vol. 10 issue 8

Fellow readers, all is not well in the Boulder Free Zone, but the next time someone in your presence refers to Stephen King as a horror writer, I want you to remember this week’s portion of The Stand. Spooky goings on were at a minimum over the last 103 pages, as we concentrated instead on the social dynamics of a burgeoning society. This is King in his purest ‘put characters together and write down what happens’ mode, and it’s paying off with a deeper sense of who these people are, and how they relate to one another.

At the same time, our author isn’t one to lay out characters’ reasoning in black and white — preferring instead a more ‘show don’t tell’ approach to development. When, for example, nice guy Nick works to unilaterally remove Harold Lauder from the temporary committee, we’re mostly working on the idea that Nick senses something about Harold. We as readers are privy to some deeper truths about Harold’s inner consciousness (some of which through direct insight into his mind; some via a peek into his ‘LEDGER’), but Nick is not. Like a few characters in the novel, Nick has a little ‘shine’ to him perhaps (‘He’s coming for you mutie…’), and (like Leo) knows on an instinctual level that the outward face of Harold Lauder is not the true one.

King plays Nick’s attempted sidelining of Lauder, against the admiration that Larry initially feels towards Harold. Throughout the week’s reading, we get to watch this relationship evolve, wanting the best for our heroes, but perhaps delighting also in the depiction of Harold. The fact that we have access to some of his inner thoughts not only allows us to glimpse the depth of his depravity, but also see that there are moments here where he could choose to take a different path. The act of filling his LEDGER is described as Harold ‘tapping into’ hate, as though it were a pre-existing element and he was simply accessing it. This might not be far from the truth — each time the question is raised as to why he feels the way he does, an inner voice shuts it down:

And why did he hate? He sat up straight, as if the question had come from the outside. It was a hard question to answer, except maybe to a few, a chosen few. (p716)

It is as though some outside force is convincing Harold of the righteousness of his feelings, and compelling him to dig deeper in the well of hatred.

Yes, Harold, but why do you hate? No; there was no satisfactory answer to that, only a kind of … of endorsement for the hate itself. (pp716-7)

It’s unclear from the text (at least to this reader, at this point) the extent to which this is an all-too-common case of a young man corrupted by feelings of jealousy and selfishness, spiralling into wicked and destructive thought and action. This potent mix of simultaneously-felt superiority and inferiority is all too recognisable in spheres of masculine culture, without need for the intervention of supernatural forces. But consider the characterisation of hate like a dark river, and the manner in which it chimes with that idea I’ve raised here before, of potent elements older than the concept of society.

Speaking of which: we got quite a bit this week on the formation of the Boulder Free Zone — its nascent community, and the early structure for its governance. For the most part I found all of this to be interesting reading — enjoying how each character’s opinions of others coloured our understanding of them — but I did get a bit hung up on how regularly the men are drinking beer and talking politics, whilst the women make food and do the laundry. (Frannie’s excitement when Stu brings her a washboard was certainly a bit much.)

That said, it’s Fran who stands up at the community meeting, and raises the concern that the proposal to send Tom et al west risks ‘starting all the old shit over again’ (p748). That the loudest voice in the text calling for a new way of doing things, is that of a young woman, doesn’t feel accidental. It’s only a shame that her opinion is (fairly quickly, if with light reservation) dismissed, and that Frannie herself switches her vote in the name of unity. All of which tells us something about what it takes to build community, and it’s not all flattering.

The week’s section closes with the gathered community in tears over the singing of the national anthem. In Larry’s formulation, they are ’saying hello to the group self again’ (p791), and whilst Underwood maybe considers that a good thing (baseball games, music concerts, local government!), the novel’s resident sociologist is less certain. In earlier sections, it had come to feel as though King included Glen Bateman in the book mostly to warn against the inclinations of man en masse. This week, he is the vector by which an intriguing idea bubbles up to greater prominence in the text.

Not long before the community gathers in an attempt to resurrect the temporary illusion that was the United States of America, Glen is espousing the upside to the passing out from the world of rationality. In his argument — in relation to which the reader is left to determine their own position — ‘rationalism is a deathtrap’ (p777), responsible for the invention of the superflu. It is rational thought that blinds us to the truth, and in the post-rational world, ‘it’s as if a bright dazzle has gone for a while, and we could see’ (p777-8). Far from lamenting the loss of the former world, Glen paints Flagg as ‘the last magician of rational thought, gathering the tools of technology against us’ (p778). This is not a line of thought I had expected to encounter amongst Mother Abigail’s flock, and yet it makes a certain sort of sense. She herself of course — ‘other-directed’ as she is — also gives primacy to a pre-rational truth.

Taken together, I found Glen’s warning against rationality and Frannie’s pushing back against ‘starting all the old shit over again’ to be an interesting thread: a signposting to a different way of being. I’m not sure how far the novel will take this idea — and, from what we’ve seen, the compulsion to re-establish the new world in the model of the old seems quite strong — but I found it a worthwhile inclusion.

A brief shout-out to my guy Kojak (aka Big Steve), whose journey across the country would, in itself, make a worthwhile tale. The little section that we get is affecting, and offers us another perspective on the sub-rational phenomena of the novel. Also, I’m grateful to King for letting us know that this brave dog is going to survive the action of the novel. I just have one further question: who names a dog ‘Big Steve’?

I’m feeling a little bold, and I’d like to make a prediction for what comes next. Like many in Boulder — as discussed in last week’s issue — I had considered that the meeting of the two opposing parties would come when Flagg’s group made their way east with ill intent. I had not seen coming the Boulder lot’s plan to send spies into the enemy’s midst. As soon as this was revealed however, I felt sure that it was the means by which Harold Lauder and (perhaps) Nadine Cross would make their way to Flagg’s side.

If I was feeling really bold I would predict the return of Abagail Freemantle, like Gandalf the White, arriving to Helm’s Deep astride Shadowfax… but I’m not quite willing to go there yet.

However, there is also a particular plot beat in The Stand of which I am aware, and to which it feels we are likely drawing near. It’s one of the very few elements of the novel I knew before we started reading, and I’ve been awaiting it quite impatiently for a couple hundred pages — I’ll let you know when we get there, but it’s got to be soon now!

It seems apt this week to make my recommendation one in which the central dynamic is that of a group of ordinary folks coming together to deal with something truly extraordinary. Storm of the Century (1999) is a three-part TV mini series written by King, and set on the fictional Little Tall Island — see also Dolores Clairborne (1992). Unlike the vast majority of King’s work on screen, Storm of the Century is not an adaptation; King wrote it as an original screenplay. I remember seeing it across three consecutive nights on British TV sometime around when it came out — already deep in my King fandom — and being totally captivated.

The story centres around the arrival of a mysterious stranger to Little Tall just as the island is bracing itself for an epic storm. Colm Feore’s performance as Andre Linoge is eerily calm and menacing, and even at a remove of 25 years has absolutely coloured elements of the way I’ve pictured Randall Flagg in The Stand. Opposing him are a very Stephen King cadre of small town folk, led by a capable everyman law enforcement officer. As usual, no spoilers from me, particularly as Storm… has a very memorable ending! The only problem: it doesn’t currently seem to be available to watch anywhere legally, and I certainly wouldn’t advise you to watch any of the several versions that scofflaws have uploaded in full to YouTube.

OK my friends, enough from me for one week. I sure hope you enjoy what lies ahead, and I will write to you again next Sunday, to discuss the novel up to p893: the end of Chapter 56.

✌🏻

— Adam