IT by Stephen King

Narrated by Steven Weber

     Pennywise—Pound Foolish    

First the good news.

The strength of Stephen King’s horror is in his ability to portray people in their natural state before subjecting them to the supernatural menace that will inevitably befall them. And, since this is such a very long novel, the listener must be prepared for a lot of scene-building before the weird stuff comes to a climax. Such a massive tome is not for those requiring instant gratification, but for those willing to stick it out for the long haul. In this novel King populates it with some endearing characters. It is clear that King still has a childlike remembrance of what it is like to be a child, a kid afraid of things that go b

ump in the night; knowing that no grown-up will, or even can, understand the situation.

Having listened to several Stephen King novels I found this one to have the most intricate construction. King does not tell this story in chronological order, instead choosing to follow the characters disjointedly, first in early childhood and then later in life as adults, interposing various plot developments as the climax draws near. I found this to be a most enjoyable construction technique, very effective in postponing revealing plot developments until they will have the most impact.

Steven Weber narrates this in such a masterful fashion that he elevates this from a solid fictional diversion into a full blown entertainment experience. He uses his tremendous range to portray each fictional character in a different voice. With the dynamic range of classical music his application of various degrees of amplitude during tense scenes adds to the emotional impact but will play havoc with your eardrums if you have the volume turned up to hear the nuances of his voice during the quiet scenes. Be prepared—this is an dramatic rendering of a book written to evoke a great deal of emotion.

And then the bad news.

There is a scene near the end where the twelve year old children try to find a way to reunite themselves emotionally in an effort to escape the alienating influence of the monster. Horrifically, they resort to a deflowering orgy as the unifying act. This scene told sweetly and tenderly, is ironically, the most horrific of any in the book. The other monster scenes are so otherworldly as to be cliché. Now I don’t know if Stephen King intended this to be such a repulsive climax, but the impact of the monster scenes seem almost comic in comparison to the acts the children are forced to perform to vanquish it. This, and the quixotic Turtle creation-myth that is offered as the explanation for source of  power for the monster, lessened the impact of the novel severely, and made me disengage completely from the characters. Suffice to say that the end did not hold the interest that the first forty-two hours of the book did hold for me.