An Ode to Childhood : Stephen King's IT

"So drive away quick,drive away while the last of the light slips away,drive away from Derry,from memory...but not from desire. That stays,the bright cameo of all we were and all we believed as children, all that shone in our eyes even when we were lost and the wind blew in the night.Drive away and try to keep smiling.Get a little rock and roll on the radio and go toward all the life there is with all the courage you can find and all the belief you can muster. Be true.Be brave,stand.
    All the rest is darkness."

                          IT , Stephen King.

Stephen King's IT is so much more than about a shape shifting clown with an appetite for the tender flesh of children.This, is a story of childhood friendships - with all its nuanced, innocent passions.

The novel follows a group of teenagers over a summer of 1958, the summer when the town of Derry had reported suspicious disappearances and murders of several kids.We see Bill Denbroghue, with his gang of friends - each one an outcast in their own ways (hence the Losers Club,as they have named themselves) - wandering through the labrynthine Derry town sewage systems in search for IT, for he wants to avenge the death of his little brother Georgie who was killed in the last summer. We see their evolving friendships, budding romantic feelings for the only girl in the club, how they face up to the big bully Henry Bowers and  the fastidiousness with which they stick together through all of the traumatizing scares of hunting IT. 

Stephen King is the master craftsman of horror stories. In this 1000 plus paged book,he utilizes generous amount of paragraphs to explore the history of evil in Derry, to delve deep into the psyche of characters and the harrowing descriptions about the forms of horror which are sure to make us look out for any ballon floating toward us or to listen for odd whispers from the drain hole(And it's sure to give us chills to see a clown afterwards!)

Although sometimes King's attention to details can feel like a drag, it all well fits somewhere in the whole spectrum of the horror and evil that has dug its claws on the town of  Derry.

On the hindsight,the story is a reflection of real life too,in the sense that how we, as children and adults react  differently to the same situations. The Losers Club,on their return to Derry as adults,do that out of obligation and not out of a purely sincere wish to rid Derry of IT. We see in them a simmering resentment towards the man who made them return to Derry from their comfortable lives. This change of mind as we grow up is not something that we're unaware of. Most of us tend to be more grumpy  and selfish as we grow up,unable to forgive the undeserving blows life has given us so far. That's why most of us don't even bat an eyelid on an injured stray kitten or a bird on the road side,thinking we have more important things to do in our life.

Those who still have a child in them are truly the blessed ones,because at the end of the day...it is all that matters. A handful of memories of our true selves.