Author’s note: I wrote this last July as part of a project where I’d record everything I’d watched, read, and played each month. I very quickly abandoned this absolutely untenable project, but I was proud of this little piece of writing and have been thinking about it and It a lot lately. Hope you enjoy it!
For some godforsaken reason I decided to lug this massive 1150 page tome all the way to Hawaii with me, but I’m so glad I did. This was my third or fourth time through Stephen King’s scary clown novel and I’ve never loved it more than I do right now. Perhaps that’s because of how much it makes me think about my childhood.
The Loser’s Club was 38 when they returned to Derry to confront the nightmare of their youth. This fall, I’ll turn 34, only four years removed from the people who, as a child, I saw as insanely old dudes. This story has been different to me each time I’ve read it. When I was a teenager, this was a scary book with some killer monsters and some neat things to say about being a kid. As a 20-something adult. the fear took on another form: fear of growing up. Of childhood lost. I saw Bill Denbrough and the rest of the adult losers as…well losers. And I swore to not be like them. Now, half a decade away from my 40s, I think I finally understand this book in a way I might never have before.
The thing that really spoke to me this time was the memory loss.
In the novel, after the kids defeat It the first time they stand in a circle, holding hands and promising each other that if It ever comes back they will all return and finish the job. This is the last moment they’re all together. Summer ends. Life moves on. They grow up and move away…and forget all about Derry. Literally. In King’s novel, this forgetfulness is explicit and almost magical. Stuttering Bill Denbrough is physically incapable of remembering anything that happened in the summer of 1958. Even the physical scars of that time aren’t present. At least not until he gets that fateful call from his good pal Mike, asking him to fulfill his promise. Then those scars and those memories start to all come flooding back over the course of the thousand pages.
When I was a kid, this just seemed like a fun gimmick. At 34, it’s eerily accurate. I haven’t literally forgotten my youth in the King sense. I remember being 11. I remember my friends and my bullies. I remember school. Like Ben Hanscomb, I remember my time at the local library. The scar on my forehead where I got sliced open by a nail on a swing set is still there. I remember my childhood.
But I don’t remember being a child.
I don’t remember what it felt like when everything was so big an unknowable. What it felt like when your worst fears and your deepest desires could all happen at any moment. Where you just believed. Wholly and purely. Without doubt. Without cynicism or 27 years of experiences weighing you down.
In the story, that childhood, that belief has extraordinary power. Pennywise used it to feed off the children of Derry and they used it to defeat him. But eventually, they lost that power as we all do. It’s part of growing up. Eventually, we all forget. Maybe not quite so literally, but we still do.
Stephen King was 34 when he started writing this book and 38 when he finished it. It’s hard not to see this novel as King’s attempts to remember that lost childhood. That he manages to succeed is It’s biggest triumph. Because as the memories and scars come flooding back to our protagonists, King’s words brought those memories and feelings back to me. For a brief moment, I remembered what it was like to be a kid.
It’s July 22nd as I write this. I put It away almost two weeks ago, and I’ve already mostly forgotten again. I fear that each time I return to this book it’s going to be harder and harder to capture the magic. When the losers leave Derry for the last time, they all know they’re going to forget again. And there’s a feeling that this time it will be forever.
Will that happen to me? When I pass 38 by will it truly be time to say goodbye to Derry forever?
Perhaps. It might be inevitable.
But then again, in the book, Derry is destroyed. For me, it’s just right there on my shelf.
Beep beep, Stephen.
