Keeping up with my chronological Stephen King project I've made it to
the 1400 page monolith that is The Stand. I was looking forward to
this one, as it seems to be one of King's most popular books -- with
not just one, but two (or more?) TV adaptations. My first
introduction to the book's universe, although I didn't realize it at
the time, was hearing Welsh rock band's hit single "The Stand" in the
early 1980s. My next pop cultural exposure was Anthrax' 1987 album
Among the Living, which title track refers to Randall Flagg and the
narrative of the book, and which cover depicts Flagg in a clean cut
cowboy-like outfit, raising his hat to expose two devil horns. Hand
in hand with Anthrax was Metallica's second album Ride The Lightning,
borrowed from a phrase in the book, but not referring to the story in
itself. In the early 1990s my father spoke highly of the book and the
first TV series, but it's funnily enough taken me 40+ years to
actually get around to reading the book that has been so omnipresent
in pop culture for most of my life.
In typical Stephen King fashion, the book sets up several parallel
narratives that each grabs the reader, and together start to form a
highly immersive weave. In the style of disaster movies, small hints
that something is very wrong start to appear in several locations. A
plague is spread from a military compound, and 99% of the population
is wiped out. After a couple hundred pages the book moves into a post
apocalypse setting, with just a few, isolated, survivors trying to
make sense of it all and set up a new society. The main antagonist
Randall Flagg appears, possessing magical abilities, seemingly able
to be in several distant locations at once. And a cast composing a
handful of heroes crystallizes around Flagg's good counterpart Mother
Abagail. People all over America start to have dreams about Flagg and
Abagail, and are drawn to them, travelling by foot, bike, car or
motorcycle across the continent. Flagg's people, the evil ones,
congregate in Las Vegas, while the good people travel with Abagail to
Boulder.
King has stated explicitly that The Stand is his attempt at making an
"American" Lord of the Rings, and the book itself contains a couple
of references to Tolkien's main work. Flagg takes on the role of
Sauron, while Abagail represents Gandalf. Flagg has abilities similar
to The Eye of Sauron, being able to spy across the land with his eye.
The world is very cleanly divided into good and bad characters,
although there are some corruptible good characters and some
redeemable bad ones. Trash Can Man reminds me of Gollum, his body
becoming more and more perverted and distorted, his psyche becoming
more and more single minded. And in the end it's he who ends up
somewhat indavertently saving the day. Another motif that reminded
me of Lord of the Rings is the long and slow treks on foot, across
dry deserts, over snowy mountains and through dark dungeons (in the
form of highway tunnels). Of course, King's story is riddled with
sadistic, graphic violence and perverse, explicit sexuality that
aren't part of Tolkien's world.
The book was a very engaging read, it builds the tension very
effectively for a long time. It does slow down a little bit in the
middle part, the builds back up again, before the ending seems to
come somewhat abruptly and anti climactically. I read the first 1200
pages or so in three weeks, then took a break for three weeks while
recovering from a hospital stay. It was easy to pick it back up
again, but the narrative was practically over a few pages into my
second period with the book.
This was the 1990 revised and expanded edition, including 400 or so
pages that were edited out of the original release. Quite a few 1980s
references are included in the revised edition, with actual movie
titles, song titles, pop artists and politicians being named. I have
the shorter 1980 soft cover edition as well, which is also a slightly
revised version, maybe I'll get to that at a later stage.
