Reading for the Second time!!!

I've finally read the whole thing!

(Yeah, I talk big, but notice I had to make sure to safely catch the book... I couldn't bring myself to really throw it!)

I'll write up a full review later, but overall I really enjoyed the book. I loved the how instead of starting after the world-changing event (as many dystopian novels do), the story progression actually showed us the world before, during, and after the Captain Trips plague impacted it. I was also impressed by the character growth as the survivors found themselves having to adapt to a whole new and scary world where the old rules didn't apply any more. Stephen King is mostly known for horror, but while there are certainly some horror elements in the story (particularly with the main antagonist Randall Flagg), there are many other genres sprinkled in as well. This novel is as much science fiction and fantasy as it is horror, and some parts are even beautifully written, like a particularly poignant passage where Frannie Goldsmith describes exploring her father's toolshed like being transported to a magical realm. King's writing strengths are really on display here!

However, I did have some issues with the book. Much like I felt disappointed with the climax of Stephen King's It, I did have a n  "That's it?!"n reaction to the climax of this book... after so much build up, it felt anti-climactic to say the very least. Also, some parts did feel a little bloated (I can see why King originally trimmed this version down by at least 200 pages). And there were times where the writing really left a bad taste in my mouth. For example, while I do applaud King for giving us a mentally handicapped protagonist in Tom Cullen, there were times when the writing made me really uncomfortable, almost as if his disability was being played for laughs (like the running theme where Tom spells everything M-O-O-N). Also, one scene in particular which involves soldiers being executed on TV is so racially insensitive, it almost makes me wonder if King inserted it as a test just to see if his editors were paying attention, only to find out that they really weren't... not at all!

Many people consider this King's masterpiece. I don't quite regard it that highly, but it certainly is a compelling read... except for the smattering of parts that made me cringe for all the wrong reasons.

Want to catch the flu? Read The Stand.

I caught it twice in the month it took me to read this book. Twice! I'm rarely sick so it's clearly a thing.

Post-apocalyptic book where most people die from a super flu. That part was my favorite.

It then becomes a battle between Good and Evil. Some fantasy elements were included. This part was still solid. I liked how we got to follow the characters and get to know them. I felt some similarities to Station Eleven so if you like The Stand I would give this one a shot too!

This is my favorite of all time, if-I-could-only-have-one-book-with-me-on-a-desert-island book.

n  “The place where you made your stand never mattered. Only that you were there...and still on your feet.”n

Soundtrack:
Sad But True - Metallica



n  Times Square, April 2020 - Angela Weiss Agence France-Pressen


n  A homeless person pushes his belongings through a deserted Times Square in Manhattan, New York, March 23, 2020. REUTERS/Carlo Allegrin


The story in short:

An extremely contagious and lethal strain of influenza is developed as a biological weapon in a secret U.S. Department of Defense laboratory in northern California. Following a security breach, sentry Charles Campion manages to escape before the facility is locked down. He takes his family out of the state. Along with the superflu. The story deals with fate of the survivors of this ghastly pandemic : the actual focus of the novel is not on the pandemic, but on how people cope with the new normal.


De triomf van de dood (The Triumph of Death) - Pieter Bruegel the Elder


1. Systematic dualism

Many characters in The Stand happen to... mirror one another. To the point it is actually unprecedented in any book I have read so far:

Tom Cullen - Trashcan Man
Randall Flagg - Abagail Freemantle
Leo - Dinny
Stu Redman - LLoyd
Frances - Nadine


2. Rationalism/Irrational

The characters in this story are driven by their dreams. Conflicted dreams at that: one about an old woman living in Nebraska, another one involving the multifarious, shapeshifting, faceless, thousand-named Randall Flagg.


The Demon Seated, Mikhail Vrubel, 1890

“He walked south, south on US 51, the worn heels of his sharp-toed cowboy boots clocking on the pavement; a tall man of no age in faded, pegged jeans and a denim jacket. His pockets were stuffed with fifty different kinds of conflicting literature – pamphlets for all seasons, rhetoric for all reasons.”

At some point, the survivors question the fondations of rationalism. Reason came out of the epidemic as severely unravelled, if not frayed.

As a reader, I have to wonder what is the importance of individual will, compared to the arbitrary, embodied by Abagail Freemantle and Randall Flagg, and relatively to happenstance?

“What we do and what we think ... those things are often based on arbitrary judgments when they are right. I can't get over that. It's like a block in my throat, how all true logic seems to proceed from irrationality. From faith. I'm not making much sense, am I?"

"The beauty of religious mania is that it has the power to explain everything. Once God (or Satan) is accepted as the first cause of everything which happens in the mortal world, nothing is left to chance ... or change.”

n  Magician, 1943 - Nicholas Roerichn


3. Belonging to a community

'Recreating society by means fair and foul'

“Show me a man or a woman alone and I'll show you a saint. Give me two and they'll fall in love. Give me three and they'll invent the charming thing we call 'society'. Give me four and they'll build a pyramid. Give me five and they'll make one an outcast. Give me six and they'll reinvent prejudice. Give me seven and in seven years they'll reinvent warfare. Man may have been made in the image of God, but human society was made in the image of His opposite number, and is always trying to get back home.”

“We're a bunch of survivors with no government at all. We're a hodgepodge collection from every age group, class group, and racial group. Government is an idea, Stu. That's really all it is, once you strip away the bureaucracy and the bullshit. I'll go further. It's an inculcation, nothing but a memory path worn through the brain.”

4. Eternal return

“'It's been suggested by colleagues even more fanciful than I that Western Man needs an occasional high colonic, a purging, and this occurs at the end of the centuries so that he can face the new century clean and full of optimism.”

5. Shortcomings of the novel in my opinion:

I read the extended version. Wasn't sure it was ever going to end, but it felt like a TV series that I wanted to binge until the last episode and then wanted one more episode anyway. In the same way, it was exhausting to read. There were a lot of characters to keep track of, especially while their stories ran parallel, and when they finally merged, it was I kept having to check who was aligned with whom.

A few observations (not spoilers since they don't really give away much in terms of plot):

1. How did Larry know about zircon and diamond paste??? I'm especially amused that he knew about paste. That's not a common jewelry material/technique used in modern jewelry design or technique, at least not in mass produced jewelry. Stephen King might have a vaster knowledge in jewelry than expected, and I hope he gifts jewelry regularly!
2. There's a point when Larry is momentarily disgusted by the sight of a woman's sagging breasts. This annoyed me because it's this kind of writing in pop media that contributes to impossible beauty standards for women. So to all the women out there and to all the men who haven't yet discovered this, let me tell you that gravity comes for EVERYONE. Just cuz you can't see it on the outside so much doesn't make it any less freaky or unsightly or whatever adjective you want to use. Gravity is an equalizer. Trust me on that one, and it's equally and breathtakingly fill-in-the-surprising-blank the first time you might see how it effects men - for me, it scared me so much that I had to look away and tell him to go home. Bet that was uncomfortable to read, right? But being critical of women's bodies has gotten so normal that no one even blinks when a writer says something about degrading about our bodies. So let's try to stop making judgmental comments about women's bodies, and I won't make any about men's.
3. The day before New Year's Eve last year, I had finished reading for 2024 and decided to watch a little TV. I caught up on a couple of Taylor Sheridan shows - Landman and Tulsa Kings. I knew he had a deep respect for Native Americans, so I was especially disappointed and a bit shocked that toward the middle/end of Tulsa Kings season two, the writing suddenly got racist toward the Chinese. That's kind of how I felt with Stephen King's language here, referring to the Chinese as a savage (though the others in PTSD where merely in PTSD) and the Native American as scalpers (the colonizers did MORE than their fair share of scalping, by the way).
4. One thing that doesn’t die in a global pandemic that killed off 99% of the population is apparently patriarchy. Otherwise, Harold may have been more likeable and could've grown in character. Note to men: women are not ownable! You have no rights to put claims on us in anyway - EVER.
5. Another thing that doesn't die in the patriarchy is the weak sexual will of men and how easy it is to paint women as Jezebels.
6. I thought it very funny that the stand takes place in Las Vegas, aka, Sin City.
7. Dogs truly are a human's best friend.
8. We are evidently doomed because we clearly cannot learn from lessons as big as a global, apocalyptic level pandemic. The true cockroaches that survive anything are the dark and a-hole natures of people who are power hungry and love to put other people down, which also means that they NEED a sense of superiority. Otherwise, Tom (possibly my favorite character) couldn't have gotten away with the story he was told to feed the people in Las Vegas. If the story had ended a different way, we would've had a community of eugenicists all over again.
9. Not sure I would've wanted to migrate to Abigail if I was in the book. All the Biblical citations would've made my eyes roll too much, and I would not have wanted her to pick me to go to Vegas! Plus, King seems to love to kill off characters too easily after I've invested in them. You just never know who will survive to the end.

These were most of my gripes, but the book was so expansive that the rest of it being so good made it more than readable and easy to overlook these discomforts.

I originally had this as a 4, but I can't stop thinking about this book. So I'm going to call this a 5.

Well, I think I first read this back in the early 1980s as Stephen King started making a name for himself as a horror writer. I had read some James Herbert horror novels in the late 70s, most notably The Fog and decide to branch out a little although I was not a monster (pun intended) horror fan.
I ended up by investigating this American that had written a few horror books and even had a few turned into films. Of course I accidentally gravitated to his more sci fi orientated books than his horror ones and so ended up reading The Gunslinger and then this book.

It is down as one of my favourites of all time, simply because of the story and "world building" that it contains. The characters are recognisable as every day people, ones friends and acquaintances (in some cases unfortunately) from helpful older guys to precocious greedy kids, and I think that's part of its "charm".

Some of the things that happen in the book are inevitable and obvious and some take you by surprise, but isn't that what you want in a book, to recognise it as every-day but also out of this world.

I understand now that Mr King removed something like 300 pages when I read this in the 80s on the advice of his publisher and has now added those pages back in, hmm, well, when it comes to a re-read, and it has been 10 years, I shall continue with my small version if that is ok, I don't think 40% more would help or improve.

This review has been written in 2019 as part of my ongoing mission to bodly go, oops no, to write reviews for all the books that I have logged as read on GR, but have not written a review for.

Dear Stephen,

I'm sorry. I just don't like you in that way. I know we've been friends for a long time, but I just never developed those kind of feelings for you, even after eleven hundred pages. I feel like we only moved forward in fits and stops, and we were just never able to sustain a kind of even-handed development of the kind of chills and thrills a person really likes. Shock someone enough times with snot running out of their nose, and it just becomes a little meaningless. And there are only so many ways to view a dead body before one gets kind of numb instead of apprehensive. Using the journal device to move things forward seems a little crude, when what we really need to do is talk.

I have to confess, I've felt kind of uncomfortable watching you struggle with religion and spirituality. You sparked my interest when you posited that this might be the battle between the age of reason and that of "irrationalism," and the dark man was the last vestige of doomed rationalism. I thought for a few minutes we were headed somewhere really special, but you didn't seem very confident, and the theme fell apart.

I will say there were a few surprises along the way, which I found pleasant. I appreciate you avoiding the obvious character arcs, especially when it comes to redemption. I was glad to meet most of your friends, especially Joe/Leo, Stu and even Kojak. Your military friends bored me out, though, especially Starkey; I don't even get why you like spending any time with those guys. Such a bunch of fossils. I do have to say, I was really impressed with how you must have studied disease modelling and progression--I almost felt like was there.

Sometimes I get the feeling that you don't really see me as a person, just a baby-maker. You even have an extended soliloquy about it, as if I wasn't even here reading your words. It bothers me, because you took the time to develop nuanced male relationships (Larry, Stu, Lloyd), but the women were about reproducing or were cannon fodder. Since you allowed technology to remain, I'm not going to buy into your lowest most-functional society mentality, no matter how many sociological theories you throw at me. And then there's the elderly black woman as representation of all that's spiritual. Perhaps even Mother Earth? If I'm rolling my eyes, it's because it's another aspect of compartmentalizing women as either maiden, matron or crone, and people of color as closer to God(s)(being savage and all, as you so helpfully illustrate in your "The Circle Closes" afterward). Honestly, it's kind of juvenile, and a little disappointing when I know you are capable of so much more.

It's time for me to move on. I'm sure you'll find someone special eventually, Stephen, because you are such a really great guy. And so unusual, too.

With Three Stars,

Your Friend Always.

Cross posted at http://clsiewert.wordpress.com/2013/0...

M-O-O-N. That spells Terrific

I have had this book on my shelf forever. Well based on a receipt I found stuck in the book since May 1984. I think I started it but never finished. With the COVID-19 pandemic ongoing it seemed a perfect time to dig out this book and read it. Compare Stephen King's apocalyptic version to what is actually happening.

In the novel a man escapes from a government biological testing facility resulting in the spread of a mutated strain of the flu that will wipe out 99% of humanity within weeks. The survivors are left to try and rebuild society. They have something else in common besides having survived this flu. They share dreams. They dream of a 108 year old woman who urges them to build a new community in Boulder, Colorado. This is Mother Abagail, who emerges as their benevolent leader. They also dream of Randall Flagg, a.k.a. The Dark Man. He represents the evil and is building a community in Las Vegas.

It is easy to make comparisons to the bible. Even the survivors are sinners. God is angry. But there is hope. It is the story of good vs. evil. Thankfully COVID-19 is nothing like the pandemic Stephen King unleashed in this story and I hope we will all survive and things get back to normal. Whatever the new normal will be.

The Stand is one of my all-time favorite books, and I think it is the most unforgettable. A must read if you are a SK fan, and a must read if you love Good vs Evil!

Apocalipsis, el libro más largo que King ha escrito. Y como es debido, toma su buen tiempo para despegar. Vamos, a lo que tiene acostumbrado a sus lectores con alguna que otra paja innecesaria.

Para empezar, quizás darle cuatro estrellas a mí me parece demasiado excesivo al ser una historia que pierde el ritmo en varias ocasiones, donde a veces no se sabe exactamente cuál es el foco de que narren tantos personajes; entre los cuales hay un desbalance terrible donde los buenos tienen más protagonismo y los malos (aquellos que son interesantísimos), no lo tienen tanto sino casi al final. El principal problema que le veo es que al comienzo hay unos que tienen mucha pantalla, prometen demasiado pero luego se desinflan como un globo a lo largo del libro y decepcionan. Y hay otros, a los que se les da el mismo protagonismo pero solo para dar vueltas y vueltas sobre el mismo tema opacando al resto, lo que se vuelve cansino y muy pero que muy monótono.

La primera parte del libro es introductoria. Con la epidemia, el virus y todo el caos que conlleva en los pocos supervivientes. Se siente mucho los tonos apocalípticos, que es genial, pero hay algunas escenas que en verdad sobran y a las que se les puede pasar tijera sin compasión.

La segunda parte se desarrolla más y se nos da algo de acción, además de por fin centrarse en la trama principal (el muy manido y reciclado enfrentamiento del bien y el mal). Sin embargo, aquí es donde más me he disgustado y se nota la pérdida de tiempo que se le dedica a cierta parejita de personajes hartantes.

Y ya la última parte es lo mejor de todo el libro. Los personajes colisionan, hay un enfrentamiento final, muertes, sorpresas agridulces. En fin, es un deleite ver cómo todo se puede ir más al carajo. Yo el único problema que le veo a esta parte final es que se incurre en lo que a mi parecer es un gravísimo deus ex machina que no puedo pasar por alto.

Sin embargo, es un buen libro y aunque tiene sus altibajos vale la pena. Aunque también es verdad que si me pongo a compararlo y valorarlo con respecto a It, este último es sin duda mejor libro que Apocalipsis. Ambos tienen cosas en común, como que son larguísimos, novelas corales que tienen muchísimos personajes, hay un villano que manipula de alguna manera la mente y se explora la maldad humana en distintas facetas. Solo que It lo hace mucho mejor y Apocalipsis se quede algo blandengue al lado, desaprovechando a buenos personajes y dándole demasiadas vueltas a otras cosas no tan importantes. Así que por esa razón me pesa ponerlo a la misma altura y se lleva sus cuatro merecidas estrellas por ser una aventura larga con subidas y bajadas y que me ha gustado para ser un tochaco.

Do you ever think about how magical books are? How they can transport you to distant lands, embed you deep within strange and unfamiliar minds, present you with novel and remarkable circumstances, make you feel connected to even the most flawed of characters, project the most vivid images of unexplored locations. The Stand does all of these things for me in ways that no other book has ever done.

This is my second read of this book, with my first coming last June, and I fell so, so deeply in love with it this time around. It not only became my favorite book of all time, but the story somehow haunts me in a way no other story ever has. These characters are etched into my consciousness and feed on my waking thoughts.

n  Character I Loved & Hatedn

I am a Larry Underwood fan. He’s perfectly imperfect, morally misshaped, and is to put it plainly, a self-absorbed ass. But I love watching his inner struggle unfold in relatable and altogether familiar ways.

I love every character in this book. Like every single one. Even those I despise. Harold I’m looking at you.

n  Themesn

This is the ultimate good vs evil story, but what makes it so beautiful and compelling is that there are very few characters who are completely congruent with either side. They all operate with the most human of nuance and moral dissonance.

This is also a story about the dissolution and reconstruction of American society itself, and an interrogation into everything that means. It’s a look into the American experiment in all of its beautiful complexities, the abhorrence of its evils and moral ineptitude and the freedom of spirit that unites us.

n  One Thing I’ll walk away withn

It’s nearly impossible to narrow it to a single thing, but what stands out to me the most are the indelible images of the Boulder Free Zone, an area I’m very familiar with and one that inundates me with nostalgia.