By Stephen King (with illustrations by Bernie Wrightson)Publisher: Doubleday; 1st edition (May 1, 1990)
Hardcover, 1200 pages
Finished 2/1/2017
Amazon Listing
“There was a
dark hilarity in his face, and perhaps in his heart, too, you would think—and
you would be right. It was the face of a hatefully happy man, a face that
radiated a horrible handsome warmth, a face to make water glasses shatter in
the hands of tired truck-stop waitresses, to make small children crash their
trikes into board fences and then run wailing to their mommies with
stake-shaped splinters sticking out of their knees. It was a face guaranteed to
make barroom arguments over batting averages turn bloody”
Where do we begin with this mammoth
1200 page extended edition tome- or should we call it “the writer’s cut”? I
suppose if you are going to buy this book you might as well get the whole
story. This is my first time reading it, despite truly enjoying the mini-series
that came out in the mid-1990s. But that’s often the case with many of my
relationship with King’s works. I have watched more TV mini-series and films
based on his work than read the actual books themselves. The only other one
I’ve tackled before this novel was Pet Cemetary back in 1995 or so.
 |
| Original 1978 cover |
So I cannot
help but compare the novel to the series, it is inevitable. As I zipped through
the pages, my mind conjured up the actors from the show and how certain things
were similar or different. And honestly, the adaptation was near perfect.
Everything essential to the book was present in the series, and in some cases
improved upon. In fact it’s such a good adaptation that you might want to skip
the book altogether. Honestly, you won’t miss much.
A brief
synopsis for those who are curious: A genetically modified plague is
accidentally released from a government installation. The contagion spreads
across the world and within two months, 99% of the world’s population is dead.
Those who survive begins having dreams of an old woman (Mother Abigail) a 106-year-old
prophet and of a Dark Man (Randall Flagg) an apostate from Hell. People begin
to drift naturally to one side or another, until a final confrontation between
the forces of good and evil occur in the center of Las Vegas.
The character of Randall Flagg is the most, and maybe only,
interesting character in the novel. King regards him as his greatest villain
and has made steps to expand him into later works - including adding a little
epilogue in the expanded version. But King has done this by re-coning one of
his other villains, Walter O’Dim from The Gunslinger, and merging the two
characters. As I’m sure most of you know, O’Dim is the main antagonist from The
Dark Tower series.
The combining
of these two characters is a mistake. The villain from The Stand is a true
agent of chaos. He has no reason for what he does, he doesn’t know where he
comes from, he is simply acting out a preset role. It just happens to be one he
loves. He is the great fouler, who brings out the worst in people. Pre-Captain
trips he traveled around extremist and leftist groups, spurring them on to
commit violent atrocities. Walter O’Dim on the other hand has very specific
goals. He wants to crack the Dark Tower and rule as a God. The two, as
initially written, don’t measure up. C’est la vie.
The character is already identified in the story as Legion, a
horde of demons whom Heyzeus smacked around in the Bible. This influence is
evident in the number of names Flagg picks up in this novel alone: The
hardcase, The Walkin’ Dude, The Dark Man, The man with no face, the Devil’s
Imp, those are in addition to the constant variations of on the initials R.
F.. And that’s what Flagg is, an
influencer of destruction. He should have stayed that way.
 |
| Randall Flagg from the mini-series played by Jamie Sheridan |
There are several illustrative plates
in the book, an olde tyme tradition, of events in the story. Drawn by veteran
artist Bernie Wrightson of Swamp Thing fame. I am a fan of his work, but the
drawings here do not add anything to the reading experience. In fact, they seem
pretty flat and lifeless, tossed off for an easy paycheck. They are entirely
unnecessary.
King has often stated that with this
book he wanted to do an American version The Lord of the Rings. And, while
original in certain aspects, you can see the roots from Tolkien’s characters.
Most obvious is Randal Flagg as Sauron and Mother Abigail as Gandalf. Trashcan
Man can be related to Gollum, and Harold Lauder (the betrayer) is Boromir who
tried to take the ring from Frodo. As for the main character himself, Stu
Redman is Frodo, Glen Bateman is Bilbo, Nick Andros, Larry Underwood, and Ralph
Bretner are the rest of the Hobbits and so on.
The book has been criticized as being
an over-bloated novel that drags in the middle, before exploding in the end. Some of this is fair, but if you pick up a twelve hundred page novel you need to
expect some of that. A lot of detail and many characters. Maybe certain
characters could have been cut or merged, as in the mini-series, but this is
the story of a journey. Of people travel to struggle against forces (natural
and supernatural) beyond their control and to discover what makes a new normal.
 |
| Author Stephen King |
Still the criticism is understood it
seems like there should be more going on in this novel than actually takes
place. Certain scenes take way too long (several pages too long) to develop
than they should before the action takes place. They can get bogged down with
too many details. You can also see why several scenes were originally cut, such
as that between The Kid and Trashcan Man, in the original printing, as they
really add nothing to the story but some filler. What gets my goat most though
(and this is just my pet peeve) are the many many pop culture references in the
text. It always dates the text, most of them are from the 70s and 80s, very
stale nowadays.
On the other hand, the growth of the
characters over the novel’s course is very realistic. I believed in each of
them as real people with genuine reactions to the events that have enveloped
them. While there wasn’t a huge amount of difference between the main
characters, there was enough so that each was unique to the story. Each stood
out as an individual.
No comments:
Post a Comment