The Stand: Complete and Uncut Editon (Horror)

By Stephen King (with illustrations by Bernie Wrightson)

Publisher: Doubleday; 1st edition (May 1, 1990)

Hardcover, 1200 pages

            “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.

           For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst.