Reviews with content warning for Mental illness - The Stand

Dark, introspective, diverse and extremely well written, this massive novel may be seem to be daunting, but whatever the case, you’ll almost certainly finish faster than you think.

Content Warnings

tifftastic87's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Ooooh boy, where to start.

The Stand begins and ends with characters. While there is a plot and all the characters are moving to advance it, the whole point of the book is humanity and how it responds. I think this is largely shown through Glen's perspective and is even foreshadowed through him. But that is me getting ahead of myself. The story is very character driven and if that isn't for you, you probably won't enjoy this because literally all it is, for the first about 700 pages is just the characters walking. You can really feel the inspiration of The Lord of the Rings in a lot of this because it is the characters walking, doing introspection, and feeling the eye of the big bad watching them.

Each of the characters kind of represent a different part of humanity.

Stu, often called the reluctant hero, though all he did was

break his leg instead of dying in the nuclear blast

, is quiet, thoughtful and methodical. He is no more than averagely intelligent, but if given a problem will sit with it and fiddle with it long enough to come up with a solution. That solidness and perseverance is what saves him in the end.

Fran, who starts off as wonderful headstrong woman that approaches most shitty situations with a giggle and a determined stance, is essentially reduced to a human incubator near the end of the book. (I wouldn't call this a spoiler, since she is pregnant from our first introduction to her.) Which is perhaps the biggest thing that brings the rating down for me. She was one of my favorite characters in the initial story telling and I think if King had pushed for another 500 pages, or made this the series it desperately needed to be, I think she wouldn't have been done as dirty. But on the whole she is kind of a let down, simply becoming the symbol of hope that humanity can survive.

Nick, dear Nick, he is the heart of this little survival community. A deaf and mute man, who was abused and tortured for most of his short life overcomes astounding trauma

only to be cut down too soon. But what is a King novel if my favorite character doesn't die?

. Nick brings the community together, he has a sense and a need for order and drives everyone to form a more organized society. He's the first to expose us to the dreams of Mother Abigail and the Dark Man.

Larry, Larry is human arrogance and self indulgence at it's finest. That being said he's one of my favorites, and I loved watching his growth. I think out of all the characters his arch was the most satisfying. "You ain't no nice guy," he gets told in the beginning and that thought along with his mother calling him a taker drives him to become a better man. He leads a whole group West, after not even being able to take care of himself and almost giving over to depression and self loathing. Watching him form bonds and love for himself was one of the best parts. Without being able to acknowledge our own needs and desires and when it is best to tamp them down to serve others, we are nothing in a community.

Lloyd may not be a bad man himself, but he certainly has aligned himself with one. Nothing more than a two-bit criminal who likes weed and guns, and is a little slow on the uptake. Lloyd finds himself in a shootout that lands him in prison just when Captain Tripps is starting to claim its souls. He is pretty good at taking direction, being a second hand man and doing what needs to get done. His morality seems to align with who is the most powerful in the room at the time. He comes off kind of childish in a bit of a dark way.

The Walkin' Dude, Randy Flagg, the Dark Man, the Tall Man etc. He rounds out the first six characters we are really introduced to, that we really follow. He is an ancient darkness. King essentially uses "Sympathy for the Devil" by the Stones as his introduction. If you have never heard the song, then please go listen to it, seriously. But also, the lyrics are after this paragraph because why the hell not? Flagg is not necessarily the devil or even a devil, you can decide that for yourself. But he certainly makes many feel that he is. His goals are not entirely clear, but it is clear that he likes power. He may be the personification of the quote "absolute power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." He has certain abilities that make him King's version of Sauron perhaps.

Please allow me to introduce myself
I'm a man of wealth and taste
I've been around for a long, long years
Stole million man's soul an faith

And I was 'round when Jesus Christ
Had his moment of doubt and pain
Made damn sure that Pilate
Washed his hands and sealed his fate

Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name
But what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game

Stuck around St. Petersburg
When I saw it was a time for a change
Killed Tsar and his ministers
Anastasia screamed in vain

I rode a tank
Held a general's rank
When the blitzkrieg raged
And the bodies stank

Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name, oh yeah
Ah, what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game, oh yeah

I watched with glee
While your kings and queens
Fought for ten decades
For the gods they made

I shouted out
Who killed the Kennedys?
When after all
It was you and me

Let me please introduce myself
I'm a man of wealth and taste
And I laid traps for troubadours
Who get killed before they reached Bombay

Pleased to meet you
Hope you guessed my name, oh yeah
But what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game, oh yeah, get down, baby

Pleased to meet you
Hope you guessed my name, oh yeah
But what's confusing you
Is just the nature of my game

Just as every cop is a criminal
And all the sinners saints
As heads is tails
Just call me Lucifer
'Cause I'm in need of some restraint

So if you meet me
Have some courtesy
Have some sympathy, and some taste
Use all your well-learned politnesse
Or I'll lay your soul to waste, mm yeah

Pleased to meet you
Hope you guessed my name, mm yeah
But what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game, mm mean it, get down

Woo, who
Oh yeah, get on down
Oh yeah
Aah yeah

Tell me baby, what's my name?
Tell me honey, can ya guess my name?
Tell me baby, what's my name?
I tell you one time, you're to blame

What's my name
Tell me, baby, what's my name?
Tell me, sweetie, what's my name?

None of these characters are near each other, when Captain Tripps, Tube Neck, or the Superflu break out, and many don't find each other at all. We get to follow them as they watch their friends and family die, get kidnapped by the US government, or get put in a position of authority because they are the last one left. We watch them scrape and scramble and fight for their last bit of sanity and then we meet the Trashcan Man.

I felt so much pitty for Trash. He was abused by his father, watched his father get killed by his stepfather, got sent to an institution where he received shock therapy that fucked him up even further and then went to prison where all the tropes happened to him. Trashy is not bright, he is not quick witted or sharp, but man is he good with fire and bombs. We get to watch him travel west, blowing things up and losing more and more of his mind as he vows "my life for you" to Las Vegas where he will join Flagg. At this point Flagg has collected Lloyd and has started out a base of operations that serves to remind us that evil is not some big and dark thing, it is largely government. Vegas runs on a strict set of rules, show up to work on time, put in a solid 8 hours or more, don't overdo it on drugs, sex or alcohol. Capitol punishment for rules breakers.

Our other main four characters also begin their journeys, though to what they aren't sure. Except Nick, Nick is the only one that knows straight away where to go. He dreams of Mother Abigail and heads her way.

Mother Abigail is the other reason this isn't a five for me. This is more of King's magical black minority trope. She is the only explicitly not white character in the book and therefore, is magic. She is 108 years old and is deeply connected to the Christian God. Her light and goodness brings everyone to her homestead in Nebraska and she leads them to Boulder where they make their new community. Honestly, the story could have happened without her IMO. She is touted as Flagg's opposite but is not shown to actually be that. She somewhat personifies our desire to believe that there is something bigger leading us, the reason why religion evolved in the first place. She brings community, which religion can do for many, and a sense of purpose, which many also find in religion. But she doesn't really do anything, which IME is actually pretty accurate too for religion.

Stu, breaking free of a government research facility stumbles first on Glen. Glen is a sociology professor and brings a lot of insights into humanity. He personifies our need to classify, identify and extrapolate from past actions to what may happen in the future. He is a kind man serves as a sort of father figure that the group really needs.

When Fran is deciding to leave Maine she is joined by the 17 year old brother of her best friend. Harold is kind of a quintessential nice guy character. He is hyper intelligent, in that obnoxious way that men and boys who believe themselves to be so much smarter than the average person are, and thinks that means the world owes him something. If r/Iamverysmart where a thing in 1990 you could have found screenshots of Harold's long Facebook ramblings posted there every week. Harold, well read as he is, has the idea to head to the very disease center that Stu was held at, and Fran joins him. Since, it was Harold's idea he now believes the world owes him and it owes him Frannie. While Harold's interactions with Fran, and especially when they meet up with Stu, are annoying to read simply because if you are a woman you have likely heard men like Harold say these exact same things, Fran's views on it are much worse. At first she is frustrated by Harold and disgusted by him, but then his ideas ability to lead them to the center make her feel like she owes him and that just gets annoying. She starts feeling like she has done him wrong, or done him a disservice by not loving him. Maybe a lot of us have felt that way about someone, but it is so hard to read when we you know how scuzzy the other person involved is. So, Harold and Fran join Stu and then Glen.

Kojak, honestly is the best part of this whole doorstop of a book. He starts out with Glen, and when Glen joins Stu, Fran and Harold to go West they can't bring him on the bikes. This dog, this fucking dog, follows them. I won't spoil it, I'm not even gonna put it behind a block because you need to experience what Kojak experienced but he went through hell to get to Boulder.

Tom, M-O-O-N that spells Tom Cullen. I love this man. Next to Kojak he is the best part of the book and honestly, they are the two true heros of the story. Because the book should probably be called "How Frannie Goldsmith had a baby in the Pandemic and gave hope to the rest of society" and without Tom and Kojak her future husband would not have survived. Ugh. Anyway, Tom is such a special character. He is developmentally delayed and cannot read, which makes it difficult for Nick, who communicates through writing, to befriend him. But they become best friends and it is the most wholesome and heartwarming thing in this whole book. Which makes what Nick does to him even harder, but then Tom wouldn't have been the hero if Nick hadn't done it. Tom represents what is good and kind about all of us.

Tom and Nick come across Ralph. Ralph is a jolly man who comes up with the idea for a CB radio to be able to contact all the other people coming in to Boulder, or The Freezone.

Nadine, ugh Nadine was such a waste. Typical virginal school marm achetype, but with the twist that she's got a dark secret given to her by a Ouiji board. She saves Larry from Joe, a wild boy, and he gets them to join him. He finds one of Harold's signs and they all follow Harold west. Simply because she is beautiful, Larry falls for Nadine and is rebuffed. Things grow distant after that because she is the only one that doesn't want to talk about the dreams, WHICH NO ONE FINDS SUSPICIOUS?

Joe/Leo is wildly important for a bit and then just kind of fades away which I was annoyed by. I liked his character a lot and he reminds me very much of Wrath from Full Metal Alchemist. When Nadine first finds him he is a wild thing of a boy who doesn't talk, only grunts and wields a kitchen knife. He wants to kill Larry many times before they meet him, but when Larry plays the guitar Joe is overwhelmed with excitement and then is able to mimic Larry's playing. Larry starts the process of bringing Joe back to his old self, something that Nadine could not do.

So that rounds out all the important characters. We follow them in town for a while and then plot points start happening. Harold and Nadine go darksided and people die. Mother Abigail sends the men west, because it has to be the men when it is a Christian god, and then ... the ending would have happened whether or not the characters were there. That is the most frustrating part! Like, they didn't need to be there!!! They could have stayed home. It is built like this epic journey and they didn't even need to be there to throw the ring into the fires of Mordor, because one of the orcs accidentally blew up the mountain.

None of the female characters are really important. They're just ...

All day, every day, therapist, mother, maid
Nymph then virgin, nurse and a servant
Just an appendage, live to attend him
So that he never lifts a finger
24-7, baby machine
So he can live out his picket fence dreams
It's not an act of love if you make her
You make me do too much labour

The only nurse in town plays nurse even when the only doctor is a cow vet. All the women magically cook, none of the men ever do even though it is all canned goods. The women learn to garden and farm, the woman gets used as a sex toy so that the evil plot against the committee can happen sooner. Women are done so dirty in this.

What makes me love it though, is the true representations of humanity and what it does under pressure. That it could also be called "Dogs, why we don't deserve them" or "Stop overlooking those you think you are above" just as much as it could be called "Frannie's gonna have a baby that symbolizes hope." It is anti-government, anti-military, anti-capitalism and illustrates positive male friendships in a really wholesome light. As frustrated as it made me at times the warmth between Nick and Tom, Nick and Ralph, Ralph and Tom, and Stu and Glen brought tears to my eyes more than once.

Content Warnings

ladawson's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Content Warnings

aparizo704's review against another edition

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adventurous dark reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

I chose an interesting time to read this, considering present society is battling a “super flu” of our own. I couldn’t help likening the first two parts to forebodings of Nostradamus

(Naturally, I don’t believe COVID was manufactured as a weapon of biowarfare and turned loose by the military

). I won’t gloss over King’s use of racial slurs and the novel’s nearly complete sanitization of non-White survivors from the plot (it’s glaringly obvious), but I will acknowledge the zeitgeist of the time the book was published (no surprises - this is our parents’s generation, after all). The character tropes that eventually manifest themselves act as devices to further along the plot - chiefly to serve the main protagonists, with little exploration of the personal development afforded to most of the founding Zone members. The point could be made about any PoC almost exclusively, but the same goes for Tom Cullen and Nick. Their “before” story, would have been as insightful as Frannie, Harold, Stu, and Larry - especially considering how key they were to saving every soul in Boulder. Despite how critical I appear, I appreciated the extended edition and can’t imagine reading this through without the sections cut from King’s original manuscript. It’s a worthy cautionary tale, which suggests the answer to a question about humanity I believe we know the truth of deep in our hearts, but continue to hope for despite our record on Earth. Hoping is as natural as breathing for us.

Content Warnings

littlemissgemreads's review against another edition

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challenging dark funny sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

Content Warnings

tatitos's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Content Warnings

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