vol. 10 issue 10

Fellow readers, assemble. In the immortal words of the Sorcerer Supreme: we’re in the endgame now. The Stand is well and truly simmering, and feels about ready to boil over. We’ve had our first real incident in a couple of weeks, and our first insight for a while into what’s going on in Vegas — nothing good.

If I didn’t know better, I would say that we got some fairly ‘plotty’ elements this week. Let’s talk first about Harold Lauder’s act of terrorism. Readers have long since known the path that Lauder is destined to walk at this point, and King delights in twisting him fully out of shape. We’re not done with Harold of course, but looking back on his arc thus far we find it believable that an outwardly pompous, inwardly self-conscious young man is precisely the easiest target for Randall Flagg’s machinations. Though the two are yet to meet, the text has no doubt that it’s Flagg that has pushed on Harold’s weaknesses until he has disfigured his soul, perhaps beyond repair. Gone is much of the former internally vocalised hand-wringing that we were previously witness to. In his present state, Harold has become utterly convinced that he is acting in service of something (and someone) greater.

On the other side of the aisle, can we not say the same for some of our ‘heroes’? Many of their number seem increasingly convinced of their own parts in the greater game. Any doubts about the (potentially) divine, or at least supernatural, nature of Mother Abagail’s guidance have been put aside. Glen may argue that it’s a moot point: if the people need to believe in something nonsensical in order to organise themselves around it, so be it. Here’s what Harold has to say on the matter, in his ‘LEDGER’:

To follow one’s star is to concede the power of some greater Force, some Providence; yet is it still not possible that the act of following itself is the taproot of even greater Power? Your GOD, your DEVIL, owns the keys to the lighthouse; I have grappled with that so long and hard in these last two months; but to each of us he has given the responsibility of NAVIGATION. (p909)

Now there’s a knotty metaphysical question. Suppose that Harold is right about this: if Mother Abagail and Randall Flagg (each a proxy of some higher power) are merely lighthouse keepers, that means the direction in which one heads is still ultimately determined by the individual. The ‘responsibility of NAVIGATION’ is a heavy burden if events are not predetermined. Just ask Larry Underwood or Fran Goldsmith how difficult it is to cope with good fortune, let alone ill. This is the quandary posed by religious belief that is so anathema to the rationalist’s palate. It is somehow easier to accept Mother Abagail’s blind faith: all things serve God, even the dark man — everything will play out according to His will. At least here we have the old ‘mortal minds should not presume to understand’ get-out clause. Harold’s idea is scarier, in that it places mortal beings subject to the will of higher powers, but not irresistibly so; not inevitably so. What a sad thing for a person to commit to paper as they feel their own soul pulled away from them, and into the hands of Randall Flagg.

It’s the fact that Mother Abagail’s return is the raison that most of the Boulder Free Zone Permanent Committee live to see another day — that’s what feels particularly plotted. (I don’t mean that pejoratively; it’s just an observation.) In the textual sense, we can also read it as placing another marble on the ‘divine guidance’ side of the scales.

I have to say, whilst I may have predicted that Mother A wouldn’t see the end of the novel — martyrdom being a fairly big part of the whole Christian deal — it was something of a surprise to me to see Nick go. Looking back on his journey through the novel, what do we find? A good man who tries his best and then dies. It’s not exactly operatic, and perhaps the most we can say of Nick’s function in the novel is that he provides a relatively uncomplicated point of comparison against which to judge some of his compatriots. He’s also the one ‘responsible’ for sending Tom Cullen into the west, and it’s a shame that he doesn’t live to see whether or not that was a terrible idea.

That brings us to the goings on in Las Vegas. We only got glimpses of Flagg this week, with King obviously hewing quite closely to the Alien / Jaws formula of showing his monster fairly infrequently, so that its mystique retains potency. However, we did get a vivid depiction of life in sin city under the dark man’s reign. Seen through the eyes of Dayna Jurgens, we catch up with Lloyd and hear tell of the Trashcan Man’s latest endeavours.

What Dayna’s POV gives us is an admirably no-nonsense impression of the people gathered around Flagg. I found particularly striking, in amongst all the talk of arming missiles and performing crucifixions, the observation that the people in Vegas tend to be harder working and less idle than those in Boulder. This greater inclination towards action over thought stands in stark contrast to the political mechanics of the Free Zone, as we’ve observed in some detail in recent weeks. Of course, there’s also the prospect that the citizens of the former California find themselves motivated into a greater degree of action by the prospect of Flagg’s wrath. It’s an idea that chimes with one of Dayna’s most insightful observations of the dark man, which holds true for all would-be authoritarians: ‘maybe he sells fear because he’s got nothing else to sell’ (p999).

And so we leave Dayna just as she’s readying herself to meet Flagg in the flesh. Like the Judge before her, she has in mind some gossamer hope of a plan by which she might be able to topple Satan’s imp. One thinks of a certain scene in the third episode of Game of Thrones’ final season, but alas, the majority of minor pieces rarely have a good time in the endgame. With roughly a Carrie-worth of The Stand still to come, one suspects Dayna might not succeed.

A couple of quick Kingverse notes this week.

• First (at p969) Book III has an epigraph taken from Ben E King’s ’Stand By Me’. In his 1982 collection Different Seasons, King has a story titled ‘The Body’, which was adapted by Rob Reiner into the film Stand By Me (1986).

• During the Judge’s showdown with a crow, the old man considers the bird an incarnation of the dark man’s soul. He also uses another word (at p978) meaning much the same thing: ‘ka’. Though this term for one’s immortal spirit has ancient Egyptian roots, it was also popularised by King in his Dark Tower novels, wherein those characters who are drawn together for a particular purpose are considered a ‘ka-tet’: a kind of fated group. The first novel of the series — The Gunslinger — was also published in 1982. So, as above, either these were choices made in the original text of The Stand, which foreshadowed other King works, or they’re additions to the ‘Complete & Uncut’ version of the novel that reference those works.

When you’re a long-time reader of an author who hops genres like Stephen King does, you never really know what the next novel might bring. Honestly, some years ago I gave up on even reading the blurbs of upcoming King novels, knowing well enough that the author’s name on the cover guaranteed at least that they would be thoroughly entertaining. That said, here’s an excerpt from the back cover of Billy Summers (2021):

Chances are, if you’re a target of Billy Summers, two immutable truths apply: You’ll never even know what hit you, and you’re really getting what you deserve. He’s a killer for hire and the best in the business—but he’ll do the job only if the assignment is a truly bad person. […] Part war story and part love letter to small-town America and the people who live there, this spectacular thriller of luck, fate, and love will grip readers…

The first 2/3 of Billy Summers are wonderful. A combination of crime novel and small-town Americana that King just makes sing. It loses its way a little in the third act, but by then it has a couple of things going for it that will keep you hooked in. First, there’s the usual set of grounded, likeable King characters. Second, and perhaps more interesting, a text-within-the-text mechanic that would almost certainly feel gimmicky in a lesser writer’s hands, but which King uses to brilliant effect.

As a bonus — for those of us who delight in this sort of thing — the latter part of the novel also includes a couple of references to a certain King novel from the 1970s.

OK, that wraps up the antepenultimate issue of this year’s read-along. I will see you back here on Sunday 15 Sep, to discuss the novel up to the end of Chapter 72 on p1,107.

✌🏻

— Adam