It

It
by Stephen King
read: 2013

Professor Corey Olson, "The Tolkien Professor," talks about how Tolkien wanted to create a mythology for the British Isles, feeling that the lack of mythology was a cultural void for the English. If that's a gap in British lore, it's certainly a massive hole in American culture, which exists (except for the American Indians) entirely in the era of recorded history. If there's little English mythology, there's even less American.

I don't know if Stephen King imagined It as an attempt to fill in that gap, but there are certainly some elements. Despite the cover photo, it's not about a killer clown; it's about an alien force that's been there since "[t]wo hundred years ago ... that long, and only God knows how much longer." When the first settlers arrive in Derry, Maine, where It lives, they are wiped out in a mysterious event reminiscent of the Lost Colony of Roanoke, only the history books don't tell of this disappearance. Every 27 years or so, It returns, killing children and provoking men into acts of violence. It feeds on the faith of children: "... [T]he source of power is faith, not food. ... In Derry, power seems to be perpetuated and renewed by periodic ritualistic acts ..." It takes various physical forms, usually assuming the shape of Its' victim's greatest fears.

The novel posits a sort of American mythology, a timeless force of evil that lives in an undiscovered country "since the beginning of time ... since before there were men anywhere ..." and becomes the essence of the town itself. There is a good force that helps the protagonists, The Turtle, which created the Earth and "is the oldest thing anyone could imagine." It is a horror novel, but the mythological background makes it more interesting than your typical creature feature.