It (Stephen King)

I'm not sure exactly how I feel about this book. There was a point, maybe somewhere in the middle of the book, when I said to myself "If Stephen King ever did produce a masterpiece, I'm sure this is it". Then something happened. I don't know. Somehow it dragged on too long, and the horror dulled, and after a while I began wondering "what's this all about, anyway?". There certainly is an adequate helping of real, human terror: Beverly receiving horrific beatings by her father as a child, then from her husband as an adult; Ben getting wounded by the crazy bully's knife. Maybe these things are what ground the more surreal terrors in a sense of humanity, and thus try to help the book transcend the simple genre of horror. There is also a somewhat convincing love story--the love between the seven childhood friends at the center of the story. I couldn't really tell what "It" really meant though.
But...this book was pretty amazing. And pretty imaginative. I appreciated the variance in narrative style and the diversity of characters, the exquisitely frightening (often demented in a simple, childlike way) scenes of horror, the extensive character development. I just think it could have been about 500 pages, rather than 1,100.