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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

I Take Issue With 'IT'

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10:35 / 13.08.05

Ever read The One Safe Place, by Ramsay Campbell?

Our Lady Has Left the Building

10:39 / 13.08.05

Kayfabe but you really like the book version of The Shinning better than the movie Our Lady, is that because you love the book or hate the movie?

A little from column a, a little from column b... No, I really dislike most of Kubrick's films with a passion and find his version long-winded, repititious and dull, I don't love the book but I enjoy it more than the film.

22:12 / 13.08.05

Someone I know once argued that the book was better than the film because of a line about the smell of alcohol being on Mr Torrance's breath being creepier than Jack playing drunk/mad. I've never read the book though. I think everyone goes through a Stephen King phase, just depends how long it lasts. I remember buying IT along with 1984 around the summer of 1987 as they were a) cheap and b) I was feeling in the mood for some books rather than the usual comics and junk to purchase with my pocket money. I enjoyed the first few pages of IT, but not much more - I find King too verbose, even for my liking (and I love wordy) - Dark Half was fun though (actually I think that is the only King book that I've been able to finish - but luckily everything he does gets made into a bad film sooner or later, so you can always feel like you've read everything) - but 1984 was much much better.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

22:23 / 13.08.05

I feel so old reading this thread...but IT was when the bloom came off the Stephen King rose for me. I thought he was great when he took horror from the gothic and Lovecraftian authors and turned out his "Ray Bradbury with a four mouth" horror books. The actual writing wasn't all that great, but the fact that he tried to put average lower middle class people in horror novels, rather than the upper class or scientists in the ones I'd read was a big step forward for the genre.

But IT was the first of a long series of novels he wrote when the end fo the book completely fell apart. It wasn't the only one, but it was the first where I closed one of his books and just wondered what the hell happened to the plot.

It also coincides with a HUGE contract he got from his publisher, and may have been one of the first book where he had more power than his editor, so they weren't able to say, "Hey, Steve. I know the cocaine is great and all, but this really needs to have a better way of getting rid o0f the big nasty, don't you think?"

23:51 / 13.08.05

Hey, Our Fifty-First Century Lady , I dislike Kubrick, too! He bores me, plain and simple.

14:15 / 14.08.05

I've not read any of Stephen King's novels, though I have read some of his short stories: "The Mist" in particular sticks out as a really creepy story, with strong Lovecraft overtones.
His book "Danse Macabre" is also an interesting look at horror in media, and though I don't agree with all of his theories, it does have a load of really good recommendations for books and films.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

14:54 / 14.08.05

I actually thought IT was the last decent thing he did for ages... he's been kind of getting it back over the years, but in comparison with The Shining or The Stand he's a long way off.
Child sex aside, the ending of IT was fairly weak, though, and seems to have been the blueprint for the endings of most of his horror novels ever since, which is a shame. He's not really scary anymore- whereas in his earlier novels there was often no real hope of a happy ending, now you know that nine times out of ten there'll be some bizarre plot device (usually involving a kid) which'll make it alright in the end, the scary bits just lose all their power.

01:59 / 15.08.05

It's always the kids on the bicycles with King. Thats why I loved Maximum Overdrive so much- the kid on the bicycle get pwned by a steamroller.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

15:14 / 15.08.05

matt Hey, Our Fifty-First Century Lady , I dislike Kubrick, too!

We should be together too.

Re: King, he seems to be one of those authors that you get over, like chicken pox. Does anyone remember that film he did, where he plays a hillbilly that gets turned into a plant monster in one of the chapters?

15:48 / 15.08.05

CREEPSHOW.

(...peepshow, where did you get those eyes?)

And I think King is more of a gateway drug, myself—much like JK Rowling (whom he extravagantly and publicly admires)—he's someone who can draw in the folks that education professionals call "reluctant readers," and lead them on to new pleasures. That's no small thing.

And no matter what one thinks of the quality of his work, he has a keen awareness of his position as a gateway, and has used it tirelessly, in essays and nonfiction books, in interviews and columns and speeches—as an advocate for reading and writing, as a popularizer, as a champion of new works and old classics, as a defender of popular literature in general and literature of the fantastic, in particular.

That's why I'll always have time for the guy, tasteless town-bicycle scenes aside.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

16:02 / 15.08.05

I used to think he was one of those writers you grow out of, having given up soon after IT... (I think it was The Tommyknockers that really did for me, though looking back it seems like the kind of thing I'd enjoy and I can't remember exactly why I thought it was so rubbish) Recently (what with him finally getting round to finishing the Dark Tower, and the Straub collaboration/Talisman sequel) I've started reading him again, and it's proving reasonably rewarding.

Whatever else you (or, indeed, I) may say about the guy, as far as I'm concerned he's a cracking storyteller, even when the stories themselves aren't that great. I know he makes a big deal of his "oh, I just HAD to get this story out/I was born to tell stories" enthusiasm, and I know that's part of his schtick, but goddammit if that enthusiasm ain't fucking infectious.

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