The Stand: Full Review

I just finished reading The Stand, by Stephen King (finally). I split this one up into chunks, due to the length of the novel, and only read a third at a time. I reviewed the first third, giving it a glowing review (indeed, it is the only 10/10 I have given up to this point). I didn't get around to reviewing the second part when I finished it, but now that I have finished the whole novel, I will now give a review of the latter two parts.

The Stand is a massive novel, the longest that I have ever read, almost 500,000 words, and in its pages, it recounts a pandemic that wipes out the entire population of the world save for a small segment. And in the aftermath, the survivors in America split into two budding civilizations, one built under Mother Abigail, and the other built by the Dark Man, Randall Flagg. The first third deals with the pandemic and the collapse of civilization. The second third deals with the struggles of establishing a civilization as it follows Mother Abigail's group building a government. And then the third book is primarily focused on Randall Flagg and the struggles they face as Flagg notices a shift in his abilities.

I mentioned that I loved the first third. My opinion has not changed. The second part was not as good, but I was shocked at how much I enjoyed it. And the third part was generally a disappointment.

Overall (No Spoilers)

The second part of the book deals with the trials and tribulations associated with establishing a new civilization in the wake of the collapse. Much of what happens with not necessarily integral to the plot, if I am being honest, and this is why I mentioned that I was shocked to find that I enjoyed the section as much as I did. King goes into a wealth of detail about how the civilians set up their government and decide who rules, and also how they attempt to bring back electricity in the town of Boulder. I've always liked stories that have this extra detail for the sake of immersion, and King does this very well.

Another major thread, one that I particularly liked, was the character arc of Harold Lauder. King did an excellent job communicating his mental states to the reader, and we understand why he made the decisions he did. Harold was a particularly complex character, and we got to see both sides of him.

I also liked the way in which King setup a future conflict, with the constant hints as the Dark Man built his civilization in the background. King's decision to have the development of that civilization off-screen helped build the suspense, knowing that this threat was brewing in the far West.

Randall Flagg has both positives and negatives about him. He is an interesting villain, at least in that he has these weird quirks about him that make him stand out relative to the rest. And his presence through the second third of the book is very menacing. We see what he is capable of, and as I mentioned above, his presence the background of the story only makes him more ominous. And given that this character is omnipresent in all of King's stories, and is the main antagonist of The Dark Tower series, I am rather excited to see how all of the stories pull together to develop this character.

And I would do wrong to not mention the Kid. The Kid is a memorable psychopath that comes into the fore in the second part of the novel. Everything about this character is perfect, from the way he talks, to the way he acts, to the way the reader of the audiobook performed his character. He was so unapologetically nasty, but with such a strong voice, that I don't think I will ever forget this character.

As for the third part of the story, this is where things begin to fall apart. The simple answer is that none of the setup really pays off at any moment. King is notorious for his awful endings, and I have definitely noticed this (though there are some good ones). This affects my perception of Randall Flagg, given that he did not ultimately become a significant threat in the end. He was good up until the end. I don't think it was his character that was the problem, but the story's ending as a whole.

Another issue is his seat of the pants approach to writing. I am not an outliner, myself—I fall somewhere in the middle—but King's writing often suffers from this fact and his inability to shape the plot of his story after writing that first draft. It really does seem like he came up with the events as he went and then simply finished the story at some point without thinking about the story as a whole. This is related to his inability to recognize the importance of plot, something he explicitly downplays.

I have more to say, but I will leave that to the spoiler section.

Overall, the book was okay. I will give it a 4/10.

Missteps (Spoilers)

I don't have much spoiler talk about the positives of the story.

As for the negatives, I think I have much to mention. To start, I liked the idea of the Boulder community sending spies to Las Vegas, but the execution was just poor. In fact, this is the kind of plot threads I had in mind when I said above that King did not think about the story as a whole and simply let some threads hang. Two of the spies get caught. That is fine. My issue is what happened with Tom. Tom is the third spy and he manages to live amongst those in Las Vegas for a time and then later escape.

It should be obvious that something must come of this. Otherwise, what was the point of sending the spies and focusing on them as much as he did? Whole scenes were devoted to the meetings where they decided who to send, and then later to the killing of two of the spies, and then later to Tom's escape and Flagg's realization. Yet, at the end of the story, the only purpose Tom served was to escort Stu back home after he broke his leg and got sick. By that point, Flagg was already defeated. It really was pointless save to get Stu back home. In fact, I suspect one of the main reason Stu broke his leg was so Tom would have some purpose to serve.

The "climax" of the story is non-existent. Three of the four that left Boulder to walk to Las Vegas make it to the city and they turn themselves over to Flagg. Flagg kills Glen and then puts Ralph and Larry in cages in front of an audience. This is all fine, so far, but it builds to nothing. I am not exaggerating when I say that there is no final conflict; there is no conflict at all. Larry and Ralph do absolutely nothing. They don't fight Flagg; no one fights Flagg. Instead, Trashcan man shows up with a nuclear warhead in the middle of the crowd, and then what is referred to as a Hand of God come down and sets it off, killing everyone in the city. That's it.

In a way, it reads like King decided to end his story a paragraph before he wrote the scene where Flagg and the rest die. And the hand of God is deus ex machina, and deliberately so. I'm not one of those people who thinks that writing amounts to following rules laid out by stereotypical tropes, but there is always give and take. Deus ex machina usually doesn't work because it just handwaves away the conflict instead of forcing the characters to resolve it on their own; but if you give the trope another purpose in the story, then you can make it work.

I think the One Piece manga is one example of this being done well. Whenever the trope crops up, it usually serves the purpose of showing the bonds the crew makes along the way (a friend saves them at the last moment), and/or to show that they were out of their league (they only survive because they were saved by someone stronger). The only thing that King did was suggest that Larry and Ralph were a sacrifice to the Hand of God. Whatever that means.

I also have questions about Mother Abigail's character. She seemed to be a character of importance, but she literally did nothing for the story except be the point around which people formed their community. When she disappeared, that was a cool twist, but she simply shows back up later, dies with one last command, and I am left wondering whether that was really it. The Hand of God is too vague to for it to be tied to Mother Abigail. I just don't get the point.

Conclusion

Overall, the book was okay. I will give it a 4/10.