Order THE STAND here
(also reviewed)
Order THE LONG WALK here
Order THE GREEN MILE here
Order JOYLAND here
''Now that I think about it, I am dancing on the grave of the world. Another beer?''
Josie and I have this visceral disagreement about the apocalypse. She is terrified of surviving it, and then going insane on Wasteland Earth trying to survive. I believe the odds are stacked against my chances of survival, so I see the fateful night of the end of the world as a tremendous excuse to throw a Darkthrone, guns and pizza themed party with the rest of humanity. Call it a philosophical difference. Her vision's more interesting than mine though, creatively speaking. I've read several Stephen King novels over the year, but I've never even known what THE STAND was about until I've started taking interest in post-apocalyptic novels. Turned out to be quite the literary experience. It's a novel that's far from being perfect, but that's stark and haunting nonetheless.
There are several characters in THE STAND, but no real lead. It's the depiction of the survival of several immune to Captain Trips, a superstrain of the flu that tore through 99% of America (presumably the world, but the storylines all happened in the U.S). There is Stuart, Larry, Frannie, Harold, Lloyd, Nick, Tom, Nadine, Lucy and I'm forgetting some. They all have their own background story. All the survivors are bound by one supernatural dilemma where at night, their dreams are torn between an old saintly figure beckoning them to Boulder, Colorado and a dark man who's purpose is unclear. The kicker is: these people actually exist and seem to have the key to the future of humanity in their hands.
THE STAND is a long novel. The mass market paperback edition clocks in at a whopping 1440 pages. It's an important detail because it changes aesthetically how a novel is written. THE STAND doesn't pack the emotional punch of a 300 pages novel. Instead, it's banking on created rich, layered atmosphere and epic (if a little predictable) scenes. The first book of THE STAND (the narrative is split into three ''books'') is particularly enjoyable in that regard. There is a memorable scene in a hospital that bridges the gap between dealing with a pandemic and the end of the world. There is also one in a prison that is both spectacularly dark and that illustrate the failure of institutions in time of crisis. Both through detail-oriented storytelling and thick atmosphere, THE STAND illustrates, I think better than any other novel I read, what it is to witness the end of the world.
''The doorman at my building seems very well,'' Rita said. ''He's still on duty. I tipped him five dollars when I came out this morning. I don't know if I tipped him for being very well or for being on duty. What do you think?''
''I really don't know you well enough to say.''
The sheer length of THE STAND and its proliferation of characters doesn't come without its own set of issues either. Stephen King created so many narrative strands in this novel, that each had their own world of awesome possibilities. The problem in having that many characters is that you have to, kind of, conclude the storyline for every one of them and it's where THE STAND gets a little flabby on the sides (right through Book 2). All the people following Mother Abagail to Boulder eventually form a political committee in order to oversee the day-to-day life in what they call ''the free zone'' and it goes on and on. For a couple hundred pages. It bored me to death because Book 1 set up this amazing ideological confrontation between bad guy Randall Flagg and Mother Abagail and instead of developping it, King is caught this his proliferation of characters.
I was a little disappointed by Randall Flagg, to be honest. The character in itself is amazing, but Stephen King doesn't really invest time in him. He's got a tremendous aura of danger and chaos surrounding him, but he's never really more than a peripheriral, looming threat throughout the novel until Book 3, which starts well after page 1,000. The conclusion is epic enough, but I couldn't help to shake the feeling that THE STAND focused on the wrong characters until it was too late. Flagg was a bit of a deflated balloon by default.
I guess THE STAND is a mandatory stop if you're interested in post-apocalyptic fiction like I am. It depicts the step-by-step undoing of society through the spread of a disease and it's an oddly fascinating process. Whatever happens after Book 1 doesn't really matter as much as the chaos that runs amok through the first third of THE STAND. Not even its epic final, no matter how much fun it is. This post-apocalypse fiction thing is still new to me, but I can hardly see how you can get a better, more detailed look on the downfall of the civilized world than the one King depicted. If this doesn't strike the fear of God (and germs) in your heart, I don't know what will. THE STAND doesn't escape some of the pitfalls of novels of extreme length, but its place in the legacy of Stephen King's best novels is well-earned.