-Stephen King, The Stand
Finally, the review I've been dreading the most, The Stand by Stephen King, a book I started reading two years ago but didn't get round to finishing until now. Giving my opinion on this book is almost as daunting as starting the damn thing, but I'll have a crack at it regardless.
The Stand is a book that is held in extremely high regard by Stephen King fans, and well, book fans in general, and it is often referred to as Stephen King's magnum opus, his masterpiece, so I don't think it's a stretch to say that my expectations for this book were pretty damn high. And did the book meet my expectations? It certainly did, laws yes, for the first book at least (the novel is split into three sections, titled "books", each spanning hundreds of pages), the rest, well I'll get to that but let's start at the first.
The first book in The Stand, titled "Captain Trips", chronicles everything that leads up to the whole post-apocalyptic part of the book (an idea that was still quite novel in the 70s) in which Stephen King intricately details every domino that went into causing the majority of the human race to die. I found this whole section of the book to be a particular addicting, riveting, thought provoking read. It was fascinating watching King jump from character to character, each unique and interesting to read on their own, and witnessing their plights as the plague fast approaches. The read felt akin to reading short stories that all take place in the universe, we'd be introduced to a character, we'd learn about them for 20 pages or so, and then they'd die, or live and become a main character for the rest of the book. And while yes you could argue that it's a waste of time introducing and getting us invested in characters that will just die in a few pages and not really effect many of the events in the rest of the book, I think that the stories were interesting and volatile enough to justify their inclusion in the novel. Furthermore, not only did it let the reader know that no all life is sacred in this book, but it really gives us a sense of the human race dying out. These are real people, not just numbers, and you really get to know them from their brief appearances in the book, it shows the flu taking away lives of actual people, rather than just showing everyone disappearing in a way that evokes no emotion and feels like just a plot point to get to the post-apocalyptic stuff. Another thing that makes "Captain Trips" so great is the introduction of the notorious, seemingly omnipresent, Stephen King character, Randall Flagg. From the get go this character was infinitely interesting, just his mere presence in a scene would make it so much more enjoyable. So yeah, the first book, fantastic, sets up the rest of the book wonderfully.
Now the second book, titled "On The Border", is where I feel my opinion on this book begins to sour a bit. The earlier parts of the second book are still fantastic, the survivors we're left with are all distinct and interesting to read about, and I was constantly entertained by their antics, seeing how they cope with living in an empty world, and how they react and interact with each other. I really felt that in this section of the book Stephen King was successfully exploring what would happen if ninety nine or so percent of the population died, what the world would be like, and how we'd cope with that. For example who brings up the fact that there are dead bodies lying around everywhere, and makes it a point to actually have a community of people who's jobs were solely to clean up the mess left behind by those who hadn't been so fortunate. Now onto the sour, it's somewhere in the middle of this book (when they start settling in Boulder) where Stephen King really starts delving into all the politics involved in starting up a new society of people, and while the concepts King plays with in this section are undoubtedly interesting and thought provoking, the pacing at this point was just terrible, and reading all the meetings the characters took part in just became mind numbing. I was floored by how dull this section of the book was, luckily it doesn't last for too long, but whilst reading it it felt like forever and I feel it really dragged the rest of the book down.
And the final book, titled "The Stand", well there's not really much I can say about this part without spoiling the book, but while I was still enjoying reading it, the climax, after 1000 or so pages of build up, was just, so disappointing. The book presents itself as this huge epic, with it's length and scope I was really expecting a climax that would really blow me away, but what actually ended up happening was just, underwhelming, and I came out of it befuddled asking myself "is that it?". And then after that happens the book kinda just keeps on going, which I didn't mind because I did enjoy the whole getting back to boulder section, but then the book just ends, it just fizzles out. I had run out of pages but there was no ending, no resolution, and while yes you could make the point that the ending is meant to symbolise that humanity is just one vicious cycle, that doesn't make it any less unsatisfying.
So, in conclusion, I'd say The Stand, was, for the most part, fantastic. Especially that first section of the book, which I personally thinks everyone needs to read. But as a whole, it's hard for me to recommend this book, it's such a huge investment of time that culminates in, for me at least, an extremely disappointing ending. There was a lot of stuff I loved in this thing but, it was just dragged out so much that it's hard to love the book as a whole. So if you are intrigued by this book, or a fan of Stephen King, then I don't think reading it is a waste of time, it is after all a good book, just, don't go in expecting too much.
