Now then. Are we only left with people who are familiar with the story and probably think I have no taste for trashing it? Good.
So how can I hate a book that I consider nearly perfect?
It's that "nearly" part. The religious overtones throughout the book are fine. Randall Flagg is a grand villain and his power contrasts sharply with the frailty of Mother Abigail. The problem comes in when King tries to get some Old Testament style fire and brimstone and it turns out he can't pull it off at all.
What, in God's grand plan, was the fucking point of Stu, Larry, Ralph and Glen walking to Vegas on foot? This purifying odyssey is one meant for prophets and is strongly reminiscent of Moses going to speak to Pharaoh. But do they arrive in Vegas to lead the many people who want to escape Flagg to freedom? People like Jenny and those with her who had been trying to get away? Do the wonders of God strike at those in Las Vegas, leaving many alive so that they will know His power just like in Exodus? No, none of that happens.
God's fist comes out of the sky and sets off a nuclear warhead, killing absolutely everybody.
WHAT. THE. FUCK.
No, King. No. Fuck you, you fucking moron. If you want to try pulling off this fire and brimstone crap from the Old Testament, then perhaps you should have paid attention to those stories, because yours doesn't make any goddamned sense. God doesn't send prophets into cities He's going to destroy with no survivors. He doesn't kill His dutiful prophets alongside His enemies. You go in to check for the righteous men, or to rescue the chosen people, or something. If you're just going to stand there and get nuked, you might as well have not been there at all. If God is going to start using nuclear weapons He has no need for prophets.
If it was a last chance kind of deal, that still makes no goddamned sense. There were people there who wanted to get away. Many of those in Vegas were simply drawn there because it had food and water and electricity and order. Lots of techies got pulled in, but had no desire to be part of evil. Many were trying to get away. But were they given a chance? No. They, along with everybody else, gets fried.
That is the lamest and most unsatisfying ending to a book I can possibly imagine. "God's fist descends and punches a nuclear warhead, killing everybody." Seriously? How much coke were you on when you wrote that, Mr. King? It is doubly bad because it comes at the end of such a good book.
You don't spend nine thousand pages preparing your reader for an epic showdown between good and evil, and then pull the most literal fucking deus ex machina ever. King said he wanted to create an epic story along the lines of Lord of the Rings for North America. Tolkien understood how to end a story well, though. The weak can triumph over the mighty in Tolkien's books and it doesn't take any nuclear warheads to do it.
And that is why I hate The Stand.
Comments
How I miss you Las Vegas...
Unless the point is that God is just plain nuts. Which is possible, I suppose, but lacks something from a story-telling point of view.
Yeah, there really didn't seem to be much of a point. I'm totally willing to accept that within the confines of The Stand's universe God is not omnipotent and requires the Boulder people to take action. But coupling that with "God is gonna nuke ya" just makes the whole thing very bizarre.
I Stephen King's best stories work because of vivid characters and solid storytelling, not because of ghosts or monsters. Misery was my favorite book of his; nothing supernatural. And for Christ's sake, keep him away from aliens or any kind of science fiction. He has a bright ten-year-old's understanding of science. (I remember in The Stand, Trashman somehow manages to get radiation poisoning in the process of picking up a nuclear warhead and bringing it back to Las Vegas. Not sure how King thought that would happen.)
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sorry...