The Stand: Das letzte Gefecht

Fantastic

I like the part where they stand.

“The place where you made your stand never mattered. Only that you were there... and still on your feet.” One of King's greatest works - a battle between good and evil on a grand scale, with a seemingly endless cast of characters. Mankind's final folly and how both darkness and light fight over what remains. If you've never read it, you need to do so, right now!

Despite the 1,325 pages the story never stops. I love the understated start and how King pilots numerous character journeys in this rapidly changing world. We also get a full-on take of the Dark Man. Almost every character has a real story of growth (or descent), it's like King's great work to show that no matter how far you fall, how much you limit yourself, we all have potential to be more, to give more.

Captain Trips which is the scourge of humanity itself, could be a bestselling novel by itself! Never more comprehensively and with such creativity has mankind been routed! Remember the names that will stay with you forever - Stuart Redman, Franny Goldsmith, Nick Andros, M O O N that spells Tom Cullen, Larry Underwood, Mother Abagail, Harold Lauder, Nadine Cross, Glen Bateman & Kojak, Ralph Brentner, Susan Stern, Dayna Jurgens, Lucy Swann, Judge Farris, Randall Flagg AKA The Dark Man, Lloyd Henreid, Trashcan, 'The Kid'. M O O N that spells 9.5 out of 12 (a strong Four Star read).

2003 read; 2006 read; 2018 read

Simplemente excelente.

Este libro me encanto. He tardado un mes leyendo esta novela, pero la he finalizado con gran satisfacción. Además de la historia, lo que más me gusto fueron los sentimientos y reflexiones que me causó el autor mientras avanzaba entre páginas. Stephen King es un genio. Es el mejor apocalipsis que he leído en mi vida.

¿Cómo saber si leer o no este libro? Es sencillo. ¿Quieren saber que sería del mundo si se muriera el 99% de la raza humana?, les gustaría averiguar ¿Cómo actuarían los sobrevivientes ante este repentino Apocalipsis? Si las respuestas son sí, entonces este libro es para ustedes. No encontraremos guerras, batallas sangrientas o zombies que persiguen y despedazan a la humanidad, como muchos textos o películas relacionadas con cataclismos; lo que si encontraremos, es un libro con acontecimientos, que nos hará meditar sobre muchos temas de la vida.

La obra está categorizada en el género de horror, pero en lo personal no me causo miedo ninguna escena o capítulo. Lo que si sentí fue tristeza por muertes de personajes, que no quería que perecieran.

Inicialmente, en la sinopsis, se nos habla de un virus letal que se propaga por el mundo y también de un inevitable enfrentamiento entre el bien y el mal; pero eso, no es más que la publicidad para que nos interesemos por el libro. Eso quiere decir, que sí nos encontraremos con esos eventos, pero ese no es el tema principal de la nóvela; el tema principal, es el éxodo que los sobrevivientes a esa enfermedad emprenden, por buscar respuestas y la vida de otros seres humanos.

El libro está dividido en tres extensas partes. En cada uno de esas partes, aparecen muchos personajes que incluso olvidaremos, y no es cuestión de tener mala memoria, es que son tan numerosos hasta desde el inicio, que es imposible recordarlos todos. La cantidad de personajes, lleva a que nunca lleguemos a saber con claridad quien es el verdadero protagonista.

Algunas personas critican que hay muchas páginas innecesarias, pero yo opino lo contrario; sin esas páginas, el libro no sería bueno. Para entender la función de esas páginas, es imprescindible leer el prólogo al inicio y así comprender porque son necesarias tantas páginas. En mi opinión son indispensables, porque lo que hace verdaderamente bueno este libro son sus personajes, y esas páginas de más, nos ayudan a conocer mucho mejor cada aspecto de sus vidas.

Es una narración contada a través de historias paralelas, que provoca que estemos constantemente interesados por leer más, eso me atrapa mucho. La narración me parece muy agradable, porque no se enfatiza en la descripción de los lugares o en el físico de sus personajes; se enfatiza, en narrar la vida de cada personaje. Conoceremos su pasado, decisiones, sentimientos, pensamientos, defectos, virtudes, formas de relacionarse con el mundo, etc. Son personajes, que poco a poco se nos hacen más familiares y por lo tanto desearemos saber más detalles sobre ellos. Tienen historias muy bien creadas y se sienten tan reales, que podrían ser la historia de cualquier persona, incluso de nosotros mismos.

La historia, produce permanentemente un estado de reflexión que va desde la sociología y la ciencia, hasta el odio y la hambruna. A pesar de que nunca nos preguntan qué haríamos nosotros mismos, al leer los problema de cada personaje provoca irremediablemente que nos preguntemos ¿Qué es lo que haría yo? ¿Iría al bando del bien o al bando del mal? Eso es un punto muy fuerte de este libro.

Lo único que no me gusto del libro, es que en la segunda parte, hubo uno o dos capítulos que me parecieron aburridos y monótonos, pero también entiendo que posiblemente era un punto de transición en la historia. Lo otro que no me gusto, fue el antagonista principal que me decepciono. Tenía alta expectativa de él, pero al final esa expectativa se rompió y me resulto pareciendo un personaje plano.

Pero en términos generales, un gran libro lleno de reflexiones, historias y mucho entretenimiento gracias a la imaginación de Stephen King. Es increíble.

4ish stars.

Feb. 2020: Begins reading
Mar. 2020: Viral pandemic similar to book ravages world; stops reading
Aug. 2020: World has not ended; resumes reading
Sep. 2020: Finishes reading

What a ride. Stephen King knows what he's doing and he has since at least 1978 when this book was originally published. The only other King books I've read are ones written in the last three years and this did feel dated in comparison, but it's also 40 years old. Which shows that his writing has changed and stayed relevant over the decades.

King has a knack for dialogue that makes his characters feel genuine and full-bodied. Again, some of it feels corny, but I wasn't around in 1978 to be familiar with the vernacular. While the characters are believable, not all of them are particularly likable. I can name two characters that I truly connected with: Nick Andros and Frannie Goldsmith. I was sympathetic to several others and recognized the growth of many of them, but those two are the only ones I loved.

This was a grand mythic fable about the battle between Good and Evil, and I was a little surprised that King emphasized so many Christian elements to illustrate his points. Of course he never stated outright whether there was actual divine intervention, agnostic fate, or whether the residents just convinced themselves there was one or the other. The differences between Mother Abigail's people and Randall Flagg's actually seemed very arbitrary. Neither group seemed to exclusively represent Good or Evil, and indeed, there were some viciously Evil inhabitants of the Boulder Free Zone, and who knows how many Good people were over there in Las Vegas.

(Spoilers) The culmination of the actual Stand-off was honestly underwhelming. I expected a giant LOTR-level battle of bloody hand-to-hand combat. Sending a few guys over to distract and unnerve Flagg before one of his own men blew everyone up seemed like wasted potential.

Something I really appreciated was an actual denouement, which is something I feel many contemporary books forgo in order to build the climax to the last possible page.

Posted in Mr. Philip's Library

“[Charlie] was hunched tensely over the steering wheel, his face drawn in the dim glow of the dashboard instruments. ‘If the gates are closed, I’m gonna try to crash through.’ And he meant it. [Sally] could tell. Suddenly her knees felt watery…But there was no need for such desperate measures. The base gates were standing open. One guard was nodding over a magazine. She couldn’t see the other; perhaps he was in the head. This was the outer part of the base, a conventional army vehicle depot. What went on at the hub of the base was of no concern to these fellows…I looked up and saw the clock had gone red…She shivered again and put her hand on his leg. Baby LaVon was sleeping again. Charlie pattered her hand briefly and said: ‘It’s going to be all right, hon.’ By dawn they were running east across Nevada and Charlie was coughing steadily…”
-tStephen King, The Stand: The Complete and Uncut Edition

A lot of authors have attempted to narrate the end of the world. None quite manage to do so like Stephen King. This is a big book, and as subtle as a sledgehammer, but the end of the world requires a large canvas, and subtlety is not a necessity for this type of material. In short, this is a near-perfect melding of genre and author.

King’s premise for The Stand is firmly rooted in an old-fashioned distrust of the government. In the opening pages, a highly contagious virus – the superflu – escapes from a U.S. Army biological weapons facility. Despite drastic, murderous attempts to quarantine and suppress, the virus spreads the world over. Most people fall victim to this lethal bug; however, a small number of folks, for mysterious reasons, are immune.

King tells this story in the only way he knows how: voluminously. This fully restored, unabridged “author’s cut” weighs in at 1,141 pages.

(I read this is mass market paperback, which was a true test of my aging eyes. I suppose it’s shorter in other versions, but it’s no novella, no matter what way you slice it!).

This length is partially an indulgence, something you can get away with if you are an international bestselling author. Yet King also uses the space to construct a vivid, consistent, and painfully real portrait of a country gone to hell: highways clogged with vehicles; the power gone; bodies littering fields; simple medical procedures turned lethally serious. King has given himself the latitude to not only show the macro effects of the plague, but also the smaller, telling details, such as the fact that all the beverages the characters drink are warm.

(That would be the real tragedy of the situation. All those Diet Dr. Peppers, all of them room temperature and spicy as hell. One shudders to think of it).

The Stand is a deliberately paced novel. It is a thriller with extreme patience. The first 300 pages or so is all set up, following various, unconnected characters whom – it turns out – are impervious to the superflu. During the middle portions of the book, these characters, including East Texan Stu Redman, music star Larry Underwood, pregnant girl Frannie Goldsmith, and fat guy Harold Lauder, start to make their way towards each other.

(And yes, my facile descriptions of these characters are intended to make a point. Despite certain attempts at shading, especially in making putative hero Larry a bit of an ass, all of King’s characters start to meld together. They aren’t distinct as human beings. Even at the end, I was trying to keep certain individuals separate in my mind. King has created some memorable characters in his career, but this is not a character piece).

King has taken his share of literary criticism (while reaping popular success), but he is an undisputed master storyteller. He writes in the third-person omniscient, taking a Gods-eye view of the world he has created and destroyed. His style is one that would burst the blood vessels of most creative writing professors. His prose veers from formal to slangy, often within a single paragraph. His writing is peppered with idioms, pop cultural references (old television shows, movies, and even commercial jingles), snatches of music, and contains an annoying level of puns and malapropisms. King is a product of a culture that valued the collection of trivia over standard intellectualism. He is, therefore, easily accessible to others of that same culture. On the upside, the prose is easy and fun and effortlessly maintains interest. On the downside, The Stand was first published in 1978, so many of the references are hopelessly dated. (The natural consequence of being up-to-the-minute is that the minute passes so quickly).

Besides the time-capsule references, the other disadvantage of King’s voice is that it tends to overwhelm the characters and the situations. It has a homogenizing influence. Everyone talks the same and thinks the same. In one conceit, King excerpts the minutes of a council meeting in the Boulder Free Zone (where survivors have congregated); unsurprisingly, the tone of these “minutes” sound remarkably like King himself. The author and the characters almost become one. This is a disheartening prospect, when the narrator is describing a sex scene and all you can picture is Stephen King’s photograph.

A great deal of time is spent giving depth and detail to a post-civilized landscape. There is a very real-seeming, Swiss Family Robinson-like aspect to the proceedings, as various survivors find ways to carry on in an environment bereft of government and modern conveniences. King goes to extremes to remind you on every page of the conditions his protagonists face. Indeed, there is an entire section in the book devoted to one-off characters dying in relatively mundane fashion, underscoring the heightened dangers you face when the safety net of community has been cut away.

The realistic grounding is necessary, because Stephen King (being Stephen King) also has some supernatural elements to add to the mix.

All the survivors, immune from the superflu, begin having shared dreams. Actually, there are two dreams. One dream, the good dream, leads people to an old black woman in Nebraska, Mother Abigail (Here, King indulges an unfortunate propensity for mystical black characters). Another dream, the evil dream, leads people to a Satan-like figure known by several names, but mainly as Randall Flagg (a recurring character in the King canon).

The two dreams lead to a coalescing of flu survivors into separate camps. The good guys, including Larry, Stu, a deaf-mute named Nick Andros, and a low-functioning man named Tom Cullen, gather in Boulder, Colorado, and attempt to rebuild society. The bad guys, including a spree killer named Lloyd, make camp in Las Vegas (naturally!).

As you might have gathered, it is these two forces, good and evil, that must eventually come to conflict. And it is the good people of Boulder who will eventually make the titular stand.

This biblical setup gives King ample opportunity for pop philosophizing. He even creates a character, sociologist Glen Bateman, for the sole purpose of soliloquizing on topics such as community dynamics and embryonic democracy. At this point, King’s reality, which he has worked so hard to create, begins to dissipate. It is replaced by cheap symbolism and on-the-nose commentary.

For instance, with Glen’s help, Randall Flagg is tagged as a fascist, who crucifies anyone who dares cross him; yet his brand of leadership is efficient at getting the lights turned on. Meanwhile, the Boulder folk start committee after committee, strangling themselves in bureaucracy; but at least they have free will and a voice and the constitution.

The Bible 101 also gets to be a bit much. I got that Mother Abigail was supposed to be Christ-like before she wandered off alone into the wilderness.

All this adds up to an endgame disappoints. (Minor, non-specific grousing behind the tag).

Instead of all the plotlines connecting and driving towards a thundering climax, the story just meanders along, studded with tepid monologues and cutaways to emotionally unfulfilling romantic interludes. As I reached the last few hundred pages, my interest waned dramatically. I stopped caring what would happen; I got distracted and started reading other books. I finally had to force myself to finish the damn thing, and frankly, there wasn’t much of a payoff. The actual “stand” of the title, the final battle of good and evil (and literally between white and black), is disposed of in less than twenty pages. I won’t spoil it, but the resolution relies more on deus ex machina than clockwork plotting.

With that aside, The Stand’s virtues more than make up for any shortcomings. My chief complaint is the eyestrain associated with any mass market paperback. Of course, the eyestrain was worth it. The Stand is a fine mess: an ambitious, overstuffed epic that gleefully spills out in every direction. While it lacks the forcefully-focused storytelling of King’s best works, it will definitely remain a landmark against which other world-destroying writers will have to contend.

M-o-o-n, that spells “long book that is brilliantly engaging and worth the ride despite the sudden and rather deflating ending.”

But for real, I read this 20 years ago and I still can’t shake that scene going through the underground tunnel. So scary. King is a legend of horror for a reason and this book is just overflowing with great characters and lots of intensity.

I read this book ages ago, but it's fresh in my mind every time I wind up stuck in traffic underneath the Hudson.

It's about almost everyone in the world basically catching a bad case of the Plague and dropping dead. This premise doesn't seem very far-fetched, which could make it either more or less entertaining, depending on your temperment.

Here's my opinion about good old Stevie King: he's got a real problem with endings. He'll spin these long, terrific stories, but way too often they're all based in suspense, and he lures you to page 600 or whatever, and leaves you high and dry. I read the first half of _It_ in sixth grade and had to stop, as the book had completely deprived me of my ablity to sleep. Two years later, I'd finally recovered enough to brave It again, and the ending was so stupid that I sorely wished I'd saved myself months of clown-terror wakefulness by finishing it the first time. I mean, don't get me wrong, the guy can write. But he almost invariably writes himself into a corner, and his endings are a let-down.

The great thing about The Stand, to me, is that King a. demonstrates that he's aware of this problem and b. uses his weakness jujitsu style, combined with wish-fulfillment, to great effect. You can just see him crouched at his typewriter, chewing on something and grumbling, "Christ, what's my problem..... These goddamn endings.... I just need a deus ex machina."

I liked the Stand. The Stand's good stuff. It's not one of the scary ones (well, it's scary in a different way than, say, The Shining), and in addition to having an ending I appreciate, it also gets pretty silly, but still: Recommended. Yep.

A-choo!