The Stand - Stephen King

I’m a little surprised at myself when I say this, but I don’t think I really have anything in particular to say about The Stand. I’m surprised because I found it to be a good book (I would definitely recommend it to others), and it was engrossing (once I picked it up I wouldn’t put it down again for hours). But, other than that, I have nothing much to say about it. I guess those two things should be enough, really, but what I mean is nothing really hit home that much, not the characters, or the ending, or the supernatural elements. They were all just all right, good, nothing to get overly excited about. In any case, I don’t think as highly of it as I do of Wizard and Glass. But the review must get written, so here it is.

The book is divided into three books. In the first book, King provides an awesome story and the best part of the entire book, in my opinion. A superflu epidemic (oftentimes compared to the swine flu, and let me tell you how enjoyable it was for the hypochondriac in me to read about a massive deadly flu right in the middle of our very own swine flu panic) has been accidentally released from a U.S. research facility, wiping out something like 99.9% of the world’s population. King’s narrative throughout this whole first part is phenomenal: suspenseful, tragic, scary (terrifying even), believable (to me, at any rate), and even funny sometimes, as he describes the outbreak, the spread, the reactions, society’s downfall, the panic, basically the meat of any apocalyptic story. The main characters are setup and you start to really care about their different storylines and personalities.

The second part of the book introduces the supernatural elements of the story, where the remaining survivors begin to have dreams in which they are either drawn to Mother Abigail (the archetypal good force) or to Randall Flagg (the archetypal devil). The rest of the story plays out as a battle between good and evil (the spiritual, religious kinds, with God, hell, demons, etc.) as the remaining survivors either build up a democracy along with Mother Abigail or succumb to Flagg’s domination. The last book recounts the final stand and the resolution of this good vs. evil battle.

The supernatural elements, well they’re fine…possibly a bit silly if you stop to think about it but this is King after all. Supernatural stuff is part of the deal when you read his books, silly or not. But I thought the pace of the story gets a big bogged down, things get dragged out a bit more, characters get lost in the shuffle of too many characters, and so on. I’m not saying parts 2 and 3 are bad. They’re still engrossing and interesting, but the high point of the book was part 1 and everything else leaves you with a feeling of “well I guess I gotta keep going here just to find out what happens,” and sometimes it even leaves you with a feeling of "oh come on, the Hand of God, really, THE God? phhht." Parts 2 and 3 also take on a Lord of the Rings type feeling, which King has acknowledged is intentional. I didn’t realize it was intentional until I read the wiki site to refresh for this review, but I did notice a Lord of the Rings quality to it as I read it. I couldn’t describe it to you but if you’ve read Lord of the Rings, and if you read The Stand afterwards, you’d probably feel it too.

One other thing, which I’ve talked about before, is how I both love and hate King’s foreshadowing. For example, he’ll write something like “And that’s the last time they saw each other.” I hate it because I don’t want to know that’s the last time they see each other, I want to hang on to some hope that maybe later on they will see each other even if they don’t. At the same time, I love it because now I no longer have to wonder if they will see each other, I can just wait to find out why they won’t get to see each other. That makes no sense, I suppose, but in my own tortured way, I quite enjoy when those passages pop up.

At the end of it, I’m left in neutral territory because it was an outstanding opening with a tepid ending. But I would still recommend.