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viktor_haagLast night, I finished this brick by King. I'm still a bit too exhausted by it to comment in any detail (and I think that exhaustion was part of his plan). But I have these musings hopping around in my head:
• I have a suspicion that the ending is a bit weak. Once Stu and Tom make it back to Boulder, the book feels a bit vague, unfocussed, and rushed. The "dark coda" attached to the end of the "director's cut" edition also feels a bit trite to me, but that could be an artifact of how sadly common this device has become in the years since this edition of the book has been available. I wonder, in fact, whether this dark coda tendency was started by King.
• I have a suspicion that the implied author is very puritanical; those with even a minor flaw in their characters come to a sticky or abrupt end in this book. I'm not sure that I feel very comfortable with the puritanism on display in this book, or the metaphysical picture of the universe it proposes. For example, I'm disappointed by the author's presentation of the inevitable reward for Larry's character development throughout the book. I think I would have been a bit more in line with the narrative had Larry and Stu's position in the end been reversed, but I do see that this would have "unfairly" punished Fran's character (but as it is, what about poor Lucy? I note how neatly King avoids dealing with her in detail in the last part of the book). To me, the most interesting characters in this book are Larry and Lucy -- those people who have deeply seated flaws, which they are all too cognizant of, and who work really hard throughout the course of the book to both overcome their flaws and to choose an upwards rather than downwards path. In the end, what real effort is there in the stories of Stu and Fran who, frankly, don't have all that much growth to make to manoeuvre from A to B.
• Don't get me started on the inevitability of Nadine and Harold's fate. Feh. See comment on the puritanical implied author above. Pimply, pompous teen-age geeks beware. Ditto virginal spinsters who work with children (and have a dark past).
To really discuss this book intelligently with someone, I'd have to read it again, closely, and the thought of having to do that dismays me. It is a good book. It is a long book. I don't need to read it again any time soon. Which is not to say that I didn't like it; just that there were aspects I didn't really care for.
• I have a suspicion that the ending is a bit weak. Once Stu and Tom make it back to Boulder, the book feels a bit vague, unfocussed, and rushed. The "dark coda" attached to the end of the "director's cut" edition also feels a bit trite to me, but that could be an artifact of how sadly common this device has become in the years since this edition of the book has been available. I wonder, in fact, whether this dark coda tendency was started by King.
• I have a suspicion that the implied author is very puritanical; those with even a minor flaw in their characters come to a sticky or abrupt end in this book. I'm not sure that I feel very comfortable with the puritanism on display in this book, or the metaphysical picture of the universe it proposes. For example, I'm disappointed by the author's presentation of the inevitable reward for Larry's character development throughout the book. I think I would have been a bit more in line with the narrative had Larry and Stu's position in the end been reversed, but I do see that this would have "unfairly" punished Fran's character (but as it is, what about poor Lucy? I note how neatly King avoids dealing with her in detail in the last part of the book). To me, the most interesting characters in this book are Larry and Lucy -- those people who have deeply seated flaws, which they are all too cognizant of, and who work really hard throughout the course of the book to both overcome their flaws and to choose an upwards rather than downwards path. In the end, what real effort is there in the stories of Stu and Fran who, frankly, don't have all that much growth to make to manoeuvre from A to B.
• Don't get me started on the inevitability of Nadine and Harold's fate. Feh. See comment on the puritanical implied author above. Pimply, pompous teen-age geeks beware. Ditto virginal spinsters who work with children (and have a dark past).
To really discuss this book intelligently with someone, I'd have to read it again, closely, and the thought of having to do that dismays me. It is a good book. It is a long book. I don't need to read it again any time soon. Which is not to say that I didn't like it; just that there were aspects I didn't really care for.
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Date: 2007-07-24 14:34 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-24 15:08 (UTC)A few other things I found a bit wonky about the ending:
• I'm not sure I liked the "No! I'm Obi Wan" standing clothes trick that RF pulls in the end.
• I'm not sure I liked the more and more obvious parallels to the Lord Of The Rings as King's brick progressed in to the third section of his book; but I can understand why he used that framework.
• I understand that King had Harold do what he did in Boulder because he thought that the interactions and action in Boulder was "starting to stagnate and the characters were starting to get back into old habits and there wasn't much going on"; frankly, I take issue with this. For a character-driven narrative (which the brick clearly is: I mean, what actually happens by way of plot in the darn thing?), I personally found the most rewarding parts of the book to be the interactions between the characters and their inner struggle to grow forward from their past, make different choices, forge new outlooks, and so forth. I found it disappointing for this to be all thrown into a cocked hat by the essentiallist and puritanical "good vs evil" struggle that insisted on rearing its head. But again, I understand why King made this decision, and I don't think I can fault him for it. If you're going to put flying monkeys into your narrative, then you have to admit that they're there and deal with the implications.
I'll toss the "intelligent" part out of this discussion, for starters.
Date: 2007-07-24 17:49 (UTC)But for me the best part of The Stand has always been from the spread of the infection to the trek to Boulder/Vegas/Cibolla Seven-in-one (or whatever that one character kept chanting). In the concluding chapters, only the scenes in the frozen resort town, with Tom ministering to Stu, laying injured and near death stand out.
It pales in comparison to the Grand-daddy of the genre, George R Stewarts' Earth Abides, a book I haven't read for a long time, but need to track down again, pronto.
Doug.
Re: I'll toss the "intelligent" part out of this discussion, for starters.
Date: 2007-07-24 18:52 (UTC)However, I think my absolute favourite post-apocalypse book is probably Le Guin's "Always Coming Home".
As for other King books, I read "Salem's Lot" a few years back and I rather liked that; I think I liked it better than this one, actually maybe because it had less sprawl and wasn't quite as much a long haul to get through.
Re: I'll toss the "intelligent" part out of this discussion, for starters.
Date: 2007-07-24 19:14 (UTC)I don't think I've read Always Coming Home, but I'll see if I can hunt it down.
I did forget to add Cell to my list of Stephen King books, which starts off like a zombie book, but ends up something more like Greg Bear's Blood Music meets Carl Sagan's Contact.
Re: I'll toss the "intelligent" part out of this discussion, for starters.
Date: 2007-07-24 19:26 (UTC)I didn't like "Earth Abides" when I first read it. I only read it once. This was ... hmm ... about twenty years ago or so. It's entirely possible I was not necessarily going to like it at that age no matter how good it was. I'll put it on the list of things that should probably be re-read on the advice of friends.
Cell... zombie book... more like Bear meets Sagan
Yes, I read the plot synopsis for "Cell", and wasn't immediately hooked to go read it. I have "The Gunslinger" in my reading pile, but I don't know when/if I'll get to that, or another King book.
After "The Stand", this is the list I currently have open:
- "A Drink Before The War" by Lehane (actually in my pack)
- "Shadow & Claw" by Wolfe (bedtime reading)
- "number9dream" by MItchell (bathroom and morning reading)
- "Two For The Lions" by Davis (alternate bedtime reading)
- "Black Company" and "House Of Chains" for those times when I really want blood-n-thunder fantasy
Plus a bunch of theory books (Geertz, Derrida, Butler) for when I feel I have enough energy to really hurt my brain.
It may be a while before King can fit his way back into my attentions, or George Stewart either, for that matter.
Re: I'll toss the "intelligent" part out of this discussion, for starters.
Date: 2007-07-26 01:50 (UTC)It's been ages since I last read "The Stand"; while I remember I liked it (especially where King got off by killing everything off, including politicians, Gilligan's Island re-runs, fast-food restaurants, etc.), I obviously didn't like it enough to 1)remember much about it nor want to 2) read it again.
::B::