Took me 2 1/2 months the way I did it, reading it alongside other, slimmer books, but I finished a re-read of It, every word with far more care and contemplation than I probably gave it the first time around when I was a young and busy reporter.
It was great to re-visit those dark, dank sewers and contemplate the characters and the horror and the awe.
It reminded me how much depends on a bike named Silver and a sense of wonder, a bike as grand as that sense of summer in the tennis shoes in Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine.
I'm glad to have re-visited and to look at it with fresh, more studious eyes. Above all--and there are some great scares--I'm glad to come to a new appreciation of the structure. Like the book that probably influenced it, John D. MacDonald's The End of the Night we get notice fairly soon up front of the ending, or at least some of the details, but for the whole story of what happened in 1958, we have to go on the concurrent journeys with the characters to learn all the details and how the ultimate defeat occurs.
Thats about all I have to say at the moment. Nothing more profound. Just that it was a great way to spend my reading life this summer.
I'm looking forward to the new film, even though it can't hope to treat the structure in the same way the book and even the miniseries did. The sewers, the house, the clown all look like interesting interpretations of a modern myth. Fun times.
2 comments:
I have yet to read IT
It's an investment, but I'm glad I did this re-read as my more patient 2017 self who doesn't skim.
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