Scan barcode
A review by ostrava
The Stand by Stephen King
2.0
I’m a bit at odds with The Stand.
On the one hand, it’s a well-shaped piece of a novel, with consistent suspense throughout the narrative and a good measured amount of remarkable characterization to care for that help make the reading feel like a good season of television.
On the other hand, it does feel like television, doesn’t it? Particularly a soap opera set within a post-apocalyptic world. The Walking Dead, for example. I’m sure there might be others, the genre never felt “dry” to me from the outside. The thing about that particular genre is that you can sometimes sense a feeling of incoherence, and maybe even improvisation, because there was never much of a plan to take the work further than its own premise, so now the showrunners are confused with where to take things, and, uh….you probably know where this is going.
The Stand is remarkably shallow.
It overstates its welcome, doesn’t seem to feel interested in saying anything, one way or the other, and it fails to even land on its feet. Forget landing on its feet, The Stand crushed its ass!
What the fuck is this ending, King.
Look, I get it. The “Stand” comes from having the characters stand against evil and allow it to destroy itself because evil is self-defeating, isn’t that smart? Except for the fact that it’s crystal clear that by the end of the novel none of the main characters shared any intellectual framework to counterargument Flagg! Other than being a little bit less lost, they're the same people as the one that started this whole adventure.
There was no stand!
We know evil is bad, we know these characters think low of the Dark Lord! What, do you think Sauron could have been defeated by sending a bunch of hobbits to Mordor to sarcastically shrug off the attempts of arrest by the Orcs? “Hey Sauron, you stink and your plans are stupid. You’re doomed to fail”. That’s it? And, of course, since that’s fucking stupid, King had the bad guys NUKED for being such an inconvenience to the plot. What was he thinking?
The real problem with The Stand is that it accomplished nothing. It had a cute introduction that could have made for a great read, and an ass of an actual plot. No matter how hard I try, I fail to see the bigger picture here. There is very little going on with it. Thank god he was honest enough to admit he didn’t have a plan once the cast arrived at Colorado, because, my god! What a fucking disaster of a payoff.
Look, I’m giving it two stars for the first third and for a bunch of characters that I thought were fine, and not brilliant. I don’t see the great character arcs everyone else sees, unless you count Fran going from a teenager into a baby making machine or Larry not being an asshole. But they were okay. That said, I’m calling it quits with King. He’s not a good writer, he does not write good stories and he’s certainly not my cup of tea. This damn brick proofed it and I gave it the chance it thoroughly deserves, apparently.
I’m sorry King, but you and I weren’t meant to be. I will probably continue watching movie adaptations of your stories though, don’t mind me.
P.S. By the way, I read the “original” 800 pages version, in my mother’s language version that is. Had I read the uncut version I don’t know what I would have done. I really, really doubt 400 to 500 more pages of paddling might have fixed this mess.
On the one hand, it’s a well-shaped piece of a novel, with consistent suspense throughout the narrative and a good measured amount of remarkable characterization to care for that help make the reading feel like a good season of television.
On the other hand, it does feel like television, doesn’t it? Particularly a soap opera set within a post-apocalyptic world. The Walking Dead, for example. I’m sure there might be others, the genre never felt “dry” to me from the outside. The thing about that particular genre is that you can sometimes sense a feeling of incoherence, and maybe even improvisation, because there was never much of a plan to take the work further than its own premise, so now the showrunners are confused with where to take things, and, uh….you probably know where this is going.
The Stand is remarkably shallow.
It overstates its welcome, doesn’t seem to feel interested in saying anything, one way or the other, and it fails to even land on its feet. Forget landing on its feet, The Stand crushed its ass!
What the fuck is this ending, King.
Look, I get it. The “Stand” comes from having the characters stand against evil and allow it to destroy itself because evil is self-defeating, isn’t that smart? Except for the fact that it’s crystal clear that by the end of the novel none of the main characters shared any intellectual framework to counterargument Flagg! Other than being a little bit less lost, they're the same people as the one that started this whole adventure.
There was no stand!
We know evil is bad, we know these characters think low of the Dark Lord! What, do you think Sauron could have been defeated by sending a bunch of hobbits to Mordor to sarcastically shrug off the attempts of arrest by the Orcs? “Hey Sauron, you stink and your plans are stupid. You’re doomed to fail”. That’s it? And, of course, since that’s fucking stupid, King had the bad guys NUKED for being such an inconvenience to the plot. What was he thinking?
The real problem with The Stand is that it accomplished nothing. It had a cute introduction that could have made for a great read, and an ass of an actual plot. No matter how hard I try, I fail to see the bigger picture here. There is very little going on with it. Thank god he was honest enough to admit he didn’t have a plan once the cast arrived at Colorado, because, my god! What a fucking disaster of a payoff.
Look, I’m giving it two stars for the first third and for a bunch of characters that I thought were fine, and not brilliant. I don’t see the great character arcs everyone else sees, unless you count Fran going from a teenager into a baby making machine or Larry not being an asshole. But they were okay. That said, I’m calling it quits with King. He’s not a good writer, he does not write good stories and he’s certainly not my cup of tea. This damn brick proofed it and I gave it the chance it thoroughly deserves, apparently.
I’m sorry King, but you and I weren’t meant to be. I will probably continue watching movie adaptations of your stories though, don’t mind me.
P.S. By the way, I read the “original” 800 pages version, in my mother’s language version that is. Had I read the uncut version I don’t know what I would have done. I really, really doubt 400 to 500 more pages of paddling might have fixed this mess.