Book review: The Stand by Stephen King.

This is my second attempt to read this book.

The first time I lost interest in the first third, roughly when Larry crosses the tunnel out of New York. This time I was resolute to finish it; I dislike not finishing books.

I believe there are two types of readers: those whose adage is "life is too short to read a book you don't enjoy". Then there is the second type of readers: those who would rather walk to the end of earth and back rather than leaving a book unfinished. I am of the latter type.

I believe that the Stand is one of Stephen's classics. Stephen is a great writer, but I am starting to believe that his books are simply not my cup of tea. I believe I have read three or four novels from him, and only enjoyed one of them: The Outsider.

It's not his writing style, I don't mind it, although this one was particularly verbose and quite slow at times.

I think his style is simply too dark for my liking. There is only so much twisted thinking, despair and unhinged behaviour that I can handle. At times with Stephen King, it feels like it's almost provocative for the sake of being provocative. The Outsider had some uncomfortable aspects, but it fitted in the story. It fed the mystery and built a horror-thriller atmosphere that worked quite well. In The Stand, the darkness too often felt like the point in itself. Perhaps it's confronting precisely because it is more nuanced: it is a reminder that there is evil in everyone.

That said, the book has real strengths. It is extremely well written and the vocabulary is very expansive. The story line is compelling. I was genuinely surprised on my second read: I was expecting only a plague story, but there was much more to that.

The societal aspect of rebuilding a society from scratch and the character of Glen were probably my favourite parts. I wished there was more of it; in the end, it all got swept under the rug rather quickly.

The character set is very large with very different personalities, which adds a lot of depth to the story. Some characters were captivating: Glen, Nick, Stuart Redman, Loyd, Randall Flag or Harold. Other are very flat, like Frannie or even (I may get some flak for this) Mother Abigail. Finally, some are simply strange and made me very uncomfortable, like Nadine.

I would expect each reader to get a different take on the characters. There are two dozens of them and they are complex. The "character building" was definitively the highlight of the novel for me.

Somehow, despite the noticeably size of the novel, it felt too short at times, only scratching the surface. While in other areas, it too slow to my liking. The reunion with mother Abigail for example took forever and was, quite plainly, a bore to go through.

In the end, while it is undeniably a high-quality book, I don't think I would recommend the book to most of my entourage. It's long, slow at times and carries a lot of darkness. Some people clearly enjoy that type of story, and I did enjoy it overall and don't regret it. It's a book I am glad I read once, I just don't think I would read it again.