Despite being a massive Stephen King fan, I’ve never actually read The Stand all the way through. This surprises no one more than myself, since it’s one of his most well known and beloved works, and the copy I’m currently reading (the Complete & Uncut edition, which clocks in at nearly 1200 pages) has been on my bookshelf for nearly half my life. Why it’s taken me so long to really dig in and commit is a question I don’t rightly have an answer for. I wish I could say I was intimidate by the length–I’m a pretty slow reader and have only managed to get halfway through despite starting around Christmas–but I’ve already read IT, which is roughly the same length, so it’s not like a book’s exorbitant page count has stopped me before.
There’s a part of me that really laments having not read it before now, given we’re all living through an actual global pandemic. COVID-19 lacks the murderous rampaging of King’s imagined Captain Trips, but there’s plenty that’s analogous to how things have played out in the real world. There’s the rapidness with which it spread, the public reaction vacillating between dismissive skepticism and blind panic, and King’s fictional President even states his intention to, “spank the American people for overreacting.” Gee, where have I heard that kind of rhetoric before?
It would have been a fascinating juxtaposition to have read the book before, when the thought of a pandemic uprooting society seemed preposterous, and to read it again now, when the preposterous has become reality. If anything, it today seems preposterous that we will ever return to something resembling the normalcy of pre-COVID life. I know it’ll eventually happen—it’s inevitable; COVID will not be forever—but I also recognize we will never return to something exactly like pre-COVID life: that ship has long sailed. Whatever comes after will be different, by the shared value of the traumatic experience we’ve all lived through. Hopefully it’s different for the better, but honestly who would dare try to make a prediction about the future at this point?
Anyway, I continue to read The Stand with great interest and enjoyment. I’ll need to take a forced break soon; my mom has asked all her kids and in-laws to read a book she selected so we can have a book club on her birthday. After that though, it’ll be back to post-apocalyptic America and the fight between the our intrepid band of lucky survivors and Randall Flagg, the ever-looming Dark Man who hovers over the narrative like a specter.
I’ll share my full thoughts on the book whenever I finish it (probably in April lol).
Bradley C. Graham 