited deep kiss then mused that it was okay for him to do that because she was a lesbian. Do you mean Dayna? Because it was Dayna and Stu, not Larry, and Dayna wasn't butch--or at least not outrageously so. Remember that Frannie, a college girl, thinks Dayna's prettier than she (Frannie) is when they first meet. (Well. Just after they first meet. When they first meet there's a VATS-esque gunfight.) Like iostream said, Dayna kissed Stu just before she went off to spy for Boulder, and it was Stu that thought Lesbian? And for Stu to think that--keep in mind, this is a guy who's a good ol' boy from 1970's (80's in the uncut) East Texas--isn't out of character. Asbury fucked around with this message at 15:55 on Dec 15, 2013 |
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Dec 14, 2013 19:29
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I misremembered, it was Stu, not Larry, you're right. But he did kiss her first ("planted" it on her), then she told him it was really good luck to kiss her twice, so he did it again, and he thought "lesbian?" as if he thought he wouldn't be so attracted to her if she was. Like the kiss was a litmus test. Agreed, not so strange from a west-Texan of the 80s. Then there is that King trope of a woman (in The Stand, Dayna) being abused by her boyfriend, turning into a women's libber, then turning into a lesbian. So some confusion on King's part; I don't think we can say it was all just a reflection of the times, since he expressed the same idea in Insomnia, in which King made it apparent he still didn't understand that abuse doesn't turn a woman into a lesbian. And the illustration of Dayna diving out the window in my copy of The Stand looks like a man, I didn't know it was a woman at first, until I read the book and realized it was supposed to be Dayna. I think that in his later years he's become more enlightened.
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Dec 14, 2013 20:52
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Pheeets posted:I misremembered, it was Stu, not Larry, you're right. But he did kiss her first ("planted" it on her), then she told him it was really good luck to kiss her twice, so he did it again, and he thought "lesbian?" as if he thought he wouldn't be so attracted to her if she was. Like the kiss was a litmus test. Agreed, not so strange from a west-Texan of the 80s. This is one of the things I love about King's work, you can pick it apart layer by layer and really dig into the subcontext in his phrasing.
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Dec 14, 2013 21:19
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This has already been noted by its worth point out that Charlie Howard, the real life version of Adrian Mellon, did have a history of wearing make-up and eye liner:quote:Charlie was an individual at a time when most homosexuals were still closeted, Charlie was "out" and even flamboyant. If he felt like "sissying up" e.g. wearing make up, jewelry and a woman's accessories, he was known for doing so. He was known for singing the song "I Am What I Am" from the musical La Cage aux Folles.[3] That isn't to say King's portrayals of gay and lesbian individuals has always been the most sensitive, but in this particular case he was seemingly hewing pretty close to the actual facts. Also as far as the idea that an abused woman might become a lesbian, there was such a thing as "political lesbianism" back at the height of 2nd wave feminism. I don't think it was ever a very common or influential force within the feminist movement but King is not inventing anything from whole cloth, there were at least a few women out there back in the 1970s who advocated sleeping exclusively with other women as a way to declare independence from men. The Berzerker posted:This is from a few pages back (wow this thread is moving quickly with all of us re-reading It at the same time!) but I just read the part near the beginning where Ben has a flashback to a creepy thing that happened to him in the winter, and there's some further description of the clown's outfit that is pretty inconsistent with the artwork I usually see: That's a good point actually. I figured that picture I posted (which I believe is on the 25th anniversary edition of the book) was one of the more accurate pictures I've seen but I had forgotten about the description of the suit. I wonder if the reason behind the confusion is that Pennywise is compared to Ronald McDonald, who does wear a yellow suit.
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Dec 14, 2013 21:33
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Holy poo poo. Some awesome discussion on this page! And me about to dig into the book, this is going to make it so much better. I'm gonna think a lot harder about everything this time. Many thanks to the posters previous.
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Dec 14, 2013 22:25
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