It

I don't know what prompted me to read It by Stephen King. I must have seen some reference to it or something. It has been a while since I watched the 2017 and 2019 film adaptations too (which I barely remember). I rarely even read horror fiction -- not because it's scary but the opposite. The whole thing kind of loses its point if there's nothing else to it.

Most of the horror I've read has been in the form of short stories. I suppose it's possible the format doesn't allow enough immersion to be built and to get scary. However, the few full-size novels haven't been much better either. Once by James Herbert I recall having a little bit of tension at least. King's It unfortunately doesn't have even that. Kids as protagonists just isn't great.

I hadn't expected the novel to be so huge. At 1100 pages it's like an epic fantasy novel and it has multiple viewpoint characters too. Some of them I still got mixed up even at the end -- a smaller cast probably wouldn't have hurt the book.

The story takes place mainly in Derry, a fictional town in Maine, US. The prologue is set in the 1950s, after which the story moves to the 1980s where the protagonists have to return to their hometown. A lot of the book is told in flashbacks as the characters recall events from their childhood. I liked the mid-sentence scene transitions between times.

I read It as a Finnish translation (by Ilkka and Päivi Rekiaro) which maybe wasn't the best idea, although I doubt I would have found it more interesting in English either. One problem with the translation is the huge amount of 50's to 80's Americana the novel has. All the brand names, sport teams, translated slang etc. constantly reminded me of that I wasn't reading the original. I doubt the tongue twister child Bill used to repeat to help him with his stutter -- “He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.” -- would be of use to anyone as its Finnish translation. 

I also found it odd that the translators had decided to convert (most) of the novel's measures into metric. For example, a tall person is not 6 feet but 180 cm. Admittedly using feet (jalka) in Finnish is weird too but I found the metric units to feel out of place in an everyday American setting.

King's work has been adapted into films many times (and there's a lot to adapt since he's so prolific). I recall hearing that he hasn't often been happy with the results but I think the adaptations manage to capture the atmosphere of King's novels at a fairly good success rate. I am very much not an expert on his novels though and I doubt I will become one either after this one.