You're probably used to seeing this. Well, at least this is my familiar version... but we're getting ahead of ourselves, as we tend to do.
'The Stand' was released in September of 1978. After spending some time in New England in 'Salem's Lot' and 'Carrie', and a trip out to Colorado in 'The Shining', Stephen King went all in on 'The Stand'.
Set in the 'future' of 1985, the book opens in little old Arnette, Texas. Some good ol' boys are sitting around at the local gas station, shooting the shit. Times are hard. Economy is down, and the local factory jobs have all moved overseas. As they (Stu Redman, Bill Hapscomb, Vic Palfrey, et al.) jabber on, a car begins weaving through the streets, on a path with the gas station. Stu shuts the pumps off just before Charles Campion collides into them. Rushing out to help, they open the door to the car, and they essentially open the door to hell. Campion is deathly ill, and his wife and young daughter are already dead. Campion dies on the way to the hospital. The local Mayberry-esque law enforcement and doctors do their part, scratch their heads, say stuff like 'Ain't that a hell of a thing?', and the strange incident seems over.
Instead of the accident becoming part of the folklore of a small town's history, it's essentially the beginning of the end of the world. Campion is carrying A6 (Remember that? Night Shift?), or the Superflu, or Captain Trips, or Project Blue, or...
Death has many names and many forms. In this instance, it's a virus with a 99.4% lethality rate. Over the course of the first hundred pages, America and the world are essentially decimated and human society collapses. The survivors, because there are always survivors, become the focus of our story. It's Stephen King, after all, so instead of it taking a Sci-fi/Twilight Zone turn, it gets supernatural, and right on down to the basic forces of good and evil.
Now, where was I? Oh yes, so the book was released in 1978, and it was a whopper of a book. The copy I have clocks in at just over 800 pages. I remember it vividly as a child.
Shitty picture, but this is the edition I read as a child, and still have today.
SIDENOTE: In 1990, King released 'The Stand: Complete and Uncut', adding almost 400 pages of previously edited material from the original manuscript, as well as updating the timeframe and making some minor editorial corrections. I will happily address all of that when I get to it in the chronological order. For now, we're talking about the original.
Here's the thing about that original 1978 whomper: it's not around anymore. Unless you're a packrat like me, or you get lucky on the internet or at a used book store (I ALWAYS recommend spending some time in used book stores. You can't lose), you can't find the original version. Everything that's available now in hardcover, paperback, e-book, special edition, audiobook, etc., is the Unabridged 1990 version.
Luckily for me, I have TWO copies of the original. Sometimes, very rarely but sometimes, being a hoarder pays off.
It's important to me to have the original version for the sake of honesty with this project, as well as for some comparisons and evaluations that will come way down the line. To be candid, I prefer the longer version over the original. The additions of some plot points, and the actual telling of events only hinted at in the original always give me a true sense of completion. However, let's try to look at things as they were in 1978, or in the mid-80's when I finally plucked the dark, blue covered paperback out of that magical magazine rack in my mother's living room.
This book had everything that a young man could want. Good heroes, evil villains, magic, sex, weapons, fear... EVERYTHING!!! As a young man, I was a fan of horror movies. I liked Michael Myers, Jason Vorhees, and Freddy Kruger. I didn't much care for Dracula or the Devil. There was nothing about them that excited me. Yet, The Stand changed that.
Randall Flagg is the Devil. Well, at least in this early context of the King Universe, he is. Actually, maybe he's more than that, or maybe less. He's evil. I don't mean that he's an evil man, I mean that he is the embodiment of the concept of EVIL. He takes many names and many forms, like death itself. So, perhaps, he's not The Devil (as we interpret from a religious or biblical sense), but he is a BAAAAAAAAAAAAAD DUDE. He draws the 'bad guys' out to Las Vegas and quickly creates his own community. King wrote him in a way that made me FEAR him. I knew he wasn't a man, and I knew that he was capable of anything at any moment.
I wasn't scared of the vampires in Salem's Lot. I simply rooted for the good guys to win, and they did, kinda. I wasn't scared of the asshole classmates in Carrie, because they were just asshole bullies. Carrie was actually the one to be afraid of. With The Stand, I was playing in a different field, with entirely new landscapes now.
Re-reading it was a great pleasure, because of all of the things I know about in the King Universe now, and how things later tie back into The Stand. It's especially interesting to see how characters resonate with you at different times in your life. All of them. The good guys, and the bad guys. Even the inconsequential characters.
When I was a kid, I wanted to be Larry Underwood. I wanted to be the rock star, even if it was in a world where there were no more rock stars. I didn't grasp Larry's flaws, his fundamental failings, his selfishness and how it affected his life, his relationships, and ultimately, his redemption. I just knew that he had a hit record, and that's what mattered to me at 8 years old.
Later, I related with Harold Lauder. Poor, not-so-sweet Harold. Always second best, awkward and highly intelligent, shaped by his parents and his experience into feeling that the world was out to get him. I went through a time where I could relate to that bitterness. I knew what it was like to be hopelessly, foolishly in love with the pretty girl who had no interest in you. I knew what it was like to be in situations where you were smarter than others and you didn't know how to relate to them. (Side note: I didn't grasp, or care to grasp, the concept of patronizing. I spent my fair share of time being an asshole to people. Regrets, regrets...)
Stu, while the lead character, was never my guy. Even this time around, I understood Stu better than before, and I understand his importance and relationship to the balance of the story, but I never resonated with Stu. Maybe... maybe that's because I still don't know if I have it in me to be 'the hero' when it's time to be. Maybe it's a self-doubt. I don't know how I'd handle any number of the situations that Stu faced. There's an innate quality of leadership in classic literary characters. The author has the privilege of creating them as such. As human beings, it's not so simple. Sometimes, it's a case of 'Fake it 'til you Make it'. Sometimes, I find myself dealing with that. Maybe that's why I'm not a guy like Stu.
I will say that, the character I appreciated more than ever before, was Glen Bateman. The aged college professor, the wise man who was almost the human Deus Ex Machina, seeing through the plot holes, being the voice of reason or alterior perspective. I've spent a lot of time in the past few years dealing with logistics and having to play Devil's Advocate with myself to try and objectively address problems. Glen Bateman was never that guy to me before. He was always a dry comic relief, or simply the wise old sage. I guess I never really appreciated his importance to the balance of the story until this time around.
It's because of The Dark Tower. Glen's place in the ka-tet of The Stand. I never looked at it like that before.
What did he just say? you might be asking yourself... WTF is a ka-tet? Is that some kind of weird jazz thing?
We'll get to it. Sometimes, in order to make sense of something to myself, I have to acknowledge things that I didn't know at the time.
Quite a bit of rambling so far, and have we really touched the story? Somewhat, but let's do just that.
I love the story. I love the concept of the concurrent, rapid breakdown of technology and society. Remember, this was 1978. People weren't retina deep in their Facebook every waking second. People weren't falling into open manholes because they were texting and not looking at where they're walking. Even so, 'The Government' quickly lost control of Project Blue, and the walls came tumblin' down. Joshua at Jericho and John Cougar Mellencamp, we thankya.
You should ask yourself every time you read it: How?
Not 'How could this happen?' but 'How would you recover?' or 'How would you adapt and move on?' How would you rebuild, or build anew? The straggling survivors came together in bands. The world abandoned them and left them to work with whatever they could find. People die, and they die quickly. Soon, the workers to handle the infrastructure of America are dead. No one's minding the store, from the White House, all the way down to the farm, to the warehouse, to the power plant, to the radio station, to the telephone company... it ALL breaks down. Roads are full of wrecked and abandoned cars. No one is there to clear them, because the tow truck drivers are as dead as the people who died in the left lane trying to avoid the accident ahead. Captain Trips takes no prisoners.
Not 'How could this happen?' but 'How would you recover?' or 'How would you adapt and move on?' How would you rebuild, or build anew? The straggling survivors came together in bands. The world abandoned them and left them to work with whatever they could find. People die, and they die quickly. Soon, the workers to handle the infrastructure of America are dead. No one's minding the store, from the White House, all the way down to the farm, to the warehouse, to the power plant, to the radio station, to the telephone company... it ALL breaks down. Roads are full of wrecked and abandoned cars. No one is there to clear them, because the tow truck drivers are as dead as the people who died in the left lane trying to avoid the accident ahead. Captain Trips takes no prisoners.
The book, the story, the concept. It's not new. King didn't invent the apocalypse, but it's brilliant. It's wide scope is amazing. The character development is wonderful. It's a masterpiece, albeit a masterpiece with flaws. We'll get to that in a moment.
One of my favorite touches is towards the beginning of the book. I don't know if it was intentional or not, but I always likened it to The Bible. In the Bible, there are exhausting instances of 'begat'ing. The Stand does something similar. Despite the efforts of the government to quarantine Arnette, Texas, and stop Project Blue, King writes about Joe Bob, the Sheriff's Deputy. He's the cousin of Bill Hapscomb, and he was the official to respond to Campion's accident. By the time the government (CDC and the dark, shadowy agents that work undercover) could swoop in, Joe Bob had already gone about his duty. King describes his travels, at each point where he interacts with others. Even though Joe Bob doesn't show any signs of being sick, he's infected with Project Blue, and whenever he stops, he begats death on someone else. The dark, cold, and horribly efficient beauty of it is that the person who Joe Bob wrote a speeding ticket to, stops at the truck stop for a diner meal, where he begats death upon a group of people who are about to spread in all directions, themselves begat-ing death on everything they come in contact with. It's a beautifully crafted section of writing, and it's one of my favorites.
There were some things that I'd noticed this time around that I hadn't really caught before. I think a big part of that is because it's been a long, long time since I've read the original version of the novel. There were a couple of Grateful Dead references, and there was a reference to Morning Star Farms veggie sausage. I had no idea that Morning Star was around back in 1978! It was just one of those things that made me pause and took me out of the story for a moment while reading.
The wild card in the story, of course, is The Trashcan Man. Trashy lives to serve the Dark Man, but he is not controlled by him. Trashy is drawn to Flagg's camp in the same manner that others are drawn to Boulder or Las Vegas. However, Trashy detours whenever he feels like it. Donald Merwin Elbert aka The Trashcan Man is a troubled, very troubled man. As King lays out his back story, we come back to the theme of bullying. So far, King has made bullying a theme in Carrie and in Rage (although the Constant Reader wasn't aware that Richard Bachman was Stephen King, not way back in 1978), and now, in The Stand, King lands on the bully theme again with both feet.
Trashcan Man is mentally troubled and ostracized by his parents. He commits juvenile crimes and spends time in and out of the reformatory. He loves fire. He loves to play with fire. He worships it. Throughout his youth, he's caught burning things and it becomes a running joke for the local kids to tease him about. His mental illness, his schizophrenia, is minimally managed by the state, and as an adult, he roams free.
We've seen people like The Trashcan Man our whole lives, you and I. If you've ever walked down the streets in a relatively big city, you've seen the people that talk to themselves, that weave through life, sometimes begging, sometimes just existing. People like that are everywhere in the world. In the world you and I walk around in, there are programs and shelters and people that try to make a difference. In the world of Captain Trips and The Trashcan Man, there is only... Cibola.
Trashy is drawn to Vegas and Flagg, yes, but in his mind, his poor twisted, abandoned mind, he's seeking the treasure. Cibola, Seven-in-One, The City that is Promised. (Spanish Conquistadors chased the legend of Cibola, Seven Cities of Gold, back in the day). On his quest for Cibola, he does what he does best. In truth, the only thing he knows how to do.
He burns.
You've seen them. The massive oil and fuel tanks that sometimes populate the highway roadsides. If you've ever driven into Detroit, you know the massive refinery off of I-75. Gary, Indiana is practically a town full of these tanks. In the world of The Stand, Trashy actually goes through Gary, and he sets it to burn. Trashy's not your standard, light a match and stare at it kind of pyro. Trashy is advanced. Although the voices in his head may tell him things, there's enough brain working to build delayed fuses and all matter of complicated wiring. Trashy can make a bomb. Trashy can set a timer that gives him the breathing room to plant a bomb at the top of one of those massive tanks, run down the winding steps, and get a safe enough distance away before the tank blows sky high.
Well, usually, he can. The condition of his clothes and skin would tell you that he's not 100% accurate.
Trashy sets things to burn. It's his driving purpose in life. It's his calling. He worships the fire. He loves the fire. He's enticed by the fire. With no fire departments to contain his damage, Trashy leaves a swath of charred ruin from Indiana to Vegas, forever chasing Cibola, my life for you, bump-ty bump-ty bump.
( http://youtu.be/OSRjeSLCBLs This is the Tower of Power song that Trashy's Cibola ramblings are based on. That's another thing that I never really caught in my previous readings. I wasn't familiar with this song before, I hadn't listened to it, and now that I have, 'Bump-ty Bump-ty Bump' might be my earworm of the day.)
There are guys like Trashcan Man and Lloyd Henreid, who are chosen specifically by Flagg to be in his inner circle. They are part of the mission. Trashy is set to burn. Flagg recognizes Trashy's skill set, and uses it to his advantage. However, even as a part of Flagg's inner circle, Trashy is still the butt of jokes. He's weird, he's awkward, and he creeps people out. Bullying isn't limited to children.
Trashcan Man gets his revenge on his bullies in Vegas, but it's at great cost to Flagg and it puts Trashy in a terrible spot. He redeems himself as only the Trashcan Man can. So, there's an interesting parallel. Both Trashcan Man and Larry Underwood, for their own reasons, are seeking redemption. It's interesting that their moments of redemption are the same moment in time, and yet, for wholly different reasons.
I've read The Stand numerous times. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that The Stand is my favorite Non-Dark Tower Stephen King book. It's a colossal story, complex and yet personal. It's not perfect. Having read the book multiple times previously, by the time I reached page 700, I developed this feeling of being rushed. I already knew how the story ended, and I knew what still had to happen in the plot to get us there. For all that had happened in the previous 700 pages, I didn't know how ALL OF THAT could be wrapped up in the final 100-ish pages.
Maybe that's the big difference between the original version and the unabridged version. Those added pages allow the story to progress a little more smoothly. The end is still the same, and I still feel that the end is somewhat rushed, someone clumsily done (again, Deus Ex Machina), and yet, somehow appropriate to the ultimate theme of Good Vs. Evil.
If you've never read The Stand, then you've spent an awful lot of time reading a ridiculous amount of words I've written on it that shouldn't make a lot of sense to you. Help yourself with that. Go and read it. Read the Unabridged version. It's better. I'm only doing this to stay true to the concept of the project. Don't worry about the original unless you're a nerd like me.
Two more things and then I'm done.
M-O-O-N and that spells Tom Cullen. This might be one of my favorite things ever. The character of Tom Cullen is mentally handicapped, but highly functional. Tom would love to talk to you, and he's a very excitable fella. Tom's defining character trait is saying 'M-O-O-N and that spells...' whatever he's talking about. No matter what the subject is, it's always spelled M-O-O-N. It's been ingrained in my head since I first read the book, and it's something I will unconsciously drop into conversation on occasion, the same way that people do with movie quotes and song lyrics. It's almost a secret code or a challenge phrase. If you know M-O-O-N, then you're cool... M-O-O-N, and that spells 'Secret's out now'.
Lastly, this project doesn't have to be a one way street. Sure, I read the books, and I babble at you (excessively, by the looks of this entry) about it, but I like feedback. Like most human beings, I'm eager for validation.
https://www.facebook.com/DoingTheKingThing
I made a Facebook for the project that allows YOU to leave comments, engage me in discussion, take umbrage to any points or thoughts I have, and so forth. Ultimately, I'm doing this project for myself, but I'm happy to have you with me. It's good to have someone to talk to, once in a while.
The wild card in the story, of course, is The Trashcan Man. Trashy lives to serve the Dark Man, but he is not controlled by him. Trashy is drawn to Flagg's camp in the same manner that others are drawn to Boulder or Las Vegas. However, Trashy detours whenever he feels like it. Donald Merwin Elbert aka The Trashcan Man is a troubled, very troubled man. As King lays out his back story, we come back to the theme of bullying. So far, King has made bullying a theme in Carrie and in Rage (although the Constant Reader wasn't aware that Richard Bachman was Stephen King, not way back in 1978), and now, in The Stand, King lands on the bully theme again with both feet.
Trashcan Man is mentally troubled and ostracized by his parents. He commits juvenile crimes and spends time in and out of the reformatory. He loves fire. He loves to play with fire. He worships it. Throughout his youth, he's caught burning things and it becomes a running joke for the local kids to tease him about. His mental illness, his schizophrenia, is minimally managed by the state, and as an adult, he roams free.
We've seen people like The Trashcan Man our whole lives, you and I. If you've ever walked down the streets in a relatively big city, you've seen the people that talk to themselves, that weave through life, sometimes begging, sometimes just existing. People like that are everywhere in the world. In the world you and I walk around in, there are programs and shelters and people that try to make a difference. In the world of Captain Trips and The Trashcan Man, there is only... Cibola.
Trashy is drawn to Vegas and Flagg, yes, but in his mind, his poor twisted, abandoned mind, he's seeking the treasure. Cibola, Seven-in-One, The City that is Promised. (Spanish Conquistadors chased the legend of Cibola, Seven Cities of Gold, back in the day). On his quest for Cibola, he does what he does best. In truth, the only thing he knows how to do.
He burns.
You've seen them. The massive oil and fuel tanks that sometimes populate the highway roadsides. If you've ever driven into Detroit, you know the massive refinery off of I-75. Gary, Indiana is practically a town full of these tanks. In the world of The Stand, Trashy actually goes through Gary, and he sets it to burn. Trashy's not your standard, light a match and stare at it kind of pyro. Trashy is advanced. Although the voices in his head may tell him things, there's enough brain working to build delayed fuses and all matter of complicated wiring. Trashy can make a bomb. Trashy can set a timer that gives him the breathing room to plant a bomb at the top of one of those massive tanks, run down the winding steps, and get a safe enough distance away before the tank blows sky high.
Well, usually, he can. The condition of his clothes and skin would tell you that he's not 100% accurate.
Trashy sets things to burn. It's his driving purpose in life. It's his calling. He worships the fire. He loves the fire. He's enticed by the fire. With no fire departments to contain his damage, Trashy leaves a swath of charred ruin from Indiana to Vegas, forever chasing Cibola, my life for you, bump-ty bump-ty bump.
My life for you...
( http://youtu.be/OSRjeSLCBLs This is the Tower of Power song that Trashy's Cibola ramblings are based on. That's another thing that I never really caught in my previous readings. I wasn't familiar with this song before, I hadn't listened to it, and now that I have, 'Bump-ty Bump-ty Bump' might be my earworm of the day.)
There are guys like Trashcan Man and Lloyd Henreid, who are chosen specifically by Flagg to be in his inner circle. They are part of the mission. Trashy is set to burn. Flagg recognizes Trashy's skill set, and uses it to his advantage. However, even as a part of Flagg's inner circle, Trashy is still the butt of jokes. He's weird, he's awkward, and he creeps people out. Bullying isn't limited to children.
Trashcan Man gets his revenge on his bullies in Vegas, but it's at great cost to Flagg and it puts Trashy in a terrible spot. He redeems himself as only the Trashcan Man can. So, there's an interesting parallel. Both Trashcan Man and Larry Underwood, for their own reasons, are seeking redemption. It's interesting that their moments of redemption are the same moment in time, and yet, for wholly different reasons.
I've read The Stand numerous times. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that The Stand is my favorite Non-Dark Tower Stephen King book. It's a colossal story, complex and yet personal. It's not perfect. Having read the book multiple times previously, by the time I reached page 700, I developed this feeling of being rushed. I already knew how the story ended, and I knew what still had to happen in the plot to get us there. For all that had happened in the previous 700 pages, I didn't know how ALL OF THAT could be wrapped up in the final 100-ish pages.
Maybe that's the big difference between the original version and the unabridged version. Those added pages allow the story to progress a little more smoothly. The end is still the same, and I still feel that the end is somewhat rushed, someone clumsily done (again, Deus Ex Machina), and yet, somehow appropriate to the ultimate theme of Good Vs. Evil.
If you've never read The Stand, then you've spent an awful lot of time reading a ridiculous amount of words I've written on it that shouldn't make a lot of sense to you. Help yourself with that. Go and read it. Read the Unabridged version. It's better. I'm only doing this to stay true to the concept of the project. Don't worry about the original unless you're a nerd like me.
Two more things and then I'm done.
M-O-O-N and that spells Tom Cullen. This might be one of my favorite things ever. The character of Tom Cullen is mentally handicapped, but highly functional. Tom would love to talk to you, and he's a very excitable fella. Tom's defining character trait is saying 'M-O-O-N and that spells...' whatever he's talking about. No matter what the subject is, it's always spelled M-O-O-N. It's been ingrained in my head since I first read the book, and it's something I will unconsciously drop into conversation on occasion, the same way that people do with movie quotes and song lyrics. It's almost a secret code or a challenge phrase. If you know M-O-O-N, then you're cool... M-O-O-N, and that spells 'Secret's out now'.
Lastly, this project doesn't have to be a one way street. Sure, I read the books, and I babble at you (excessively, by the looks of this entry) about it, but I like feedback. Like most human beings, I'm eager for validation.
https://www.facebook.com/DoingTheKingThing
I made a Facebook for the project that allows YOU to leave comments, engage me in discussion, take umbrage to any points or thoughts I have, and so forth. Ultimately, I'm doing this project for myself, but I'm happy to have you with me. It's good to have someone to talk to, once in a while.
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