It

[Zarathustra]

The last 40-50 pages were actually pretty good. I like the way King allows stories to wind down after the climax. I liked the last scene(s) from 1958, the magical hand cutting promise at sunset, and then Bill walking back home by himself. That was cool. I also liked Bill's last ride, and how that was set up with the skateboard kid and finding the bike.

So my only complaints were how It was beaten and the kiddie gang bang in a sewer. The former is a much bigger deal. The confrontation with It should have been more difficult or character driven or ... something. Why does belief confer such power? Is it belief, or the damn Turtle deus ex machina? It seems so trite: believe and you can do anything! Really? Well, sure, if you're backed up by the creator who pooped out the universe! If I wanted this story, I'd read the Bible. "Belief + God = kickass powers to save the world," is not why I read stories. It's worthless to me. It teaches me nothing about my humanity. It's pure fiction.

King does this a lot, giving his characters powers with no personal meaning (like TC's ring) or explanation, seeding his stories with all sorts of DEMs to get characters out of jams. That's why I liked Bill's last ride. It was personal, character-driven, and made sense. It was a kind of 'magic' I could believe in. I could see how it would wake up Audra. I could see how it would tap into something deep within Bill, something vital and essential to Life itself. That kind of belief I can accept, the faith or trust that everything is going to be alright despite the risks. That's the same kind of "faith" that a caveman brings with him to the mammoth hunt. It's bravery, it's the nobility of the human spirit ... it's not believing in the Tooth Fairy just because it's a cute part of childhood.

The best work from King that I've read is from the 90s. I'll have to try something more recent to see if this trajectory (of getting better as he ages) holds.
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Meaning is created internally by each individual in each specific life: any attempt at *meaning* which relies on some kind of external superstructure (God, Satan, the Creator, the Worm, whatever) for its substance misses the point (I mean the point of my story). -SRD

Remain faithful to the earth, my brothers, with the power of your virtue. Let your gift-giving love and your knowledge serve the meaning of the earth ... Do not let them fly away from earthly things and beat with their wings against eternal walls. Alas, there has always been so much virtue that has flown away. Lead back to the earth the virtue that flew away, as I do-back to the body, back to life, that it may give the earth a meaning, a human meaning. -Nietzsche

[sgt.null]

kiddie gang bang - I had kinda forgotten about that. any wonder the censors go after him? the book banning folk I mean.
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life's not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis”
― E.E. Cummings

[lucimay]

yeah i'd kinda forgotten about that too, sarge!
i totally didn't get the why of that whole thing
and i had the same problems with the defeat of It
as everyone else but like Cag, i loved the very end
and bill's last ride.

i have often been heard to rant about kings endings.
sometimes it seems like he just runs out of steam.
not all of his endings, just some of them.

when he's good, he's the best.
and he's good most of the time so i keep on taking the gamble.
he's the only author that i've been reading since he first published,
meaning i read carrie when it first came out and have been reading
everything he's published since, even the crap. heh.
i am Constant Reader.
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you're more advanced than a cockroach,
have you ever tried explaining yourself
to one of them?
~ alan bates, the mothman prophecies


i've had this with actors before, on the set,
where they get upset about the [size of my]
trailer, and i'm always like...take my trailer,
cause... i'm from Kentucky
and that's not what we brag about.
~ george clooney, inside the actor's studio


a straight edge for legends at
the fold - searching for our
lost cities of gold. burnt tar,
gravel pits. sixteen gears switch.
Haphazard Lucy strolls by.
~ dennis r wood ~

[sgt.null]

coming from New England I do love hearing his voice. and he does center some stories in my native New Hampshire.
_________________
life's not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis”
― E.E. Cummings