Baby, Can You Dig [a Grave for] Your Man?

The Stand
by Stephen King
p. 1978/1990

Stephen King’s extended re-release of The Stand from 1990 (twelve years after its initial publication) was a book recommended and lent to me by my uncle and achieved two distinct landmarks for me: my first book by Stephen King and the longest single book I’ve ever read. My uncle knew it would resonate with me, as it is an epic post-apocalyptic novel—and probably the most famous one ever written.

As far as my former landmark is concerned, I have no excuse for never picking up a Stephen King novel before now. As an avid reader at 28 years of age, and one who has seen countless film adaptations of King’s work, you’d really think it would have come up before now. I even have several copies of his novels lingering in my book collection that I’ve never delved into—probably due to their length, if I’m being honest. It seems strange then, that I would start with King’s longest novel, but some times we all just need a little prodding. To say that I can see now why Stephen King is heralded as one of the most prolific contemporary writers seems a little... ostentatious, so I’ll just add that I was surprised to find that not all of his work is straight up horror. King’s horror novels get far more attention so I had assumed, wrongly, that that was all he was about. The Stand was not without its horrific elements, sure, but it is first and foremost a post-apocalyptic exploration and a character-driven story. I can see why my uncle recommended it to me.

I won’t compare this re-release to the original form of the novel, because I haven’t read the shorter version, I didn’t read any notes closely examining the two, and it would be pedantic to make such a thorough comparison. I will say that there were plenty of times in the first half of the novel where I often wondered if the chapter I was reading was an add-on, because some of the set-up of the wide array of characters could be considered extraneous, but I tried not to read too much into it, because I enjoyed the backstory on all the characters too much. Knowing all that I did about the protagonists made their choices and their struggles mean so much more later on.

Since the first third of The Stand keeps all the survivors apart, I’ll talk first about my impressions of various characters. As is expected with such a lengthy and complex story, my feelings often wavered back and forth for half of the main characters throughout the novel.

Stuart Redman – Stu is inarguably the ultimate hero of the novel, a quiet widower working at a gas station in Texas and thus the only main character around to witness the start of the global pandemic that kills over 99% of the population. I liked him well enough at the start, and at no point did I dislike Stu, but if I’m being completely honest, I grew a little bored of his brooding, alpha male, noble hero complex. I get the impression that Stu’s post-apocalyptic journey is about learning how to be a leader of men (and I guess finding love again?) so then I’m perplexed that he was not only left out of the final stand, but that he also took his leave of the society he helped to create at the end of the story. Sure, people had to move on eventually, but at least wait a couple years before you take off on your epic road trip. What if his unborn child needed a doctor? Are Stu and Fran just going to wing it? It all just seemed irrationally stubborn.

Fran Goldsmith – Here is the character I struggled with the most, and who can blame me, since she’s the only female protagonist worth expanding on? Susan Stern was composed and admirable but died pointlessly and Dayna Jurgens was pretty awesome but also died without accomplishing anything substantial. And Mother Abigail? Well, who can hate the 108-year-old feisty woman who is the manifestation of God’s love? But precisely for that reason, there’s not much to make you think in regards to Mother Abigail, so that leaves us with Fran. I wanted to like Fran, I really did. I liked her stubborn sense of humor, I sympathized with her when we saw how withering her mother was, and I admired her tenacity in burying her beloved father and carrying on in spite of all that was stacked against her... but ultimately I can’t stand her. Fran is totally useless. She takes no direct actions that are of import to anybody and yet ‘somehow’ she makes it on the Free Zone Committee (being the leader’s girlfriend helped, I’m sure). Fran starts out the story pregnant with her boyfriend’s baby and rejects his offer to support her any way she chooses (be that marriage or abortion or anything else), and she’s pretty callous about it, if you ask me. I get that she’s over him, but you don’t just dismiss the father of your child when he says he wants to help because you’re bummed you got knocked up by a cuckold. She makes it worse when she doesn’t even stop to wonder if the father survived (not even once) and immediately finds a new alpha male to take care of her. Now, don’t get me wrong, the plight of a pregnant girl in a post-apocalyptic world is a complex one, and I don’t necessarily begrudge her a smart move like that (i.e. seeking a protector for her unborn child), but the union of Stu and Fran played out more like an epic love story than a complex study of power dynamics, so it doesn’t make her look any more interesting. Fran might have saved face in my book if she had gone on to be useful, but she doesn’t. The only thing she contributes to the Committee is to record their meetings and to be needlessly judgmental while failing to offer alternative solutions. On the journey to Boulder, she keeps a journal that quickly falls apart and is later actually detrimental to the Free Zone. So, thanks for that Fran. Perhaps the birth of her child (the first living baby in the Free Zone) might have meant something, but all that would have happened with or without Fran. At one point it is stated that she represented the Committee’s conscience, but all I saw was a self-righteous (and at times just downright selfish) girl who has no problem moralizing at and guilt-tripping those she hides behind. If at any point this had been addressed, I would have cheered out loud, but everyone seems perfectly content to let Frannie Sue play the part she picked out, and it is so irritating.

Nick Andros – The deaf-mute drifter who wanders into his purpose was by far my favorite character in The Stand. Ironically, despite being the only protagonist with nothing to lose at novel’s start, Nick probably suffered the most in the period between the superflu and the formation of the Free Zone. His struggle to survive in a world of silence that is full of danger was compelling and I found myself more and more invested in his character growth simply because he is such an unlikely leader, yet that is exactly the role he falls into. Two of my favorite character archetypes are the nice guy and the hard luck character and Nick’s combination of compassion, intelligence, and vision had him falling into those roles nicely... so of course King full on wasted him in a tremendous explosion two thirds of the way into the novel. I’ve thought about this a lot since I finished the book a month ago, and I believe it would have been much more interesting if Nick had survived to the end of the book instead of Stu. I know, I’m totally biased, but I just found Nick Andros to be the more original character while Stu was rather bland and cliché. Seeing the drifter who never fit in anywhere take up the helm and become a leader of men would have been a perfect evolution of the character. Sure, he couldn’t hear or speak, but if apocalyptic fiction has taught us anything, it’s that survivors banding together, helping one another, and creating a community in which everyone has a voice is the only way for society to truly endure. Nick’s life provided that metaphor; his death felt like a cheap ploy to kickstart the reader’s emotional investment. (As I understand it, King was suffering from writer’s block at this point and invented the lethal explosion subplot to get out of it. Killing Nick was, I suppose a ‘kill your darlings’ move by King, but I think I will always resent it, even if I understand it.)

Larry Underwood – Larry was a character I didn’t much care for throughout most of the novel. My disdain for him evened out over time, but I have to admit I never did see the point of him. Thanks to the ‘divine intervention’ that seemingly doomed Stu (but actually spared him), Larry was supposedly forced into a leadership position. This seemed a natural evolution to the course of his character development—to go from a selfish burnout with no prospects to someone worth following, but I don’t think he quite made it there, and even when he did assume leadership, he didn’t do a whole lot of leading. I kept waiting for the moment when he reached out to Randall Flagg’s followers and gave a speech that changed their minds, turned them to the good side. He almost lifts right out and the outcome would still have been the same.

Harold Lauder – Harold is the character that probably goes through the most change. When the superflu hits, he is a lonely, fat, sixteen-year-old self-proclaimed intellectual and the little brother of Frannie’s best friend. He harbors a mighty crush on Frannie that ultimately turns deadly when she unwittingly (inevitably) spurns him. The way Harold assumed Frannie (as the only girl left in town) would be ‘his’ and the dark and petulant turn he took when he didn’t get his way made me think he would fit right in on Reddit if only he were born 20+ years later, grumbling about how the ‘nice guys’ never get noticed with all the other neckbeards. The ease with which I could picture Harold as a real person, and the extent of his possessiveness almost made him a more unsettling character than Randall Flagg himself, simply because he felt so familiar and his deadly actions had a more personal result than many of the things done by Flagg’s own hand. I’ll admit though, that for one brief moment there, when Harold started to fit into the Free Zone in spite of (or rather because of his superb act) I actually got hopeful that he might change into a better man, but my hopes were brilliantly dashed. It’s really unfortunate because Harold could have been an even more powerful character if he had only turned against the Dark Man and stood for something good, but I suppose this is where King’s adherence to the genre comes in. The story of a boy twisted into something heinous and dark by evil fits in much better to a horror story. All that being said, I was surprised to reach the end of The Stand and realize that Harold was actually one of my top characters, not because I admired or cheered for him (I actively despised him for much of the book), but because he was one of the most interesting characters with the most potential.

One of the most remarkable things about The Stand made possible by its immense length is that each of its three books feels like a completely different story. The first is character-driven and reactionary and feels the most post-apocalyptic because it takes place in the immediate aftermath. There is a lot of world-building and character development, and a lot of tension too because there are so many different characters in various places and so much ground to cover, so you may go almost a hundred pages before you hear from someone again. There is also an element of uncertainty to the whole affair, because you don’t know what kind of a story it is going to be yet. Characters are introduced and developed and shockingly discarded. I mourned the most for the hard-nosed Shoyo sheriff that Nick befriended because I imagined hundreds of pages of their friendship developing before realizing it wasn’t that kind of apocalypse and the sheriff was bound for the grave. The first book is also the most ‘horrific’ of the three, with its nightmarish descriptions of Captain Trips’ effects on people. It’s all so terribly vivid that you almost start to feel paranoid in real life; I know that every time I had a tickle in my throat or a stuffy nose while reading this book, I got a little flutter in the pit of my stomach, a mere flash of ‘what if...?’ in my head.

The second book is where everyone comes together and tries to rebuild society. I thought this part was the meat and bones of the story. I enjoyed watching people develop into their post-plague roles and redefine themselves. This is the other side of post-apocalypse fiction; once you’ve survived, what then? Where do you go from here? How do you decide who is in charge? I liked watching the Free Zone rebuild itself and I could have read an entire novel entirely focused on the challenges faced in a post-apocalyptic society, as explored from all angles and a variety of persons. Come to think of it, I really haven’t encountered a novel like that so far. During Cold War times, post-apocalypse books tended to be pessimistic and focus on small groups of people. In the more contemporary Directive 51, we saw things only from the government’s point of view. There is always a focus on the science side of things and less on the politics and community, as in The Stand.

But there is a third part to The Stand that builds in the background the entire time our survivors are learning how to survive, and that is the titular ‘Stand’ itself. The final part of the novel abandons the Free Zone setting and takes the fight to Las Vegas, where Randall Flagg is building his own army. Everything had been leading to this, so I’m certainly not saying that it came out of nowhere, yet I feel like the final part could have been left off and it still would have been an amazing book. It wouldn’t be the good-vs-evil story King intended to write, sure, but that just goes to show how wide of an array of emotions this book sends you through. 

As I understand it, there is soon to be a new film adaptation of The Stand, and I’m thrilled, especially since I’ve heard that Matthew McConaughey has expressed interest in playing Randall Flagg. Anybody would have balked at this casting suggestion even five years ago, but McConaughey has shown real promise lately, and I think he’d nail this role. Unless they plan on leaving out a lot of characters, it would have to be a trilogy of films, because there is just too much content to cover in one sitting. And since it is set for the big screen, they would probably overdramatize a lot of things and ramp up the action, because Hollywood demands this in their trilogies. As I stated earlier, I would welcome certain drastic changes, but something tells me the stuff I’d like to see moved around would probably stay put, as King probably wouldn’t allow so much editing of the original material. Still, just the thought of a postmodern reimagining of The Stand makes me all atwitter with anticipation. Let’s hope this newest incarnation does it justice.

Your Front Row Seat to the End of the World

Good Omens 

by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

p. 1990

Good Omens is a book that wants to be read.

It doesn’t want much else. It doesn’t want to be revered or lauded nor does it want to be proverbially ripped apart (though if you ask its two loving fathers, it would very much like you physically beat the crap out of it, at least enough to show some wear and tear). Good Omens wants you to be amused and entertained and to love it dearly for 300-odd pages. Then it wants you to tell all your friends. It may not be able to articulate exactly why, but it’s insistent that once you’ve read it... you’ll know.

From the history surrounding this comedic tale, it seems that this work of fiction—much like the universe and humanity itself—happened through a confluence of events that appear very much like an accident. Terry Pratchett was a somewhat established writer in the fantasy genre and Neil Gaiman was just starting out and a fortuitous interview of the former by the latter inevitably led to a plot several years in the making. Two authors just trying to pick the other’s brain and make them laugh led, quite appropriately, to the story of an angel and a demon, unlikely friends in the end times, just trying to do their jobs and maintain a sort of friendship.

Crowley and Aziraphale are the demon and angel characters respectively, and they have cultivated their unusual companionship since the beginning of time—which, contrary to scientific belief, was only about 6000 or so years ago. They, along with a cast of characters as equally charismatic as themselves, must navigate the impending apocalypse as Heaven and Hell prepare to duke it out over the soul of a young boy, the Antichrist, who doesn’t know what he is yet. Also entwined in this convoluted plot are a young woman, descendent of the author of a book of prophesies that predicted this mess, a couple of witchfinders, a fortune teller, four precocious children, a not-quite-of-this-earth dog, and the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, appropriately reincarnated for modern times in the form of bikers.

I generally liked all of the plot threads; though it skipped around quite often, I didn’t find it too hard to pick up where I left off. Everything involving Dog’s point of view was gold, as was Shadwell, the last head witchfinder, whose richly-depicted dialogue was a delight to pick apart every time he spoke. Every character in this book had a ‘voice’ that you could really hear in your head, transcending the pages on which it was written.

I found myself, at times, a little impatient with the children's plot, especially about halfway through when it took over the novel for a time. They got a bit tiresome, especially seeing as the heart of this novel is the friendship between Crowley and Aziraphale, who vanished for a time to let the others take center stage, and weren’t reunited until the end of the story.

Reading this book, I couldn’t help but feel that the TV show Supernatural took some of its cues from Gaiman and Pratchett. The Horsemen evolution was one thing—though in the Supernatural-verse, the Horseman drive fancy cars as opposed to motorcycles, and then of course there are the striking similarities between each story’s version of the demon Crowley, though I would have to say that Supernatural’s Crowley has a definite agenda that Good Omens’ Crowley explicitly lacks. That is one thing that struck me about this book as being a distinctly British quality: the characters, though often in positions of considerable power, never seem to take things too seriously and rarely seem to have any idea what is going on. It is a classic trait of farcical literature that makes this book so darkly comical. Here are characters literally deciding the fate of mankind and their thoughts are preoccupied by old books, expensive cars, and childish games. It’s hilarious in its absurdness.

It was impossible decipher which parts were Gaiman’s ideas and which parts were Pratchett’s because these two authors blend together so seamlessly. Being that this was also my first foray into Pratchett’s repertoire, I expect I wouldn’t have much say on that topic in general, but I certainly intend to seek out more of his work now. The efforts of these two authors, over the course of some years, has certainly paid off in the form of this cult favorite, and their ability to create a story that—in spite of its absurdity—makes perfect sense is what I had always hoped to accomplish writing stories with my friends growing up (and may still do one day!). They just fit together.

Gaiman and Pratchett share a common interest that many book lovers and aspiring writers can relate to; they don’t want their book to change the world. They just want people to read it and to love it and to pass it on to all their friends, and I intend to do just that.

The Destiny You're Dealt

I Am the Messenger
by Markus Zusak
p. 2002

My sole impetus for picking this book up was that it was written by the same author who wrote The Book Thief, Markus Zusak. While I could find a lot of similarities stylistically, I Am the Messenger is, on the whole, a vastly different kind of story than The Book Thief. While I preferred the latter, this story is not without its merits, and this tale of slacker cab driver Ed Kennedy and his playing cards certainly boasts a much happier ending than that of Liesel Meminger and her books.

At 19, Ed is an underage cab driver in an unspecified city (but given the slang used and the fact that Zusak lives there, one can assume it’s a large city in Australia), getting by with his equally directionless friends in the months following his father’s death. They work, they drink, they play cards, they make fun of his buddy's broken down car or Ed's smelly old dog Doorman, and generally avoid serious things. Lather, rinse, repeat. That is, until a bank holdup which Ed inadvertently foils interrupts their day to day lives. At first, nothing seems different, but shortly after, Ed begins to receive playing cards that have clues on them, clues that lead him to people with lives more complicated than his, people he must help. On his own, Ed decides he must follow this odd twist of fate and change these people’s lives by delivering the messages he must decipher by observing them, and in the process, Ed learns a lot about himself and what he is truly capable of.

As I’ve said, stylistically, a lot of comparisons can be found to Zusak’s most prolific work, The Book Thief. Both are written in a sparse, dreamy style, with sentences broken up and thoughts passed out haphazardly in an almost stream-of-consciousness style. This is because both stories are narrated by characters who are also players in the book—in this case, Ed, in the case of The Book Thief, Death. Thematically, both stories emphasize the beauty in little acts of kindness and the power in humanity. I found both of these comparisons to be a bit more jarring in I Am the Messenger. Perhaps this is because it is my second outing with Zusak and recognizing the patterns takes me out of the story. Or perhaps it is because the writing style—while minimalistic, makes the whole thing feel a bit melodramatic at times, like Ed/Zusak is delivering the Greatest Story Ever Told and wants us to know it. Plenty of times in I Am the Messenger I found myself wishing he would just tone it down a little bit and stop making every sentence feel like the revealing twist at the end of a thrilling movie.

[Speaking of movies, both of the books I’ve read of Zusak’s would translate very well to screen, and I’m a little shocked that none of them have been commissioned yet. The quirkiness of I Am the Messenger in particular could be very fun if presented visually. Ed Kennedy is a great character, but the effort to present him as a down-to-earth, average teenager dumbs down the poetry of his actions. To see them from an outside perspective might be nice.]

When we arrive at the actual twist to I Am the Messenger—that is, who is sending the cards and why—it’s not really a big surprise, or if it is, then it’s not a very satisfying one. I almost wish Zusak had just ignored the impulse to include a twist, as I feel it detracted from the ending. Also, by this point in the book I was so frustrated with Ed’s random logic and leaps to conclusions that did not readily present themselves that I didn’t even care about the person behind it all. That is the only thing that really bothered me about this book—Ed’s reasons for following the cards doesn’t make sense to me at all. It’s one thing to try to better yourself and hope for destiny, but the way in which Ed so accurately interpreted his cause—not to mention some of his dubious methods of fulfilling them—seemed wrong to me, like Ed had privileged knowledge the reader was not made aware of, which we know he did not. It just seemed like a lazy way to move from plot point to plot point. Also, there is no way the guiding force behind the novel’s events is anything but supernatural, and if that is the case, why bother having a ‘logical’ explanation behind it at all?

I am being harsh on this book. Perhaps I expected more because of how good The Book Thief was. The truth is, if you can stomach the style choices made by Zusak, I Am the Messenger is a delightful read—full of beauty and charm and benevolence that can move you if you let it. I’m definitely in for more by this author if all his stories can make you feel this good.