I've caught my husband's cold, a week late. I made it to work today, but I'm too fuzzy to write the proper IT Spot blog that going into IT's mind deserves. So enjoy some Friday crap, and I'll see you next week.
Friday, August 25, 2017
Wednesday, August 23, 2017
The IT Spot: Rereading part 34
"The Circle Closes" takes the subtext (and outright text) of the past reincarnating in the present of the 1980s and brings it, well, full circle.
We begin with Bev's POS husband, Tom Rogan. He's dreaming about chasing kids through a sewer with two others beside him. But not before dreaming of killing his father with a switchblade to the neck. Because in for a Pennywise, in for a a pound!
Anyway, Tom is guided forwards by Pennywise's voice. Pennywise advises him that it doesn't amtter where or even who either of them are: all that matters is that Tom is chasing Bev, and she needs to be beaten. Also, she fucked Bill. It's really creepy that Pennywise knows that.
Tom eventually wakes up after seeing that Belch and Victor are rotting corpses, only to find a large, moonish, glowing balloon in his room, and Pennywise's voice still in his head. Pennywise then swiftly brings Tom under his control: much like Bev's dad, it barely took anything. Plus, Tom wasn't too sane to begin with, so being in Derry isn't helping.
We then cut to Audra's dream. Yeah, remember Bill's famous wife who looks a lot like Bev, and happens to be staying in the same hotel as Tom? Well, she's dreaming of a black sewer. She's following young Bill as Bev, and they happen upon a little wooden door with a mark (more on that later). When she awakens she gets her own song and Dance from Pennywise: voices in her bathroom, rotting clowns on the TV, the works. And true to her terrible luck (and IT's manipulations), as she flees into the night, she falls right into the arms of Tom.
It's a little hard to return to a character that we haven't seen for hundreds of pages. Even harder when it's right after her husband cheated on her. She truly doesn't deserve everything that's about to happen to her. I think her closest approximation with the time doubling is of Georgie: someone close to Bill, who is hurt by Pennywise and doesn't deserve any of it: it is simply bad luck, and IT's hunger.
No time for that now, because it's back to Eddie's room where the remaining losers have gathered. Bev calls the library and finds out that Mike is alive (barely). They all realize that if they involve the town at theis point, they'll be killed, either by IT or by IT's minions. The only option is to head down into the sewers.
Too bad when they get there Bill finds Audra's purse, and realizes they're even more fucked than before.
Next time, we fin ally get that look into IT's mind that I've been promising all this time. Oh boy!
We begin with Bev's POS husband, Tom Rogan. He's dreaming about chasing kids through a sewer with two others beside him. But not before dreaming of killing his father with a switchblade to the neck. Because in for a Pennywise, in for a a pound!
Anyway, Tom is guided forwards by Pennywise's voice. Pennywise advises him that it doesn't amtter where or even who either of them are: all that matters is that Tom is chasing Bev, and she needs to be beaten. Also, she fucked Bill. It's really creepy that Pennywise knows that.
Tom eventually wakes up after seeing that Belch and Victor are rotting corpses, only to find a large, moonish, glowing balloon in his room, and Pennywise's voice still in his head. Pennywise then swiftly brings Tom under his control: much like Bev's dad, it barely took anything. Plus, Tom wasn't too sane to begin with, so being in Derry isn't helping.
We then cut to Audra's dream. Yeah, remember Bill's famous wife who looks a lot like Bev, and happens to be staying in the same hotel as Tom? Well, she's dreaming of a black sewer. She's following young Bill as Bev, and they happen upon a little wooden door with a mark (more on that later). When she awakens she gets her own song and Dance from Pennywise: voices in her bathroom, rotting clowns on the TV, the works. And true to her terrible luck (and IT's manipulations), as she flees into the night, she falls right into the arms of Tom.
It's a little hard to return to a character that we haven't seen for hundreds of pages. Even harder when it's right after her husband cheated on her. She truly doesn't deserve everything that's about to happen to her. I think her closest approximation with the time doubling is of Georgie: someone close to Bill, who is hurt by Pennywise and doesn't deserve any of it: it is simply bad luck, and IT's hunger.
No time for that now, because it's back to Eddie's room where the remaining losers have gathered. Bev calls the library and finds out that Mike is alive (barely). They all realize that if they involve the town at theis point, they'll be killed, either by IT or by IT's minions. The only option is to head down into the sewers.
Too bad when they get there Bill finds Audra's purse, and realizes they're even more fucked than before.
Next time, we fin ally get that look into IT's mind that I've been promising all this time. Oh boy!
Tuesday, August 22, 2017
The IT Spot: Rereading part 33
So, we start off with a fresh batch of murder: Eddie kills Henry Bowers with a broken Perrier bottle to the belly. But not before Henry re-breaks his arm!
The flips between the past and present aren't as divided here, as everyone, new and old, finds themselves falling into roles preset for them, by fate, IT, or perhaps even the Turtle.
Eddie calls Bill and as Bill is about to instruct him we flip back to past Bill instructing the others. They discuss what's happening while Bill ruminates on things. He stutters but manages to get out that no matter where they go today, IT will kill them, or have them killed. The adults won't see, and they're already halfway to being ghosts. Derry just got even more haunted.
Yeah, remember that all the way from the beginning? When Mike defined haunt as a place where an animal comes to feed? That imagery has been running along the whole of the novel, with figurative and literal ghosts. Now the children have become living ghosts, as their parents don't notice them as they make their last lunches before fleeing into the sewers. The Bowers gang is after them, throwing rocks yet again.
Ben leads them to the same pumping station he hid in the first time he was chased by Bowers. They make it into the darkness, and Bill thinks for a few moments about how they are meant to die, and none of them may ever make it out of the sewers. Of course, we know they do, but it seems impossible. They're fighting both mortal and essentially immortal forces. How can seven kids hope to defeat either?
Well, we won't find out in the next chapter, entitled 'The Circle Closes'. We'll be busy remembering that Tom and Audra exist.
Eddie calls Bill and as Bill is about to instruct him we flip back to past Bill instructing the others. They discuss what's happening while Bill ruminates on things. He stutters but manages to get out that no matter where they go today, IT will kill them, or have them killed. The adults won't see, and they're already halfway to being ghosts. Derry just got even more haunted.
Yeah, remember that all the way from the beginning? When Mike defined haunt as a place where an animal comes to feed? That imagery has been running along the whole of the novel, with figurative and literal ghosts. Now the children have become living ghosts, as their parents don't notice them as they make their last lunches before fleeing into the sewers. The Bowers gang is after them, throwing rocks yet again.
Ben leads them to the same pumping station he hid in the first time he was chased by Bowers. They make it into the darkness, and Bill thinks for a few moments about how they are meant to die, and none of them may ever make it out of the sewers. Of course, we know they do, but it seems impossible. They're fighting both mortal and essentially immortal forces. How can seven kids hope to defeat either?
Well, we won't find out in the next chapter, entitled 'The Circle Closes'. We'll be busy remembering that Tom and Audra exist.
Monday, August 21, 2017
The IT Spot: Rereading part 32
Adult Henry's rampage continues as he heads for the Derry Townhouse. He's half-dead from Mike's attack, so IT sends him a ride. Belch, who's face was torn off by the Frankenstein monster. Even as crazed as he is, Henry knows that isn't right. He still gets in, and reflects on the day he chased the Losers into the sewers.
After losing track of Bev (she's hiding in the clubhouse with Ben) Henry and his gang wait, on the advise of Pennywise. Kid Henry then reflects on how he got the switch knife (as it's called in the novel) in the mail that morning. The mailbox was festooned with ballons with the losers faces, because of fucking course it was.
He then murdered his father by putting the blade in his neck as he slept. An ignoble end for a terrible, terrible man.
If I had to put a metaphorical meaning on the act, I'd say Henry was casting off the last link to his childhood. But it may just have been that Butch was evil and crazy, and Henry was done as well.
They watch Ben and Bev emerge from the sewers, and follow them, hoping to catch all 7. In the present Belch drops Henry at the hotel (with a helpful Pennywise memo listing room numbers). He goes after Eddie, who now gets his own perspective flip, back to he and Stan and Ritchie talking religion.
Everything is going well, with talks of how being Kosher works, and not eating meat on Fridays, when they all meet up, hearing about how Henry has totally lost it, and how they're waiting in the barrens.
Bill, Eddie sees, is not totally in control of himself when he states that they're ending this, and the Barrens don't belong to Henry. Unlike the tools of IT, Eddie can see Bill is still there too.
That ultimately is the biggest difference between IT and The Turtle using people as their tools. IT just fills them up, usually totally blinding them to what's happening. The Turtle nudges, influences, steers, but the people are still people inside. The only exception to this rule seems to be when IT went into Bev's father: He was still there, one with IT in his hatred and suspicion. That may be why that section was so much harder to read.
Next time, Adult Eddie fights off (or tries to) Adult Henry.
After losing track of Bev (she's hiding in the clubhouse with Ben) Henry and his gang wait, on the advise of Pennywise. Kid Henry then reflects on how he got the switch knife (as it's called in the novel) in the mail that morning. The mailbox was festooned with ballons with the losers faces, because of fucking course it was.
He then murdered his father by putting the blade in his neck as he slept. An ignoble end for a terrible, terrible man.
If I had to put a metaphorical meaning on the act, I'd say Henry was casting off the last link to his childhood. But it may just have been that Butch was evil and crazy, and Henry was done as well.
They watch Ben and Bev emerge from the sewers, and follow them, hoping to catch all 7. In the present Belch drops Henry at the hotel (with a helpful Pennywise memo listing room numbers). He goes after Eddie, who now gets his own perspective flip, back to he and Stan and Ritchie talking religion.
Everything is going well, with talks of how being Kosher works, and not eating meat on Fridays, when they all meet up, hearing about how Henry has totally lost it, and how they're waiting in the barrens.
Bill, Eddie sees, is not totally in control of himself when he states that they're ending this, and the Barrens don't belong to Henry. Unlike the tools of IT, Eddie can see Bill is still there too.
That ultimately is the biggest difference between IT and The Turtle using people as their tools. IT just fills them up, usually totally blinding them to what's happening. The Turtle nudges, influences, steers, but the people are still people inside. The only exception to this rule seems to be when IT went into Bev's father: He was still there, one with IT in his hatred and suspicion. That may be why that section was so much harder to read.
Next time, Adult Eddie fights off (or tries to) Adult Henry.
Friday, August 18, 2017
The IT Spot: Rereading part 31
The movie's about to come out, I need to step this up.
When we last left off, Bev was almost molested by her father, and Mike was on death's door. We rejoin as Henry and his gang in childhood catch up to Bev, with the switchblade.
A woman in a car sees the violence and tries to stop things. She fails when Henry goes after her car with a knife. Another man sees what's happening, folds his paper and goes back inside. He seems to be under the same sort of trance the loggers were when the ax murderes happened.
Bev manages to get away after kicking Henry in the balls. Then the perspective flips to the adult Bill and Bev, who are about to have sex. Yes, Big Bill, the hero of the story, cheats on his wife.
Bill feels bad after the act, and knows that doesn't make it okay, and that he's hurt his marriage, even if Audra was never to know. Hmm, been a while since we saw Tom and Audra at that hotel together. Oh, well, I'm sure that'll end up being nothing.
The scene ends with Bev realizing she slept with all of them as kids, and Bill realizing them sleeping together now is at least in part due to the cyclical nature of the events around IT and their lives.
Bev is uncomfortable with the realization, as are the readers who have discussed this. Remember, they were all eleven and twelve at the time. Bill tries to justify it in brief, saying that Bev did it, willingly, to help them escape the sewers. There's a lot to be said on a metaphorical level: they transitioned from kids to adults with the act, leaving IT behind. They formed an inner circled, like with the blood sharing.
There are others, but what it boils down to is this: Stephen King was in the depths of his drug and alcohol addiction when writing this. Not at rock bottom, but very far along. And while the reader can understand why the act was written, nobody is really defending it. It exists, in greater detail during a later flashback. It's awful, but so is everything else in IT.
There's more flash forwards and back with Bowers, now after the others with Mike dead (he thinks). He remembers getting the switch blade in the mail, from Robert Gray, and killing his father. He then went out and chased Bev into the barrens, where she hid in the clubhouse with Ben. Pennywise calls to him, telling him to wait and watch.
I think IT may actually be lazy as well as scared. IT hasn't been hurt prior to the losers club. ITs life until now has consisted of coming to earth, waiting until people came, killing, eating, then napping and starting over again. Derry serves IT meals on a platter. IT is complacent. Or was until the Losers fought back and actually hurt IT badly. So IT decides to have some mortals do ITs work for IT.
Henry is crazy, and even being a sort-of tool of IT doesn't make him sympathetic. His father was crazy, and he was targeted by IT, but he's still a racist grudge holding bully. You can feel slightly for him as he thinks about his dead friends and how he just wants the voices to stop, but it's only the slightest of human emotion.
It's a hard section, and things will just keep getting harder from here.
You think that's real funny, don't you, me?
When we last left off, Bev was almost molested by her father, and Mike was on death's door. We rejoin as Henry and his gang in childhood catch up to Bev, with the switchblade.
A woman in a car sees the violence and tries to stop things. She fails when Henry goes after her car with a knife. Another man sees what's happening, folds his paper and goes back inside. He seems to be under the same sort of trance the loggers were when the ax murderes happened.
Pictured; a night on the town in old Derry.
Bev manages to get away after kicking Henry in the balls. Then the perspective flips to the adult Bill and Bev, who are about to have sex. Yes, Big Bill, the hero of the story, cheats on his wife.
Bill feels bad after the act, and knows that doesn't make it okay, and that he's hurt his marriage, even if Audra was never to know. Hmm, been a while since we saw Tom and Audra at that hotel together. Oh, well, I'm sure that'll end up being nothing.
The scene ends with Bev realizing she slept with all of them as kids, and Bill realizing them sleeping together now is at least in part due to the cyclical nature of the events around IT and their lives.
Bev is uncomfortable with the realization, as are the readers who have discussed this. Remember, they were all eleven and twelve at the time. Bill tries to justify it in brief, saying that Bev did it, willingly, to help them escape the sewers. There's a lot to be said on a metaphorical level: they transitioned from kids to adults with the act, leaving IT behind. They formed an inner circled, like with the blood sharing.
There are others, but what it boils down to is this: Stephen King was in the depths of his drug and alcohol addiction when writing this. Not at rock bottom, but very far along. And while the reader can understand why the act was written, nobody is really defending it. It exists, in greater detail during a later flashback. It's awful, but so is everything else in IT.
There's more flash forwards and back with Bowers, now after the others with Mike dead (he thinks). He remembers getting the switch blade in the mail, from Robert Gray, and killing his father. He then went out and chased Bev into the barrens, where she hid in the clubhouse with Ben. Pennywise calls to him, telling him to wait and watch.
I think IT may actually be lazy as well as scared. IT hasn't been hurt prior to the losers club. ITs life until now has consisted of coming to earth, waiting until people came, killing, eating, then napping and starting over again. Derry serves IT meals on a platter. IT is complacent. Or was until the Losers fought back and actually hurt IT badly. So IT decides to have some mortals do ITs work for IT.
Henry is crazy, and even being a sort-of tool of IT doesn't make him sympathetic. His father was crazy, and he was targeted by IT, but he's still a racist grudge holding bully. You can feel slightly for him as he thinks about his dead friends and how he just wants the voices to stop, but it's only the slightest of human emotion.
It's a hard section, and things will just keep getting harder from here.
Thursday, August 17, 2017
Wednesday, August 16, 2017
The IT Spot: Rereading part 30
Wow, thirty of these posts. And while I've come to see a few new things about my favorite book, I also want to thank all of you for sticking with me.
Anyway, on to the attempted parental molestation!
Yeah, this segment is where things really start going off the rails in terms of minimally IT related horror. By that I mean stuff where IT influenced the perpetrators, but they let IT in, as Bev observes.
The section starts with the adults wrapping up story time at the library. Their palm-wounds reopen, and they share a few moments where all their memories come back (or so they think).
After leaving, Bev remembers her father finally succumbing to IT, demanding she take her pants off so he can see if she's 'intact'. He was tipped off by IT that Bev was playing with boys and smoking. Bev isn't quite sure what he means by 'intact' but can see that her father is no longer her father: he has given in to IT. She runs away, barely escaping, as townsfolk look on, uncomprehending. Once she loses her father, she is stalked by Henry Bowers.
The timeline then shifts back to Mike, alone at the library, and cleaning up. He too is being stalked by Henry Bowers. Yeah, remember when Henry escaped from Juniper Hill? Well, he's back, and he's going to kill the Losers or die trying.
They talk about IT for a few moments. Henry is armed with the switch knife IT gifted him. Mike tries to talk sense into him, pointing out that IT killed his friends 27 years ago, and will surely kill Henry when Henry is done doing ITs work. Henry almost listens, but hey, he's crazy. He attacks Mike, severing a femoral artery in Mike's leg. Mike refrains from killing Henry with a letter opener, realizing that would be doing ITs work for IT as well. He does stab Henry in the stomach, and call 911 while Henry escapes.
While possibly dying, Mike hears ITs voice on the phone, mocking him. He reflects on a few things: how all his planning has come to naught, how the Losers will be chased into the sewers just as they were before, how the others only THINK they remember everything, but are sadly mistaken.
It's a hard section to read. The foreshadowing about Bev's father was clear (mother asking if her father ever 'touched' her, primarily) but it's still hard to deal with. What's harder is Mike's injuries. We've spent much of the novel inside his words with the aside segments, and to have him kept out of the finale is a great loss. But, with the circle already broken by Stan's death, that makes the ending even more remarkable.
But that's for later.
Normally I try to write a blog about a whole segment of IT, but so much will happen over these last pages that I need to write about as much as I can as often as I can. The movie comes out soon, so I've got to try and hurry up.
Next time, Henry stalks Bev, and the sewers draw closer.
Anyway, on to the attempted parental molestation!
Yeah, this segment is where things really start going off the rails in terms of minimally IT related horror. By that I mean stuff where IT influenced the perpetrators, but they let IT in, as Bev observes.
The section starts with the adults wrapping up story time at the library. Their palm-wounds reopen, and they share a few moments where all their memories come back (or so they think).
After leaving, Bev remembers her father finally succumbing to IT, demanding she take her pants off so he can see if she's 'intact'. He was tipped off by IT that Bev was playing with boys and smoking. Bev isn't quite sure what he means by 'intact' but can see that her father is no longer her father: he has given in to IT. She runs away, barely escaping, as townsfolk look on, uncomprehending. Once she loses her father, she is stalked by Henry Bowers.
The timeline then shifts back to Mike, alone at the library, and cleaning up. He too is being stalked by Henry Bowers. Yeah, remember when Henry escaped from Juniper Hill? Well, he's back, and he's going to kill the Losers or die trying.
They talk about IT for a few moments. Henry is armed with the switch knife IT gifted him. Mike tries to talk sense into him, pointing out that IT killed his friends 27 years ago, and will surely kill Henry when Henry is done doing ITs work. Henry almost listens, but hey, he's crazy. He attacks Mike, severing a femoral artery in Mike's leg. Mike refrains from killing Henry with a letter opener, realizing that would be doing ITs work for IT as well. He does stab Henry in the stomach, and call 911 while Henry escapes.
While possibly dying, Mike hears ITs voice on the phone, mocking him. He reflects on a few things: how all his planning has come to naught, how the Losers will be chased into the sewers just as they were before, how the others only THINK they remember everything, but are sadly mistaken.
It's a hard section to read. The foreshadowing about Bev's father was clear (mother asking if her father ever 'touched' her, primarily) but it's still hard to deal with. What's harder is Mike's injuries. We've spent much of the novel inside his words with the aside segments, and to have him kept out of the finale is a great loss. But, with the circle already broken by Stan's death, that makes the ending even more remarkable.
But that's for later.
Normally I try to write a blog about a whole segment of IT, but so much will happen over these last pages that I need to write about as much as I can as often as I can. The movie comes out soon, so I've got to try and hurry up.
Next time, Henry stalks Bev, and the sewers draw closer.
Tuesday, August 15, 2017
The IT Spot: Rereading part 29
Here we've come to the last historical interlude post, where Mike Hanlon ruminates on Derry's dark past. This isn't a breather before the final finish: this is one bloody gasp before the screaming starts.
Mike interviews Egbert Thoroughgood, a logger who witnessed multiple slayings at The Silver Dollar saloon. Hmm, silver dollars again. Silver, monster killing, silver dollars. Nice, Stephen King.
In gory detail he recounts the events of the summer of 1905 where some unionizing loggers were horribly murdered (by humans, no doubt encouraged by IT). Claude Heroux, the one who escaped spent the summer burning the forest, and eventually walking into the saloon and slaying the (presumed) killers with his ax.
The strange part of this (strange even for Derry) is that the bar was FULL of other loggers drinking. Loggers who had been hunting Claudefor months ignored the screaming and the blood. They could see it, but as Thoroughgood said, it didn't seem to matter; it was like politics, and best left to people who understood political things.
This didn't stop those same loggers from lynching Claude a few hours later when IT allowed the fog to lift.
Mike's takeaway from this segment (set before the made the calls to the others) is that IT feeds on emotions, fear and faith, not physical bodies. IT may eat the bodies, but what gives IT power is raw emotion. He begins to question if, as adults, the Losers can muster the faith needed to kill IT.
What follows in the next chapters are the parallel stories of the past and present Losers being driven into the sewers for the penultimate and ultimate battles with IT. They are hard segments, and we lose some good (and terrible) characters along the way.
Buckle up.
Mike interviews Egbert Thoroughgood, a logger who witnessed multiple slayings at The Silver Dollar saloon. Hmm, silver dollars again. Silver, monster killing, silver dollars. Nice, Stephen King.
In gory detail he recounts the events of the summer of 1905 where some unionizing loggers were horribly murdered (by humans, no doubt encouraged by IT). Claude Heroux, the one who escaped spent the summer burning the forest, and eventually walking into the saloon and slaying the (presumed) killers with his ax.
The strange part of this (strange even for Derry) is that the bar was FULL of other loggers drinking. Loggers who had been hunting Claudefor months ignored the screaming and the blood. They could see it, but as Thoroughgood said, it didn't seem to matter; it was like politics, and best left to people who understood political things.
This didn't stop those same loggers from lynching Claude a few hours later when IT allowed the fog to lift.
Mike's takeaway from this segment (set before the made the calls to the others) is that IT feeds on emotions, fear and faith, not physical bodies. IT may eat the bodies, but what gives IT power is raw emotion. He begins to question if, as adults, the Losers can muster the faith needed to kill IT.
What follows in the next chapters are the parallel stories of the past and present Losers being driven into the sewers for the penultimate and ultimate battles with IT. They are hard segments, and we lose some good (and terrible) characters along the way.
Buckle up.
Monday, August 14, 2017
Stranger Times
So, normally I'd be posting about Rick and Morty. But this weekend we had rioting and death in the streets.
Literally Nazis marched in the streets of Charlottsville. One of these terrorists killed anti-protester Heather Hayer.
.
There is up-close, witness footage freely available online. I will not be linking it or looking for it, as it is horrific. The screaming and crashing is like nothing I've ever heard.
There is no upside here, but there is news; at least some of the people have been identified and fired as a result.
I won't get into the political side of things here, as that's not why I blog, but I will say fuck Nazis. And anyone unwilling to actually blame Nazis and White supremacists for this evil, who says all sides were to blame, is a middling coward.
I wish I knew this was over.
Literally Nazis marched in the streets of Charlottsville. One of these terrorists killed anti-protester Heather Hayer.
.There is no upside here, but there is news; at least some of the people have been identified and fired as a result.
I won't get into the political side of things here, as that's not why I blog, but I will say fuck Nazis. And anyone unwilling to actually blame Nazis and White supremacists for this evil, who says all sides were to blame, is a middling coward.
I wish I knew this was over.
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