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papapupucepestipi's review against another edition
3.0
"Well, I'm sorry," Fran said bitterly, "but I'm not interested in the Lord's guidance, if that's what it comes to. I've had just about all the guidance I can take from Him or Her or It or whatever. The Lord's been guiding us all right - straight to hell in a handbasket, just like this plague. I think it's high time we took a little responsibility for ourselves, don't you?"
"God demands a sacrifice... I don't know why. But I think he does. And if he doesn't get it, he demands it all the more."
The edition I read of The Stand has a foreword in which Stephen King mentions this isn't one of his favorite novels he's written. I have to agree with him.
I went into the book knowing virtually nothing about it. I didn't even want to read the blurb, so that I could enjoy it with completely fresh eyes. When I learned the premise - a constantly-changing, man-engineered superflu almost completely wipes out humanity, leaving the few survivors to rebuild a society the best they can - I was intrigued, especially in the wake of our pandemic. It's a premise one can do so much with, and I was curious what King would do with it. I was quite surprised and disappointed he'd decided to turn it into the grounds for a biblical fight between god and satan, but figured it could still be good. I highly doubted he'd write a Sunday school story and I expected him to challenge religion (Christianity specifically) in original ways. *cue the Curb your Enthusiasm theme song*
You know when sometimes pastors rap or put on plays or film Youtube videos to appeal to the youth and get them to church? This book sometimes (quite often) reads like the horror novel version of that. It's painful and it only gets worse as the book progresses.
So we've got a plague that almost kills the entire human population. At the start of the book, we get to follow our protagonists as they assist at everyone's deaths (friends, enemies, family, the people they've known and loved their entire lives). We're also prompted to imagine terrifying scenarios that would play out in an apocalypse - for example the slow torture of surviving prisoners left to starve in their cells, the cruel execution of terrified masses as the government still attempts to hide the gravity of their mistake. Some scenes are so distressing, I needed to put the book away for days or weeks at a time and read something else.
Once this catastrophe goes down, the few survivors immediately start having the same dreams of two key characters in the story - Randall Flagg, a representative of satan, and Mother Abagail, a representative of god. The latter is at one point described as the incarnation of everything good in the world, or something along those lines. Does that mean we witness her being extraordinarily kind and loving? No, but she reads her bible and she fears god and she speaks in verses, and at the end of the day, that's what matters, isn't it?
The two of them, RF and Mother Abagail (the demon and the angel), gather the people that feel drawn to them (or, in Randall's case, fall into their hands) and a war brews for the largest part of the novel. A literal war between good and evil that to me felt almost childish.
Unfortunately, that's not the only childish thing about the story. RF is cartoonishly evil. He is, at the end of the day, the embodiment of evil, just like satan is in christian belief, so it's impossible for him not to be that way. He knows everything (except for when it's useful to the action that he doesn't know some things - then, he doesn't). But don't worry, Mother Abagail also knows a lot of things she has no way of knowing.
Oh, and they're not the only ones that happens to. In fact, almost everyone under the sun now just knows a lot of things. In fact, it becomes so ridiculous that it turned into my own inside joke with myself. I thought of making a drinking game where I had to take a sip every time a character knew something without knowing how they know it (I'd have probably had to get my stomach pumped). The worst and most ridiculous case of this is Oh, and let's not forget The more this happens, the lazier it feels, like King got tired of trying to think of logical ways for a character to gather important information, so the information just finds its way to them.
I suppose that's a shortcut you always have on hand when writing a book about higher supernatural beings with almost no limit (the devil) and literally no limit (god) to their power. The characters are just pawns in their hands and everything goes, because why not?
That brings me to another point I found infuriating: Several characters, along with knowing things they shouldn't know, do things because they're made to. Nadine, for example, is a non-character to me and I despised her with a passion. She never felt like a person. She felt hollow. What are we meant to find interesting about characters that move like trains on a track, with barely any agency of their own?
There were many characters I found quite unlikeable, some of them so unlikeable I kept hoping they'd die (as horrible as that sounds). Hi, Harold. Hi, Nadine. Hi, as much as I wanted to be sympathetic to you, Trashcan Man. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. I like it when characters can get a reaction out of me. However, by far the most unlikeable character in the whole book was god, and I'm not sure that was intentional.
When I realised religion would play a large part in this story, I hoped and figured that Stephen King would eventually stray away from the characteristic black and white mentality of absolute evil and absolute good. In an almost 2000 pages long, post-apocalyptic horror novel, I figured the question of what kind of god would allow these atrocities to take place would be more heavy on the characters' minds. I hoped the author wouldn't be afraid to do something more with questions like, is there a god, and maybe even more importantly, if there is one, are they worthy of worship or even simply good? Or are they a tyrant like the one in the West, like Randall Flagg?
But no. At the start of my review, I included the only two quotes I could remember that even came near criticising god. From the very beginning, the book seems to strongly suggest that there is a god - the few atheists never really discuss their position on religion and belief, just sort of come to either believe in a higher power, or believe in Mother Abagail, who strongly believes in the christian god There are a few "wait, are we really the good guys here?" moments in the free zone, but that never extends to their leadership. There's no real moment where a character stops and thinks, "okay, Randall's bad, but is whatever power I'm serving any better?"
Sure, unlike in Las Vegas,, but let's not forget that the presumably all-powerful being that Mother Abagail and the free zone represent and serve, willed the tragic death of almost all humanity ([I'm hiding this behind a spoiler tag because I'm about to reference a very disturbing and cruel death] ). Also, his big plan/intervention/the hand of god Praise the lord!
Towards the end, when what's left of the free zone committee meets Randall's people, they criticise them for serving a criminal, an evil murderer, not realising that all the blood on Randall's hands is also on the hands of their god (and then some). At that point, I just had to laugh at how absurd it was. Because again, this irony is never truly addressed in the book in any way. Not only that, in the last few chapters, characters (including former atheists) encourage each other to pray, and guess what, things turn out well when they do. Isn't that just great and totally how the world works?
This is a book heavy with religion that's afraid to ruffle feathers. I'd say it's afraid to dig too deep, but it's afraid to even break the ground.
So many times, while reading The Stand, I had to think of hearing bible stories as a kid and thinking to myself, "wait, isn't god kind of the bad guy in this story?" and everyone turning a blind eye to the mere possibility that could be the case.
Although I've loved most of what I've read of Stephen King's writing, I don't know much about him as a person. I don't know if he's a christian and this is actually his view on the world, I don't know if he was afraid to offend the christians by offering us anything other than this 1700-pages long parable, but I don't appreciate being proselytised to. Especially not for this long.
Also, how are you going to write nearly half a million words about the end of the world and almost not say anything about the world outside the US? I may be wrong here, but the only time I remember catching a reference to another country was around page 1500. ?! Initially, this review was meant to start with: "Did you know there's a world out there beyond the USA? Well, Stephen King apparently had no idea at the time of writing this novel."
I meant to write at least as much about the things I liked, but while writing this review, I just got angry again. Which, incidentally, was pretty much the experience I had with the book. So I'll just say this: it's Stephen King. I don't believe there are many people in this world as good at something as Stephen King is at telling stories. He's the only one who can keep me captivated for so long even when I have such big problems with the story.
Also, Tom Cullen and Kojak alone make this book worth it. I loved them both to bits. M-O-O-N. That spells 'love'. Everybody knows that. Laws, yes.
"God demands a sacrifice... I don't know why. But I think he does. And if he doesn't get it, he demands it all the more."
The edition I read of The Stand has a foreword in which Stephen King mentions this isn't one of his favorite novels he's written. I have to agree with him.
I went into the book knowing virtually nothing about it. I didn't even want to read the blurb, so that I could enjoy it with completely fresh eyes. When I learned the premise - a constantly-changing, man-engineered superflu almost completely wipes out humanity, leaving the few survivors to rebuild a society the best they can - I was intrigued, especially in the wake of our pandemic. It's a premise one can do so much with, and I was curious what King would do with it. I was quite surprised and disappointed he'd decided to turn it into the grounds for a biblical fight between god and satan, but figured it could still be good. I highly doubted he'd write a Sunday school story and I expected him to challenge religion (Christianity specifically) in original ways. *cue the Curb your Enthusiasm theme song*
You know when sometimes pastors rap or put on plays or film Youtube videos to appeal to the youth and get them to church? This book sometimes (quite often) reads like the horror novel version of that. It's painful and it only gets worse as the book progresses.
So we've got a plague that almost kills the entire human population. At the start of the book, we get to follow our protagonists as they assist at everyone's deaths (friends, enemies, family, the people they've known and loved their entire lives). We're also prompted to imagine terrifying scenarios that would play out in an apocalypse - for example the slow torture of surviving prisoners left to starve in their cells, the cruel execution of terrified masses as the government still attempts to hide the gravity of their mistake. Some scenes are so distressing, I needed to put the book away for days or weeks at a time and read something else.
Once this catastrophe goes down, the few survivors immediately start having the same dreams of two key characters in the story - Randall Flagg, a representative of satan, and Mother Abagail, a representative of god. The latter is at one point described as the incarnation of everything good in the world, or something along those lines. Does that mean we witness her being extraordinarily kind and loving? No, but she reads her bible and she fears god and she speaks in verses, and at the end of the day, that's what matters, isn't it?
The two of them, RF and Mother Abagail (the demon and the angel), gather the people that feel drawn to them (or, in Randall's case, fall into their hands) and a war brews for the largest part of the novel. A literal war between good and evil that to me felt almost childish.
Unfortunately, that's not the only childish thing about the story. RF is cartoonishly evil. He is, at the end of the day, the embodiment of evil, just like satan is in christian belief, so it's impossible for him not to be that way. He knows everything (except for when it's useful to the action that he doesn't know some things - then, he doesn't). But don't worry, Mother Abagail also knows a lot of things she has no way of knowing.
Oh, and they're not the only ones that happens to. In fact, almost everyone under the sun now just knows a lot of things. In fact, it becomes so ridiculous that it turned into my own inside joke with myself. I thought of making a drinking game where I had to take a sip every time a character knew something without knowing how they know it (I'd have probably had to get my stomach pumped). The worst and most ridiculous case of this is
Spoiler
when Fran and Nick know about the bomb hidden in Fran's closet, which should have killed the entire committee of the free zone.Spoiler
Harold's hiding spot for his diary, which both Larry and Fran stumbled over. It was like no one could walk into Harold's house without going directly to that loose brick.I suppose that's a shortcut you always have on hand when writing a book about higher supernatural beings with almost no limit (the devil) and literally no limit (god) to their power. The characters are just pawns in their hands and everything goes, because why not?
That brings me to another point I found infuriating: Several characters, along with knowing things they shouldn't know, do things because they're made to. Nadine, for example, is a non-character to me and I despised her with a passion. She never felt like a person. She felt hollow.
Spoiler
She was always swung around by powers larger than her and by her own destiny, pushed into directions she never really decided for herself. Pushed to do things that never felt like her decisions either.There were many characters I found quite unlikeable, some of them so unlikeable I kept hoping they'd die (as horrible as that sounds). Hi, Harold. Hi, Nadine. Hi, as much as I wanted to be sympathetic to you, Trashcan Man. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. I like it when characters can get a reaction out of me. However, by far the most unlikeable character in the whole book was god, and I'm not sure that was intentional.
When I realised religion would play a large part in this story, I hoped and figured that Stephen King would eventually stray away from the characteristic black and white mentality of absolute evil and absolute good. In an almost 2000 pages long, post-apocalyptic horror novel, I figured the question of what kind of god would allow these atrocities to take place would be more heavy on the characters' minds. I hoped the author wouldn't be afraid to do something more with questions like, is there a god, and maybe even more importantly, if there is one, are they worthy of worship or even simply good? Or are they a tyrant like the one in the West, like Randall Flagg?
But no. At the start of my review, I included the only two quotes I could remember that even came near criticising god. From the very beginning, the book seems to strongly suggest that there is a god - the few atheists never really discuss their position on religion and belief, just sort of come to either believe in a higher power, or believe in Mother Abagail, who strongly believes in the christian god
Spoiler
and in the end is proven right.Sure, unlike in Las Vegas,
Spoiler
in the free zone, people are not getting crucifiedSpoiler
if only that 5-year-old in the beginning of the book had only prayed harder... The one that, after being orphaned by the pandemic, fell into a well, broke both his arms, and died 24 hours later, alone, afraid, and in painSpoiler
means exploding half of the already almost extinct human population.Towards the end, when what's left of the free zone committee meets Randall's people, they criticise them for serving a criminal, an evil murderer, not realising that all the blood on Randall's hands is also on the hands of their god (and then some). At that point, I just had to laugh at how absurd it was. Because again, this irony is never truly addressed in the book in any way. Not only that, in the last few chapters, characters (including former atheists) encourage each other to pray, and guess what, things turn out well when they do. Isn't that just great and totally how the world works?
This is a book heavy with religion that's afraid to ruffle feathers. I'd say it's afraid to dig too deep, but it's afraid to even break the ground.
So many times, while reading The Stand, I had to think of hearing bible stories as a kid and thinking to myself, "wait, isn't god kind of the bad guy in this story?" and everyone turning a blind eye to the mere possibility that could be the case.
Although I've loved most of what I've read of Stephen King's writing, I don't know much about him as a person. I don't know if he's a christian and this is actually his view on the world, I don't know if he was afraid to offend the christians by offering us anything other than this 1700-pages long parable, but I don't appreciate being proselytised to. Especially not for this long.
Also, how are you going to write nearly half a million words about the end of the world and almost not say anything about the world outside the US? I may be wrong here, but the only time I remember catching a reference to another country was around page 1500. ?! Initially, this review was meant to start with: "Did you know there's a world out there beyond the USA? Well, Stephen King apparently had no idea at the time of writing this novel."
I meant to write at least as much about the things I liked, but while writing this review, I just got angry again. Which, incidentally, was pretty much the experience I had with the book. So I'll just say this: it's Stephen King. I don't believe there are many people in this world as good at something as Stephen King is at telling stories. He's the only one who can keep me captivated for so long even when I have such big problems with the story.
Also, Tom Cullen and Kojak alone make this book worth it. I loved them both to bits. M-O-O-N. That spells 'love'. Everybody knows that. Laws, yes.
levanthium's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
aarnold2's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
agirlinlovewithbooks's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
lauramuir24's review against another edition
adventurous
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
3.0
mikerolla's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
5.0
bookcoin's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
florasin's review against another edition
4.5
I'm working my way through King's work in publishing order as audiobooks. This is the first one that I haven't read before.
I absolutely love it. It's a favourite of my Mom's, but I remember being intimidated by it when I first started picking up King's books. Somehow, even after reading the Dark Tower series, I still hadn't picked this one up.
Anyway, I had no idea what I was missing. I don't know if this book benefits from my having read the universe already, but I was wholly invested from fairly early on. Right around the time someone was described as a slow mutant.
There were multiple characters in this book that I couldn't predict the outcome for. I worried about characters often. Especially later in the novel.
I was listening to an audiobook (Grover Gardner does fantastic work here) and usually doing housework things at the same time. I regularly forgot what I was doing and got distracted just listening. Laundry half folded, dripping dish suds on the floor... Just lost in it.
It's just fantastic.
I absolutely love it. It's a favourite of my Mom's, but I remember being intimidated by it when I first started picking up King's books. Somehow, even after reading the Dark Tower series, I still hadn't picked this one up.
Anyway, I had no idea what I was missing. I don't know if this book benefits from my having read the universe already, but I was wholly invested from fairly early on. Right around the time someone was described as a slow mutant.
There were multiple characters in this book that I couldn't predict the outcome for. I worried about characters often. Especially later in the novel.
I was listening to an audiobook (Grover Gardner does fantastic work here) and usually doing housework things at the same time. I regularly forgot what I was doing and got distracted just listening. Laundry half folded, dripping dish suds on the floor... Just lost in it.
It's just fantastic.
roisin_marie's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic, Death, Suicide, Animal death, Bullying, and Mental illness
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