1978 The Stand Journal 12

I like this picture.  Photo credit: http://www.freakingnews.com/Stephen-King-Books-Pictures--69-2.asp

Grover and Me:
I just finished the last tape of The Stand.  Yes, I listened to it.  It was read by Grover Gardner, and was fantastic.  At first Gardner seemed stiff, even dry, I found that I really liked him as the book progressed.  We became fast friends!

Gardner reads with a certain reserved energy.  Though he does not overpower the story, he is very engaged in what he is reading.  As one blogger commented, Gardner doesn't get in the way of the book!  He doesn't try to outperform the story. 

His voice is crisp, every word pronounced correctly, and well paced.  His inflections are always appropriate, but again, not distracting.  I think Gardner is quickly becoming one of my favorite readers!   

Pacing The Conclusion:
The Stand ends with a bang. . . and then it keeps going.  I really like the way King ended the Stand.  He didn't simply tie things up with the bad guys demise -- he spent time (considerable time) letting us see the world after Flagg.  The conclusion (a good hundred pages, I think) includes Stu and Tom meeting back up, and Tom's nursing Stu back to health.  It is touching, and again, not rushed.  Even in the chopped version I was reading, King gives this section room to breath.  He doesn't feel in a hurry to end the book -- and the reader isn't anxious for it to end, either.

The long journey home for Tom and Stu is the highlight of the last chapters of The Stand.  But there is more even after they reach the Free Zone.  Will Stu and Fran stay?  What about Larry's child?  On that note, what about Fran's?  Will the super-flu knock out the next generation?  These are things King deals with nicely in the last pages of The Stand.

I have read many reviews of The Stand, and no one ever mentions how much space King gives his characters at the end of the novel.  Usually King spends considerable time building characters at the beginning of a book; but here he lets us live with them a little bit longer.  Further, I have heard many people say they do not like the way King ends his books.  Try the Stand!  I think it is brilliant.  Though the "plot" has been carried out, King still sees more story ahead.  And the reader can imagine a million stories that could come out of The Stand.  It is surprising no one has thought to do a TV series based on the world of The Stand. 

Nukes And Our Children
Stu and Fran discuss the issue of bringing children into this new world.  But it's not really a "new" world!  In fact, the "toys" (kings word) are left behind -- nukes.  Two things need to be destroyed: The nukes, and the plant that created the super-flu. 

Now it's interesting that nukes are seen as the problem, since the essentially saved the Free Zone's hide.  There is a hint of anti-war sentiment that flows throughout The Stand.  Not that good should roll over and refuse to fight, but simply a fear that by over-building our military complex, we might be forcing our children's hands.

God:
God turned out to be a pretty important character in The Stand.  When The Bomb actually goes off, it is unclear for a moment if God did it, or Flagg did it!  Flag was playing with a blue ball of fire when Trashy showed up with his toy.  It is that same ball of fire that strikes the bomb.  But later dialogue makes it clear that it was the work of God.

What kind of God do we encounter in The Stand?  At the mid point, Fran paints the picture of an evil God who would destroy so much of His creation.  But as the Stand progresses, we begin to see a purpose unfolding.

God's will is a major theme of The Stand.  God is portrayed as Sovereign; beyond our understanding, and able to tell the future.  God is shown as active in the affairs of men (he is not far off, unconcerned with us).  Now here's an interesting theological note: In the Stand, God is willing and ready to act.  He is completely capable of stopping evil.  He is not threatened by Flagg.  But before he will act, he requires that men also take their Stand.  He desires to use humans as much as possible in order to carry out His will.  Glen Bateman puts it together for us, saying "If there's a God, and I now believe these must be -- that's his will.  We're going to die and somehow all of this will end as a result of our dying."

God is not only presented as all powerful, but as Just.  Tom Cullen puts it pretty succinctly when he says, "It was the bad man killed Nick.  Tom knows.  But God fixed that bad man.  I saw it.  The hand of God came down out of the sky."  Now why did God kill the "bad man"?  Tom tells us!  "Fixed him for what he did to Nick and to the poor judge.  Laws yes."

Nods in other King works:

• Freemantle: Mother Abigail's last name is Freemantle.  In Duma Key the main character is named Edgar Freemantle.
• Hemmingford Home is also the setting for 1922.  It is the hometown of Ben from IT.  Hemmingford Home is also seen in The Last Rung Of The Ladder.
• In Wizard and Glass, Blane The Mono stops in the world of The Stand. 
• Night Surf sort of serves as a prologue to The Stand.
• The evil character Flagg appears in The Eyes of the Dragon and The Dark Tower.  If he is the Devil himself, then he is also in Needful Things.
• Wikipedia notes something really cool: "In the denouement, Stu and Tom happen upon an abandoned Plymouth Fury with the initials 'A.C.' engraved on the keychain. Arnie Cunningham was the owner of the 1958 Plymouth Fury in Christine. The car is found empty with no apparent driver."
• Wikipedia points out that radio signals from Arnette, Texas, are also heard in The Tommyknockers.
• And. . . "Charles Decker's teacher in Rage, Mrs. Jean Underwood, is said to be a relative of Larry Underwood."
• Finally, Wikipedia says that "Stuart Redman has a dream of a corn field with a creature with red eyes staring at him, this is a reference to "Children of the Corn".

1978 The Stand Journal 8: Autobiographical Touches

The Stand is not only a very spiritual book, at moments it is quite autobiographical. We don't meet King directly, as we did in the Dark Tower, but there is a family mention.

In chapter 40 of The Stand, we are once again taken deep inside the thoughts of Mother Abagail. As she sits on a screened porch, she thinks of a traveling salesman who had come through Hemingford Home in 1936 or ‘37.

"Why, he had been the sweetest talking fellow she had ever met in her life; he could have charmed the birdies right down from the trees." p.400

Why does this traveling salesman matter? Well, because. . .

1. HIS NAME: His name is "Mr. Donald King." Stephen King’s father’s name was Donald King. Is he deliberately making a connection?

2. PARTICULAR EMPHASIS: King is careful to draw the readers attention to the name. "She had never seen him again, but she had never forgotten his name, either." p.400 It's like he's pointing.

3. OCCUPATION: Donald King was a vacuum cleaner salesman. And hey. . . guess what the salesman in the Stand is? Yep – a vacuum cleaner salesman.

In one page King mentioned several times that the salesman was a sweet talker. I am not quite sure the relation, but it makes me wonder if his father was known to be a charmer.

4. RESULT: So what was the end result of Mr. Donald King? Does Stephen King tell us? In a way. He does it through the good prophet -- Mother Abagail: "She just bet he had gone on to break some white lady’s heart." p.400 (639 uncut edition)

IT Journal 3

In the opening scenes, King spent time giving us peeks at Pennywise. In chapter three he introduces the seven protagonist who will face off against the monster. All of the adults have forgotten the events of their childhood, until Mike gives them a call.

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The sub-chapters are titled, making this very long single chapter a series of short stories. When the mini-series was filmed, they paired these introductory scenes with an encounter with Pennywise. So each character got a shot as an adult, then a flashback. Anyway, the book doesn't do that.

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Interestingly, just from a literary standpoint, is that King tells several of these scenes from the viewpoint of someone who loves the central character. So Stanly Uris' story is told from the standpoint of his wife; Beverly Rogan's story is told through the eyes of her abusive boyfriend.

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It is scary how easily King takes the reader inside the head of an abuser. In this case, a violent abuser who likes to whoop on Beverlay Rogan. No slow build-up like in The Shining, you're just dropped right into this guys head. Ouch.
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Some quick notes:
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1. I really like Bill asking, "can't you guys let a story be a story?"
2. Eddie marry's a fat woman who reminds him of his mother. She is both pathetic and icky.
3. George Orwell makes appearances in this book also, as he also had quite a role in Firestarter. It is obvious that Orwell's work has had an influence on King.
4. King also gives honorable mention here to Ray Bradbury and William Goldman.
5. Bill Denbrough appears to be King's closest alter-ego in this novel. He's not only a writer, Denbrough is even published by Viking.
6. The cultural references are more than I can count. Grateful Dead, Carson, O.J. Simpson (Hertz ad), Esquire -- and a trillion more.
7. All of the characters are very successful. I'm not sure how King is going to play on that. But they're certainly not "losers" as adults.
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Foreshadowing - The Scar
The foreshadowing is awesome in this section. I especially like Bill showing his wife his scarred hands, a sign of a blood covenant. But it is a scar that has suddenly appeared -- come back with a single phone call. How cool is that?! And then, King delivers a true shiver: Stan did it. What did Stan do? He cut their palms. Now this is powerful because Stan just killed himself.
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Bill tells his wife, "I can' remember Stan doing his own hands last, pretending he was going to slash his wrists instead of just cut his palms a little. I guess it was just some goof, but I almost made a move on him . . . to stop him. because for a second or two there he looked serious." p. 131 pb
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The titles all make use of the verb "take."
Stanly Uris takes a bath
Richard Tozier takes a powder
Ben Hascom takes a drink
Eddie Kaspbrak takes his medicine
Beverly Rogan takes a whuppin
Bill Denbrough takes time out
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Hemingford Home

In the section about Ben Hascom, we learn that he lives in Heminford Home. This is the same place mother Abigail from the Stand lives. It is also the site of one of the upcoming stories in King's upcoming book, Full Dark, No Stars. We are given this description of Hemingford Home, "Downtown Hemingford Home made downtown Swedholm look like New York City; the business district consisted of eight buildings, five on one side and three on the other." These include a barber shop, a hardware store, a bank and a 76 gas station and the Red Wheel -- the local bar.