The Stand

Upon finishing The Stand, I asked myself: what is the point? I was not asking myself this question in the existential way King likely intended; I was not asking, “what is the point of living if society always goes bad at some point?” No, I was asking: what is the point of these 1300 pages? What was the point of this massive ensemble of characters, many of whom met senseless deaths? This book was not affecting in a way that made me ponder the futility and fragility of human life, though I believe that was “the point.” The Stand is an example of a book with an excellent message obfuscated by horrible execution.

In The Stand, a superflu virus basically kills everyone in the world, leaving a feeble few to resurrect human society. Imagine, for a moment, that you are one of the select 0.6% who has survived the virus. You wander for days before encountering another person. Eventually, you find a group of comrades and decide to carry on humanity’s torch and develop a society, that natural human state. What would you want your society to be like? Would you simply re-ratify the American constitution and readopt all of America’s social conventions, even if these conventions include the inferiority of women, the dominance of Christian religion, and environmental destruction?

I hope you’re saying no, because such a society would be dreadfully unimaginative and guilty of the same failures as the pre-flu society. Yet much of The Stand amounts to just that: the reinstitution of the fallen American society. It’s such a bummer! The reason I love post-apocalyptic stories is that they amount to a reset button, a perfect juncture to objectively criticize past societal failings and progress to a more advanced state. Characters in The Stand don’t treat it that way; rather they simply revert to a previous state. I think that reversion is a bit unrealistic. Why would the women of The Stand fall back to their inferior position? Wouldn’t they view this as a chance for equality? The women of The Stand remain oppressed, however, and nothing changes for the better.

Now this static social state may be due to King’s overall thesis in writing this book. He seems to suggest that many humans are inherently bad and as a result, there will never be a perfect human society, superflu reset button or no. But I don’t know if I accept his thesis because his plot never explored all the possible scenarios. We never get to see the people negotiate a new social contract and emerge from the State of Nature; the “new” society they create is already social and inherits all the faults of the old.

Ensconced somewhere in these 1300 pages is a good book. A very very good book with a fascinating overarching idea. Unfortunately, everything positive you can take out of this reading experience is slathered in deadly flu microbes, meaning it’s impossible to find these positive aspects without suffering a little. In the end, The Stand is just too much. There’s too much exposition, too much denouement, too many characters, too many logical flaws; and all of this is for one interesting idea that is not sufficiently investigated.
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I was stuck at my parents' house with nothing to read so I stole this from my brother's old room.

Well, I'm giving up. Another one I'd probably finish if I didn't have so many other things to read, but jeez, it's Stephen King.
I should be desperate to find out what happens next, not just mildly curious.

Finished the book a couple of hours ago and ... well it was ok. Just ok. I've read King before and I don't think this is his best or even close to his best.

The story is definitely intriguing and it starts great. The disease spreads quickly and we get to know the main cast little by little. Then the story takes a downturn. Characters are introduced to be forgotten moments later. The survivors don't seem to know what they are doing or why they are doing it while in the meantime they are picking sides with no good reason. The good side gets the good guys which are mostly caricatures of good people, the evil side gets the evil people which are also mostly caricatures of evil people. The evil side also includes a few people that just happened to be there because they obviously don't belong (several kids among them) but we don't learn much about them. The big antagonist is needlessly powerful but also lacking in cunning, useful skills and motivation.

The biggest let down though is the end which starts about halfway in the book. And here be spoilers: Although the role of Mother Abagail appeared to be crucial through a good portion of the book, she vanishes and then she dies, but before that she sends four people on a pilgrim trip to Las Vegas. The reason of course is that god wants them to and things will take care of themselves if they follow along. And so it does. Nothing goes according to plan for the bad guy and if he wasn't portrayed as evil as he was one would start feel sorry for him or mistake the story for a comedy. The only reason the bad guy is defeated in the end is because he's terribly unlucky and somewhat incompetent. The whole spying subplot is just so that a few of the bad guys can be introduced. Two of the spies sent by the good guys are killed easily and the third manages to escape just so that he can play nurse since his intelligence is now old news. Then we have to read about Stu's trip back, pages and pages of it, that don't offer anything really.

To sum it up the story is like a game of chess between god and devil. The god is a good player he knows when to sacrifice his pieces and plans for the crushing move. The devil is less capable, he doesn't respect the pawns much and jumps at the opportunity to take a piece even when it doesn't help his position. In the end god wins. Who cares? Noone really because the game pieces remain game pieces. No initiative, no intelligence, no common sense. They just move because Flagg, Mother Abagail, god or a dream told them to. There is no struggle choosing sides, there is no struggle when they decide what to do next, noone really disobeys their orders. A great premise but a flawed delivery.

Note: I was reading the New English Library paperback edition of 1980 and it was full of errors. Many spelling mistakes that a spell checker can easily catch, missing words, bad syntax, bad editing etc. If you find that too distracting, I would recommend against that edition ( )

This is the first Stephen King book I've ever read cover to cover. Its only the second King book I've tried to read. I'm not sure why I waited until I was 53 to read it.

This book had me hooked from the start. The dark, dystopian story carried me through until I was suddenly confronted by the fact that this is not just a very good end-of-the-world kind of story, but also a supernatural story. That caught me by surprise. I suspect, given what I know about King, I should not have been surprised. What bothered me was that the book was moving along perfectly well without introducing any supernatural elements. I wanted to see how the world would continue just in terms of a devastating disease, without a hint of supernatural carryings on.

So, is this a good or bad thing, this supernatural arrival? I'm sure existing Stephen King fans are not bothered by it. And in the end I wasn't either. With or without it I was hooked, and by the end of the book I had enjoyed the supernatural as much as the true-to-life aspects of the story.

But I'd still like to know how the world would cope with just the facts of a devastating disease. ( )

The only book I had to stop half way through because it was too frightening to continue. I finally did finish it - I had to. And although I had read plenty of King before this one, and plenty after, this is the one I will always remember as being so well written that it accomplished just what a good horror story should. ( )