Stephen King Fans discussion

Hi all! I'm not sure if I will have time to do this tomorrow so I'm going to set up the group read for IT today.

In addition to this General thread, we're experimenting this round, to see how doing topic based discussion will go. I've never done one of these before, so bear with me. It's a bit of a learning curve! If this is a success, we might try doing these more often. :)

If you have any suggestions for thread topics, please PM me! :)

Yay! I really like this set-up! Hopefully it'll stir up some good discussions :)

Fingers crossed! ;)

Awesome. I'm looking forward to some great discussion. :)

I think this topic based format is great. I'll look forward to everyone's input.

Thanks Glenda! So far it seems to be going pretty well. :D

OK so I've started - hmmm - I'm finding it hard to read at night when all others are in bed. It's the only quiet time I have. It is a great book but whew it is creepy.

As I'm reading through, one of the things that struck me is how (view spoiler)[ignored all the children are. Either the children are outright ignored (e.g., Bill) or the parents just don't see what's going on with their children (e.g., Eddie's psychosomatic illnesses, Ben's loneliness). It's an interesting parallel to the kids being able to see It for what It truly is.(view spoiler)[ (hide spoiler)] (hide spoiler)]

Ok, finished what I was reading, and started It. I'm only a couple pages in so far, but this will be my 3rd or 4th time reading it. Can't remember which.

Esse wrote: "As I'm reading through, one of the things that struck me is...

(view spoiler)[ I wondered if the parents were living in a type of trance so to speak, like there was a film over their eyes or wearing blinders. Maybe It was stopping them from seeing the reality of what was going on. (hide spoiler)]

I'm still not very far, only at the part where (view spoiler)[Stan kills himself. I was sort of struck though, by his and his wife's relationship. I don't recall ever noticing his wife, or anything about their relationship before, but this time through, it just struck me as sort of sweet and well, of course terribly sad. I'm wondering if he didn't really do it of his own free will? It just seemed so strange. (hide spoiler)]

That will be discussed further in the book, Kit. But having finished, I wonder now if the novel would have turned out differently had that NOT occurred...

Kit★ wrote: "I'm still not very far, only at the part where [spoilers removed]"

Later on when we get Stan's story as a kid it tends to make more sense. He was always the most sensitive about accepting what happened when they were kids.

Stan! I've always had a real affinity for him because he's so logical and ordered and I can certainly identify with that. He also seems to be the child who thinks most like an adult, hence his difficulties. I always really liked this bit: (view spoiler)["There are worse things than being frightened. [...] You can live with fear, I think. It's offense you maybe can't live with, because it opens up a crack inside your thinking. [...] Go to your church and listen to your stories about Jesus walking on the water, but if I saw a guy doing that I'd scream and scream and scream. Because it wouldn't look like a miracle to me. It would look like an offense." As Agrimorfee said, I wonder what would've happened if Stan had been there the second time around, but I like him so much I'm almost glad he wasn't. (hide spoiler)]

I don't know, I really like kid Stan, he has his moments of quiet strength, almost too knowing or something. But yea, I can see how seeing crazy things and doing terrifying things could mess up his neat and ordered view of the world, mess up his head. I guess some types of people are just probably naturally more susceptible to falling apart when logic stops making sense. I don't think I would though. I'd be a little freaked if I saw someone walking on water, but then I'd be all like, "it's cool, how'd he do it? I wanna have magic powers!" Unless of course it was some crazy monster coming at me, then I'd scream... :)

I just got The Stephen King Illustrated Companion in the mail yesterday and there is a chapter that shows pictures of the standpipe, the library, and the Paul Bunyon statue in Bangor that were King's inspirations for the story.

Scott wrote: "I just got The Stephen King Illustrated Companion in the mail yesterday..."

I received that as a gift recently and it was really interesting. The bit about the standpipe was especially helpful because being a desert dweller, I had no earthly clue what a standpipe was or what it looked like.

I just skipped the introductory Bev/Tom chapter altogether, gang. It is pretty harrowing stuff...mild spoiler....





I dont dig violence against women, even in fiction.

Scott wrote: "I just got The Stephen King Illustrated Companion in the mail yesterday and there is a chapter that shows pictures of the standpipe, the library, and the Paul Bunyon statue in Bangor..."

What? I didn't even know such a book existed, I want one!

I got my copy from B&N. It was on sale and I had a 20% off coupon. Right now it is listing at about $22.

Every once in a while, the SKIC is listed as a Bargain book at B&N. That's how I got my copy. I think I paid $6 or something for mine at the end of 2009.

Almost to month two of the group read... who is still working on this on?

Comment people! I am up to Mike Hanlon's first interlude. King shows once again in the dam building section the resilience of human beings even after traumatic experiences like Ben went through. My god, I would have been running home to mother if that happened to me!

Open to the floor: What do people think of Mike's relationship with his parents? How does it compare to the rest of the Losers, and how does that affect his role in the group later on in life?

That's the ticket; he has a relationship with his parents. No strain, trauma or indifference...and... he stays.

I never really thought about it before . . . but my thoughts: Mike is the only one who has parents who deliberately MOVED to Derry, isn't he? All the others are generational products of the town. SInce all this IT business had been going on for centuries, IT hadn't had time to ingrain (is that the word I'm looking for) itself into generations of Mike's family and make them all indefferent to their children.

Ah, I didnt remember that they migrated there. Good point, Dani!

Becky wrote: "Almost to month two of the group read... who is still working on this on?"

I just finished reading It. Looking forward to the next Stephen King selection.

What did you think about the book, Veronica?? Did you sleep with the lights on? Check under your bed?? We want details! ..hehehhee :D

Agrimorfee wrote: "Open to the floor: What do people think of Mike's relationship with his parents? How does it compare to the rest of the Losers, and how does that affect his role in the group later on in life?"

I think Mike Hanlon is the only one out of the Losers that has a strong, healthy relationship with his parents. Mike's bond to his dad was powerful.Because of this bond, Mike was able to survive in Derry and It. He was the only who "could" stay. The others ran away.

Two people King slips into It

In Derry: The Third Interlude, when Norbert Keene is telling Mike Hanlon about the execution of the Bradley Gang, and speculating on who would confess to being in town on the day it happened, he mentions "that old geezer who paints those funny pictures and drinks all night at Wally's -- Pickman, I think his name is..."

This, of course, is Richard Upton Pickman, from H.P. Lovecraft's story "Pickman's Model" ("God, how that man could paint!") I guess he must've quitted Boston for Derry, and wouldn't this dear reader like to see one of those "funny pictures" he painted there! "Ghoul Feeding in the Barrens," brrr!

The other "slip-in" is told of in Derry: The Fourth Interlude, where Mike Hanlon is regaling the reader with the tale of how Claude Heroux went berserk in the Sleepy Silver Dollar with his Annie Wilkes Special. One of the guys playing cards at a back table (the group targeted by Claude, since that group killed his good friend David Hartwell) is "Eddie King -- a bearded man whose spectacles were almost as fat as his gut."

Yep, King has managed to slip himself into It. (Steve's middle name is...Edwin [a middle name, coincidentally, which he shares with the now-deceased man who hit him with his van in '99].) Or, maybe it's one of King's forebears, since the last thing King screams before he's cut into Sunday joints is, "Please, Claude, I just got married last month!" Plenty of time to have planted a seed in his new wife's womb.

Even though Donald King hailed from Peru, Indiana, it's possible his family originated from Maine.

I didn't pick up on the pickman thing, but I did notice the Eddie King thing and chuckled a bit at the name and descriptive similarity between Eddie and Stephen himself.

Surprised you didnt also note the Annie Wilkes Special...Misery's Number One Fan!

lol

Okay, I have an odd one - about the layout of the book, not the story or plot, bear with me:

My version of IT is paperback, features the eyes looking from a drain and the balloon in the rain. On Page 613, 'Grownups', the header suddenly changes from 'Grownups' to 'June 1958' for one page, then back again. Seems like a very odd proofing mistake, does anyone elses copy do the same thing?

For reference, it's Chapter 3, Kay is recalling Tom's attack on her and debating phoning the police or Derry.

I have a question. What happens to Tom at the end of the book. Like I finished it, but in the book you never knows what happens to him after her leads Audra into IT'S LAIR... Can someone please answer me quickly:D

Andrea wrote: "I have a question. What happens to Tom at the end of the book. Like I finished it, but in the book you never knows what happens to him after her leads Audra into IT'S LAIR... Can someone please ans..."

I'm pretty sure (view spoiler)[IT kills him (hide spoiler)].

I believe Kit is right.

Andrea wrote: "I have a question. What happens to Tom at the end of the book. Like I finished it, but in the book you never knows what happens to him after her leads Audra into IT'S LAIR... Can someone please ans..."

Here it is, from page 973 of the Signet paperback (Part 5: The Ritual of Chüd ~ Chapter 21: Under the City ~ Section 3: It/May 1985), wherein the omniscient storyteller is delving into IT's thoughts, as the adult Loser's Club (minus Stan and Mike) are on their way to IT's lair.

(view spoiler)[....when the dogsbody husband of the girl from before [referring to Tom] brought the writer's woman, It had put on no face -- It did not dress when It was at home. The dogsbody husband had looked once and had dropped dead of shock, his face gray, his eyes filling with the blood that had squirted out of his brain in a dozen places.

And later on in Part 5, after they get to IT's lair and begin the Ritual again, this:

"Richie saw another body crumpled at the foot of [It's] web, a man he had never seen before....and yet his mind registered an almost subconscious resemblance to the late unlamented Henry Bowers. Blood had run from both of the stranger's eyes and caked in a foam around his mouth and on his chin."

I don't believe any further mention is made of Tom, but there's no doubt that the survivors left him there in the lair, the way they left Eddie. (hide spoiler)]

And that's what happened to Tom Rogan. IMO, it was a lot better than he deserved -- not painful enough.

Yeah! Thanks you guys! I guess I was trying to finish it so fast I didn't get those details, thank you!

What are everyone's thoughts on the new IT movie?

Kyle ~The Rebel Leader~ wrote: "I haven't seen it yet. I can't even find a preview on you tube.

I own the original 1990 IT-the miniseries. I hope the remake is better."

It hasn't been made yet. Word is it will be a 2-part theatrical relesae. I've always thought it would have been scarier had it not been made-for-TV, but I don't know if anyone can top Tim Curry's Pennywise.

*release

I am very excited for the remake. I really hope they make it more like the book. I liked the mini series they did in 1990 but I can't wait to see how they do this one.

Seth Grahame-Smith is attached to the project...

The movie pretty much to me looks like a comedy movie compared to the book... Just saying my opinion:)

Might have been mentioned here before...one of the prison guards where Henry Bowers is an inmate is named KOONTZ. ;-)

Tony wrote: "Might have been mentioned here before...one of the prison guards where Henry Bowers is an inmate is named KOONTZ. ;-)"

Heh...I noticed that, too. :)

It was an amazing book we to read! The beginning was confusing at first but it all started to unravel by the middle of the book. The book built so much suspense to the end but the ending wasn't quite as good as I expected to be. I have to admit though the movie wasn't that good compared to the book

Just started reading It yesterday and I can't get enough of it. Only 1 book ever scared the crap out of me as much and that was The Amityville Horror. I think It is going to edge it out.