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*Author's Foreword: This is a long post, so make sure you have your coffee ready. The three books I chose to elaborate on were Prince of Thorns, The Slow Regard of Silent Things, and It. I saved the best for last.*
Prince of Thorns Lawrence, Mark. Prince of Thorns. New York: Ace, 2011. Print. Controlling Value Controlling value has easily been the method I can identify most in a book, but the hardest for me to fully understand. Controlling value propels the characters, which propels the plot and rounds out a novel. While it was easy for me to spot controlling values in characters, I felt as though I was always skimming the surface of the value at hand instead of delving deeper and expanding. To be honest, I still can’t seem to fully grasp controlling values. The first novel I read was about a boy who wanted to avenge his murdered mother and brother. Thoughts of revenge never left his mind and this is what motivated and controlled him. This was easy to identify and clear as day. I had found the purpose. The context would be the opposite: Not avenging family and forgetting, would be letting them down. In class we discussed Prince of Thorns and came up with: -Purpose: Using force can master (control) any situation. Purpose: Move on and let go to find love and togetherness again. -Context: Going forth blindly without a plan Context: Seeking revenge can result in alienation, death and violence. Can lead to being trapped (not in control) This chart was made halfway through the book. By the end of the book though, I think the chart would change due to the outcome of events. Jorg succeeds in revenge, capturing Count Renar, his mother’s and brother’s murderer, but also killing Corion, a dreamwitch that had been controlling him for the last 4 years, thus, regaining total control over himself. Mckee says that, “Value means primary value in its positive or negative charge that comes into the world of life of your character as a result of the final action of the story,” (Mckee 4) Jorg changes by the end and he realizes he does. His actions, the murderous path of destruction, were his choices, but they were influenced by a greater power. He accepts it. Jorg’s final action is killing Count Renar, who has been locked up for weeks in the dungeons, instead of torturing him for eternity like “the old Jorg would have”. I think a new value graph of Jorg would look like this: -Purpose: Every action you take is yours to Purpose: Actions define a person, but the past is in the past. remember, no matter who influenced it. -Context: Being controlled by somebody is a Context: Actions of your past will haunt you forever. weakness that puts you at fault. Register Reading Prince of Thorns was a drag for me. I was reading a book in a way I didn’t really want to. Throughout the semester I was filled with disbelief of the methods we learned until I started to see them take effect in the books I was reading. I knew much less about the methods while reading Prince of Thorns, and reading in a way other than mimetically was not too appealing. With Demian, one of the main points we focused on was reading thematically and synthetically, and looking for surprising things that happen within the text and the characters actions. This was the first method I carried over into my reading of Prince of Thorns. Jane Gallop says, “When the reader concentrates on the familiar, she is reassured that what she already knows is sufficient in relation to this new book. Focusing on the surprising, on the other hand, would mean giving up the comfort of the familiar, of the already known for the sake of learning, of encountering something new, something she (sexist) didn’t already know,” (Gallop 11). Reading like this was the first methodological approach I practiced, and I did learn something new. Throughout the book, there are times when ruthless Jorg shows a little compassion, enough to make me questionable of his character. When he tells Gorgoth that the sacrificial children he is leading “Look hearty enough to me. With a meal or two in ‘em,” (Lawrence 188). Or when he meets Katherine and takes a liking to her, well, his second meeting with her. The first meeting goes badly and they end up in a small verbal scuffle. I think the author does this to make Jorg’s compassion during the second meeting not seem too surprising and uncharacteristic of him. These subtle acts of kindness stood out in Jorg’s character, and I think they belong to syllogistic progressive form. Syllogistic Progressive Form Burke says that, “We call it syllogistic because, given certain things, certain things must follow, the premises forcing the conclusion. In so far as the audience, from its acquaintance with the premises, feels the rightness of the conclusion, the work is formal,” (Burke 124). When Jorg acts kindly, it adds another layer to his character, one that creates another premise for the story. I expected him to remain brutish through the end of the story, but I didn’t know his miniscule kindness was really syllogistically progressing into a premise that denies his character because he was actually being controlled the whole time. Jorg’s kindness is like a rope dangling in the water of his murderous, forceful ways that I used to pull me out of that guise when the time is right, when it was revealed that Jorg was being controlled. The author may have deceived me with a reversal of events (peripety), but he also let subtle clues drop saying, ‘Hey, pick up on these, you’re going to wish you did at the end of the book.’ I picked up on them, but I could not predict that Jorg was being controlled because in the Fantasy genre, there is always a sly twist. If I was more developed in my methodological awareness, then maybe I could have, but I fell into the readerly role that the author wanted me too. Proairetic Code While going through the book again and looking for Jorg’s acts of kindness, I picked up on something much grander. Right away, in the beginning of the book, the author drops the fattest clue of all for everyone to read over and not pick up on. After finishing the book, as soon as I caught a glimpse of the word ‘game’ it flashed in my head like ambulance lights with loud sirens going off. On page 8, Jorg describes one of his brothers saying, “Rike’s on a roll, I thought, he don’t know what game’s being played, but he likes his part,” (Lawrence 8). In a chapter less than 20 pages away, Jorg remarks: “A knife is a scary thing right enough, held to your throat, sharp and cool. The fire too, and the rack. And an old ghost on the Lichway. All of them might give you pause. Until you realize what they are. They’re just ways to lose the game. You lose the game, and what have you lost? You’ve lost the game. That’s the secret, and it amazes me that it’s mine and mine alone. I saw the game for what it was the night when Count Renar’s men caught our carriage,” (Lawrence 19). A few pages later Jorg says, “I was stupid then, being only nine, and I fought to save them both. But the thorns held me tight. I’ve learned to appreciate the thorns since. The thorns taught me the game,” (Lawrence 20). The game, mentioned in the very beginning of the novel, happens to be the driving force behind it. Jorg wants to win the game. I wonder if maybe this idea wasn’t instituted by Corion (controlling dreamwitch) himself. The whole book is really about the game that higher powers were playing. Jorg was nothing but a mere piece on a chessboard, as was his father. They were both being controlled by dreamwitches. I think this all fits into the proairetic code which is described as being a code that, “Determines the sequence of events within a story. It is the “glue” which makes certain that clusters of events will follow each other in a predictable order,” (Silverman 262). The author spelled out the whole premise for the story right in the beginning of the novel. This was the glue that propelled the unfolding events of the story, but it was invisible to me my first time through. Though I suspect no writer will ever want that glue to totally be visible, and takes measures to keep it secret, only available to capable readers. The Slow Regard of Silent Things Rothfuss, Patrick, and Nate Taylor. The Slow Regard of Silent Things. N.p.: n.p., 2014. Print. As mentioned in my blogs, Auri is one of the weirdest characters I have come across as a main character in a book. I knew she was weird in the previous installments, but back then, before taking this class, I considered her just a secondary character and not important character to the plot. Much has changed since then due to the release of this novella and the methods I used to gain information from it. Controlling Value There is something mentally wrong with Auri, that much is easy to see, though the author never lets Auri’s own thoughts wander that far. She believes there is nothing wrong with the way she lives and behaves. For her to have once been a part of normal society, something (mentally scarring) must have happened to her. She lives by herself in an enormous tunnel system that exists underneath the magical University. She forages for food and different items. Some background info from previous books: -In A Wise Man’s Fear, Auri runs away from Kvothe (protagonist) whenever he asks her personal questions. -One of Kvothe’s professors knows about Auri and doesn’t turn her in. He has been to Haven (magicians asylum) himself. -Auri wouldn’t tell Kvothe her real name so he gave her the name Auri. -Auri is very protective of Kvothe. -They usually exchange small gifts whenever they meet. I think the controlling value that propels Auri is easy enough to see: Purpose: Staying away from others will lead to an avoidance/remembrance of pain. Purpose: Isolation from the world preserves safety, comfort and no mental pain. Context: Go outside, move on from whatever happened, and rejoin society where people can help. Context: Being isolated from the world will lead to a life of loneliness, despair and inhumanity. Register Mapping out the controlling value for Auri let me realize that while she is weird, there is a reason for it. I had hoped that her past would have been revealed during this novella, but it was mostly just about the proceedings of her life. Being my fourth book, I knew there were different ways to read the book than the disappointed way I viewed it at first. I had found it to be boring, insignificant and dull. I had to step into a different role. I had to realize that this wasn’t going to be a thrilling adventure like Rothfuss’ other books, but an inquisitive inspection of Auri’s character and what she offers to the story. In writing this now, I realize that for Rothfuss to write a whole story about a once secondary character, he must have big plans for her in his future novels. To learn what I did from this book, I had to become a different kind of reader, take on a new reading for. Rothfuss is not addressing the typical readers that he did in his first two books, that’s why many, along with myself, didn’t like the book at first. He is not addressing the same audience as he did in his previous novels. Rabinowitz says, “Thus, we become more conscious that the novel is double-leveled and that we must employ ‘pretense’ to become involved in reading it. This, in turn, increases our awareness of the novel as art, and tends to diminish our direct emotional involvement in it,” (Rabinowitz 132). It was not until I stopped caring for Auri’s story that I began to find out different clues the author had dropped about the Kvothe’s story. I had become fed up with the character and focused on the story and the text, the synthetic. I feel as though this book was not meant to read mimetically, because I have gained so much more from the thematic and synthetic stance. Not much page-turning action really happened that had an emotional pull on my mind to begin with. In the Author’s Foreword, Rothfuss even states, “It doesn’t do a lot of the things a classic story is supposed to do. And if you’re looking for a continuation of Kvothe’s storyline, you’re not going to find it here,” I knew this before I entered but I never changed my role. Rothfuss writes Auri’s story in vivid detail, but what is going on during it? She is wandering around preparing for Kvothe to return to her. Why is this important? The subtle message it portrays derives from qualitative progressive form. Qualitative Progressive Form We get a glimpse into Auri’s daily life in the Underthing and what she does on a day to day basis. She is productive and wastes no time sitting around, because she is expecting a visitor, Kvothe. What she did before she met Kvothe we don’t know, it’s not important because Rothfuss is expanding what we know about the relationship between Auri and Kvothe. Rothfuss says, “She had so much to do. This was important, certainly. But he was coming on the seventh day, and she was nowhere near to ready…” (Rothfuss). Everything Auri is doing she is doing for Kvothe. Auri’s subtle thoughts of Kvothe are mentioned throughout the book many times, for instance, “Then she ducked into her favorite dress, the one he’d given her. It was sweet against her skin. Her name (given to her by Kvothe) was burning like a fire inside her,” (Rothfuss 4) and, “Three days. He would come visiting her in three short days. And for all her work and wander, she hadn’t found a proper present for him yet,” (Rothfuss 81). There are lots of other examples of Auri trying to find presents for Kvothe and examples of Auri thinking about Kvothe such as, “And then…Auri smiled. Not for herself. No. Not ever for herself. She must stay small and tucked away, well-hidden from the world. But for him it was a different thing entire. For him she would bring forth all her desire, “ (Rothfuss 147). In Lexicon Rhetoricae, Burke says qualitative progressive form is, “Instead of one incident in the plot preparing us for some other possible incident of plot, the presence of one quality prepares us for the introduction of another,” (Burke 125). Auri’s frantic gathering, hurried demeanor, and thin, yet perceivably deep thoughts for Kvothe, are all qualities that subtly show Auri’s love for Kvothe. I believe this is the true driving force for the novel and something that I can (proudly) say I have denoted while reading the book. I can truly state this because it fits into the Semic Code. Semic Code My great discovery of Auri’s love for Kvothe fits into the Semic Code. Silverman says, “Redundancy provides the means whereby even a complex group of semes can be stabilized...Thus once the attributes of divinity and darkness have been linked through their common relationship to Melancholy, the former implies the latter, and the latter the former,” (Silverman 252). For my purposes, I can say that flushing hot, while thinking about someone refers to Love. Auri flushes when thinking of Kvothe as in, “She flushed before she’d even finished thinking it,” and “He could sing to her at night. She flushed before she’d even finished thinking that,” also, “And the third thing? Well…She ducked her face and felt a slow flush climb her cheeks…” (Rothfuss). These are the only times Auri flushes throughout the book, and she is thinking of Kvothe each time. One of the presents (objects) Auri finds is directly related to Kvothe. It is a wooden soldier, an Amyr, which is a long lost secret group of vigilantes that Kvothe has been researching forever with no luck. Kvothe once drove Auri away when asking about the Amyr, and I think this is signifying to his soon discovery of them through Auri. To think I would have merely read this book mimetically most of the rest of the world, including my friends, makes me feel bad for them. I know things they might speculate at, but not as deeply as I have. Reading this book with the methods I now knowledgably possess and discovering its secrets has been the greatest achievement for me this semester in regard to our class. I had texted my friend, who read the book mimetically in a few hours, and told him about my findings. He was indecisive about them and said nothing else on the subject. I think he was wondering how I had deduced those thoughts to begin with. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Adams, Douglas. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. New York: Harmony, 1980. Print. Controlling Value I decided to read this book for the same reason I started off with Prince of Thorns, because it was still in my realm of comfort, fantasy. The main character, Arthur Dent, is an average person whose house is going to be torn down for a highway. Meanwhile the whole is actually about to be torn down (decimated) for an intergalactic highway. Arthur is forced with the decision of trusting his space friend Ford, or not believing him and carrying on with his own small-world problems. Here we see a network of controlling values for Arthur that last throughout the whole book. Purpose: When faced with an indeterminate decision, trust your friends. Purpose: Putting your trust in people and taking risk is part of life and success. Context: Don’t trust someone without a factual basis. Context: Trusting someone can lead to treacherous situations, and betrayal. Arthur displays these qualities throughout the book. Every situation he is forced into is foreign and questions his decision making. This is seen in the beginning of the book and the end where one of Arthur’s only option is to trust an old alien man that he knows nothing about other than the fact that he has been hibernating for five million years. But the character I connected with the most was the President of the Galaxy, Zaphod Beeblebrox. Hermeneutic Code In the chapter where Zaphod steals the top-secret Heart of Gold spaceship, the Hermeneutic code is displayed. I could not identify parts of the code in this chapter, but after reading the entire book, I was able to go back and fill in some blanks. In Silverman’s chapter 6, Barthes is quoted saying the tenth hermeneutic component ‘disclosure’ is, “The moment of closure and the end of signification.” Silverman then says, “He thereby associates it much more fully with the semic operation--i.e. with prediction--than with any of the other hermeneutemes, all of which impede of delay prediction,” (Silverman 262). It wasn’t until the end of the novel that I found disclosure that pointed back to the beginning. In the first chapter Zaphod is introduced, the author says, “The day that the Heart of Gold was finally to be introduced to a marveling Galaxy, was also a great day of culmination for Zaphod Beeblebrox. It was for the sake of this day that he first decided to run for presidency, a decision that had sent shockwaves of astonishment throughout the Imperial Galazy,” (Adams 28). Later in that chapter Zaphod remarks on his presidency, “What they completely failed to understand was why Zaphod was doing it,” (Adams 28). The hermeneutic code led me to question Zaphod’s actions. I wanted to know why. For him all to run for presidency against the incredulity of the Galaxy would mean there was a very good reason for his doing so. A reason, maybe, that was informed and donned upon him by somebody else, not just a spontaneous decision made by himself. Zaphod was surely being supplemented with the idea to run for presidency. I can see that now, because it was revealed to me already, but before, if I had taken a deeper inferential walk, I may have been able to predict this, which is according to Bathes, the intention of the hermeneutic code. Near the end of the book Zaphod says, “He told me about the Heart of Gold. It was his idea that I should steal it.” Ford says, “Are you telling me that you set yourself up to become President of the Galaxy just to steal that ship?...but why?” Zaphod responds, “Dunno. I think if I’d consciously known what was so important about it and what I would need it for it would have showed up on the brain screening tests (for Presidency) and I never would have passed,” (Adams 154). All of this was somewhat predictable in the beginning of the story, I just couldn’t see it. I am not disappointed that I couldn’t, but am aware of the possibilities of using the methods to find out such things. A Walk to Remember Sparks, Nicholas. A Walk to Remember. New York, NY: Warner, 1999. Print. Controlling Value The main character, Landon, is a typical high school boy. He is in his senior year and is trying to just take it easy until he leaves for college the next year. He is somewhat popular and is friends with the high schools quarterback. Landon takes a drama class thinking it will be a piece of cake, but little does he know that a girl in the class is going to change his life forever. Jaime Sullivan is an uptight, religious fanatic who is friendly to Landon, though he denounces her, and is also in the same drama class as Landon. Landon’s controlling value can be seen through his confrontations with Jaime and how he eventually surpasses his own ideals and begins hanging out with her, even though his friends poke fun of him and Jaime causing him discomfit. Purpose: Being nice to everyone can lead to new friendship and intimacy. Purpose: Individuality helps one find themselves and happiness. Context: Straying away from friends will cause rejection and regret. Context: Being influenced by others creates a lack of identity, but also a lack of exclusion. Conventional Form I am sure there are other forms that take place in this book but conventional form significantly stood out more than the others. When reading through, I thought most of the events of the story between Jaime and Landon were typical and not too surprising. In the first few pages I already know who Landon will fall in love with. Landon is reminiscing about Hegbert, the town’s minister, when he mentions, “Hegbert didn’t understand us at all, which was really sort of strange, being that he had a kid and all. But then again, she was a girl. More on that, though, later,” (Sparks 5) Yeah, Sparks, give away half the books premise in one line. It’s obvious that Landon is going to eventually date the minister’s daughter and that Hegbert will disapprove. This was so easy to spot, but I think it was supposed to be, because it is written in conventional form. Burke says that, “We might note, in conventional form, the element of ‘categorical expectancy’. That is, whereas the anticipations and gratifications of progressive and repetitive form arise during the process of reading, the expectations of conventional form may be anterior to the reading,” (Burke 127). Those book is categorized in the romance genre, so love had to be in the air and the main character was surely to fall in love. But this is where the ‘anticipations arise during the process of reading’. In my blog post I said that the organizing principle was the fact that everything was so predictable, but I didn’t want it to happen. This is the anticipatory elements that Burke is talking about. This process is made even more definite when Landon asks Jaime to homecoming and she says, “You have to promise that you won’t fall in love with me,” (Sparks 38). Landon’s unaware attitude toward the request concretes the irony even more. He is obviously going to fall in love with her. Later in the novel when they are dating, Landon finds Jaime worrying about him for obscure reasons but she, “Didn’t elaborate any further, and I knew right then that she was holding something back, something that she couldn’t tell me, something that made her sad as well. But it wasn’t until later that I learned her secret,” (Sparks 144). So a lonely, misunderstood girl finally lands a nice guy who is perfect for her, but some worrying secret visibly bothers her? Hmm. Sparks claims, “First you will smile, and then you will cry. Don’t say you haven’t been warned,” when talking about the novel. Pretty bold claim, so I made a pretty bold prediction. I am a grown man, what could happen in this conventional love story that would make me cry? Jaime would have to die. I knew it then, but I didn’t want it to happen. This is all part of conventional form. The plot plays out with progressive repetitiveness and clues that give any minor capable reader a chance to grasp. It was purposefully written like this. The anticipations are what make it so absorbent and when they are confirmed, I almost felt bad my predictions were right. The conventional form structures this book in a different way than other forms would. Secret info is barely hidden, like numbers under the scratch-able surface of a lottery ticket. I just whittled away at the surface a little bit and all was revealed. The conventional form is on full display in this novel, and it works. It King, Stephen. It. New York, NY, U.S.A.: Viking, 1986. Print. Rhetoric of Narrative It was easily my favorite book I read this semester and one of my favorite books of all time. I recommended to my friends, they read it, they liked it, but not how I did. I have been wondering for awhile after reading, It, what exactly It had that the other books I read didn’t. What enamored me so much that I was willing to drop everything, even the methods I’ve learned, and read through this book to the finish? I was averaging 300 pages a day. Only one of the other novels I read was over 300 pages, and they all took me weeks to finish. Was it the prose? Characters? Detail? The story itself? Surely it was these entire literary traits put together, but was there something else? Well, I plan to find out. What bothers me the most about It, was its ability to make me almost forget everything I learned this semester. Reading It was like being driven by a force that wanted me to stray from the synthetic, the thematic, and focus on the story, the mimetic. Problem is, this force wasn’t new, and it was always inside me, just hibernating. I think that I became part of the audience King was narrating to, who he was addressing. From my reading, I have learned that, “One can agree that both the authorial and the narrative audiences are ‘fictions’…to idealize and write for an audience they know does not exist (or does not exist in significant numbers), few authors intentionally strive for such a situation,” (Rabinowitz 130). I was part of the addressees that do exist in significant numbers. King devised a way to get me into that audience, here is an example of how: The first adult character we meet that was part of the original It crew is Stanley Uris. Stan has become relatively successful, is married, and lives a nice life. He receives the phone call, they all do, that informs him of murders starting up again, of Its return. He calmly takes a bath and his panicking --Stan doesn’t take baths at 7 p.m. with a beer?--wife finds Stan with his wrist slit in the bathtub and the word IT painted in blood on the wall. This scene right here was enough to fully draw my attention. A clown is so scary a man would rather kill himself than face it? ‘Well, how scary is it?’ I wondered. Stephen King addressed my fear and my curiosity. About a 100 pages later, in the first adult chapter of the leader of the group, Bill Denbrough, (whose brother was killed by It when they were kids) he remarks to his wife about the scars that have suddenly appeared on his hand. They weren’t there the day before. The phone call had reignited his memory and the scars had returned. Scars that were carved into each of their hands with a broken bottle, so that they could make a blood pact signifying their promise to return to Derry and defeat It if It returned. Bill says to his wife, “I can remember Stan doing his own hands last; pretending he was going to slash his wrists instead of just cut his palms a little. I guess it was just some goof, but I almost made a move on him…to stop him. Because for a second or two there he looked serious,” (King 165). I already know Stan has done exactly that, slashed his wrists, 27 years later when the remembrance of all that had happened became apparent again. Bill doesn’t know this yet but I do. So maybe I am actually put into the authorial audience by King’s dispense of this information? I’m spit balling a little here, doing some close reading like Gallop says, and am learning at this moment. Bear with me, because I’m not sure I’m right, but I think I’m headed down the right path. Rabinowitz says, “Similarly, the reader’s act of joining the authorial audience is not really a pretense in the same way that joining the narrative audience is. As good readers, we usually try to become the authorial audience as much as possible. Thus, the authorial audience of Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls knows quite a bit about the Spanish Civil War. If, as actual readers, we do not possess this information, we will ideally do our best to acquire it…But no matter how much research we do, we are unlikely to believe what the authorial audiences of the Iliad or From Earth to the Moon believe,” (Rabinowitz 131). This quote explains my love for the book. The thing about It, that somebody reading the basic summary will not understand, is that there is more at work than just the evil clown. The town of Derry, Maine plays a large part in the scary, supernatural, shadowy tone the book entertains. It is Derry, Derry is It, they coincide, are part of one evil force. King provides the reader with SO MUCH information about the town, its history, and other cases of It showing up (found by the characters throughout the book), that he puts readers in the authorial audience without them even having to do any work but read! This is why it is 1,400 words and it is the difference between this book and other novels. I’m just going to list out some examples of scenes not totally correlative with the main character’s plot, but are there for the back story and for the audience: -In 1985, a gay man is beaten (gay bashed) and thrown into a river and a clown is sighted taking away the body by one of the attackers and the gay mans partner. -In 1985, Mike Hanlon (character who has stayed in Derry, therefore, remembering the events when they start again and the promise to make phone calls) strings together connections between a few of the recent murders while talking with an old Derry lifer about where to begin his research. The old man never reveals he knows what they’re really getting at, but he knows. It. Turns out a lot of the old timers secretly know about the 27-year cycle. -A 1958 newspaper article about a missing boy, Edward Corcoran, (whose stepfather actually did kill his younger brother) is a chapter. At the end it’s revealed that It was the one who got Corcoran, though any reader would have already made that assumption. Mike Hanlon happened to see the boy’s blood stains in a park one morning. -In 1958, Bill Denbrough and Richie Tolzier (part of crew) are looking through a photo album where they see a clown in one of the pictures. He wasn’t there before. -In 1985, Mike Hanlon discovers connections with more murders and anticipates calling the crew. He writes in his journal about a 1930 army barracks right in Derry where I fire burnt down the ‘special’ (negro) section of it. Mike’s father was in the barracks and tells him the story says, “Derry never escaped my mind and after the war, I brought your mom back here. And we had you. And here we are, not three miles from the fire of the Black Spot (Negro barracks),” (King 537). -Mike continues his writing of the Fire at the Black Spot and it is revealed that an act of racism was what started the fire. The Black Spot grew into a jumpin’ place. White officials became angry and jealous so they dressed in sheets and burnt down the building. Mike’s father saw a giant bird in the sky that night…The same form of It (shape shifter) Mike sees. It was there that night. -In 1929 A criminal gang took refuge in Derry, Maine, way up North where nobody should be able to bother them, but the owner of the gun store where the gang goes to purchase bullets, does notice them. Derry takes matters into their own hands and setup the gang for an ambush of town vigilantes. A shootout ensues and a man swears he sees a clown shooting out one of the store windows involved in the massacre. -The clown is seen in numerous pictures, almost like a Where’s Waldo book, except instead of Waldo, It is spotted. -In 1985, when the crew is finally defeating It for good, the town of Derry is simultaneously hit by a super storm. Streets are massively flooded and collapse, buildings crumble to nothing and create sinkholes. Winds blow people over and basically a hurricane/earthquake/tsunami is in effect all because It/Derry is being destroyed. There is even more than this but the point is that King already integrates the research on Derry and It into his writing that a narrative audience would usually be too lazy to find out on their own. I feel like I know Derry better than the town I’ve lived in for my whole life. Throughout the history of Derry, I learned how connected to Derry It was. That connection is said to be the 27-year cycle that It strikes in. Some murderous event sets it off; some murderous event closes it again. Gang ambush sets it off; fire at the Black Spot closes it. Hanlon finds instances of murders occurring roughly 27-years apart dating back to the 1700’s and earlier. This is all secondary information that makes the story more real and puts readers into the authorial audience. Rabinowitz said narrative addressees won’t believe the story the way an authorial one does. So this answers my question as to why this book had so much power over me. I was part of the authorial audience, King wanted it that way. I believed. I could also talk about repetitive form and how thoughts of ‘the turtle’ would randomly pop into the character’s heads, and how this repetitive guise told me that this was something important, something to do with It. I picked up on that right away when before Stanly Uris kills himself he spontaneously says out loud to his wife , “The turtle couldn’t help us,” (King 54). The turtle is mentioned in random quips like this throughout the book. The fact that the turtle couldn’t help them means that it was in some way, part of their actions in fighting It in the past. I knew this was repetitive form, and I knew the turtle was going to show up again in the book, but that was not important to me, because it was concrete and I knew I was right about it. What I didn’t know was about the narrator’s addressees. That’s what I came to discover, and I did. |