It - Terror Boggart-Style

It

Author: Steven King

We all float down here. –Pennywise

There isn't nobody that can live a natural life without having a few bad dreams.
–Mr. Hanlon

You can't be careful on a skateboard.
–Derry kid

Be true, be brave, stand. All the rest is darkness. –Narrator

Maybe, there aren't any such things as good friends or bad friends – maybe there are just friends. People who stand by you when you're hurt and who help you feel not so lonely. Maybe they're always worth being scared for, and hoping for, and living for. Maybe worth dying for, too, if that's what has to be. No good friends. No bad friends. Only people you want, need to be with; people who build their houses in your heart. –Eddie Kaspbrak

I finished my second Stephen King book about a month and a half ago (I'm behind on writing these posts, clearly). Here's what Audible.com says about It (yes, I listened to the recording of this one rather than read it… so, so glad I did!):

They were just kids when they stumbled upon the horror of their hometown. Now, as adults, none of them can withstand the force that has drawn them all back to Derry, Maine, to face the nightmare without end, and the evil without a name.

I'd been dreading this book ever since someone told me it was about an evil clown. I hate clowns. I debated the best way to approach this one: reading a physical copy from the library or going the audiobook route. I listened to a sample of the reading and knew it was the right way to go (Steven Weber did a fantastic job!). Plus then I wouldn't have to look at Pennywise every time I wanted to read a chapter. *shudder* (Note that I chose a graphic without the clown for this post!)

Evil clowns aside, I loved this book. I liked the way King intertwined the experiences the characters had as children and then as adults. He crafted it beautifully, revealing only what was needed at any given moment. I liked most of the characters (I could have done without Adult Beverly, quite honestly); the lines between the "good" characters and the "bad" were clearly defined and I automatically found myself rooting for the heroes and heroine without feeling pressure to do so.

But I think what I liked best about this book is that the "big bad" was fluid. It took the shape of either what each person feared the most at that very moment or what each person needed the most at that very moment. The evil didn't show up just as a clown, though that was clearly its go-to human form. At times it was a mummy, an old woman, the moon and a spider, among other things. And in each of its states, it was captivatingly creepy.

I'm not going to lie, I mentally compared Pennywise to a boggart (if this word bears no meaning for you, I'm not sure we can be friends anymore). The similarity being that both It and a boggart will take the shape of that which the viewer fears most. It is different for each person, but only the fear of the person on which they are focused will be visible to all. The difference, I found, between them is that It doesn't always take the form of the most feared thing… at times it also takes the shape of that which the person most desires. For Beverly, it became an old woman living in the apartment where her father used to live, just when she needed a friendly face and a connection to her past.

The other reason I preferred this King creation to the other I recently read has to do with the story's climax. The build-up to the final showdown was so big that I feared I would be disappointed when it actually arrived. But I absolutely was not! When the first battle against It – with the heroes as children – and the final battle – with the heroes in adulthood – were interwoven, I was glued to my phone as Steven Weber's voice exploded with excitement and anticipation.

My takeaway: No matter how old we get, we must always hold on to part of the innocence and unquestioning faith we had as children; our lives may one day depend on it. And clowns really are evil.