The Stand

This is my second attempt to get through a Stephen King book. I tried Christie and couldn't finish it--I was too bored. But I powered through and finished the entirety of The Stand (yes, the extended edition).

Maybe it's ultimately due to some deficiency in myself, but I didn't really enjoy or care much about any of the characters in this book. The "good" characters were really just nice in a pretty average, anodyne way, for the most part. The "evil" characters were occasionally shown to commit random acts of violence, but nonetheless had to show at least some initiative, courage, and care for their fellows in order to function as a team. That might be the point, actually. Maybe King is trying to point out that the line between good and evil in our fellow man is much thinner than we'd like to believe. I actually think he's right, but...I dunno...for a book that's supposed to be kind of an epic quest, it didn't feel tonally appropriate. And don't get me started on Larry; he just annoyed me all the way through, even after his redemption.

It sometimes feels like the real horror King is trying to evoke is the terror of a changing culture, of a changing America. Flagg's followers are good at technology because technology is scary. Mother Abagail is a relic of the past, and through her triumph over adversity and discrimination, she redeems the past. Her followers are generally humanities people. The constant, schmaltzy patriotism, especially as expressed by the military in the first third of the book and Mother Abagail's adherents in the second half, was a bit on-the-nose. The plague itself spreads more rapidly because modern transportation methods are at its disposal. But maybe I'm reading too much into it.