Laying Down "The Stand"

Last night I finished The Stand by Stephen King. In this 1153 page book (the extended version), the world succumbs quite quickly, but not entirely, to a superflu virus that is accidentally released from a military bioweapons facility. The less than 1% of the population that remains slowly coalesces and begins the slow process of recovering civilization and, in some cases, democracy. And the new stripped-down, blossoming societies must address the age-old conflict of good and evil in unusually clear and present terms. With the vestiges of the insulating and anesthetizing old-world society removed, mankind confronts forces of good and evil that are real, blatant and graphically portrayed.

In his preface King calls the work a "long tale of dark Christianity". And indeed it is a far more Christian book than I expected from Stephen King. I had read several of his books in middle school and don't recall much deeper meaning in them, so I never gave him much credit beyond being able to conjure a good creepy-crawly. But I'd heard through the years that there was more to his work than ghosts and ghoulies, that there was a dark nobility lurking there somewhere. And then there were a couple of movies that I learned after-the-fact that he had written (Stand By Me and The Shawshank Redemption) which were outstandingly good and rich and deep, and totally contrary to what I had come to believe a Stephen King story was all about.

I basically read The Stand because of similar such reports. Its reputation for having a cult following and its description as an “alternative classic” had intrigued me for years. I don't know if I've changed or King did (I suspect the former), but this was not a "King Book" as I presupposed it to be. Sure, it had its share of gross-outs and half-imagined monstrosities lurking just off in the shadows, but it had some much more human qualities – compassion, thoughtfulness, moral and ethical struggle, true sorrow and pathos, and most importantly, a strong redemptive streak. It seemed King was serious about his darkly Christian story.

The Christian imagery isn’t particularly veiled or subtle. The characters themselves speak of the plot’s main struggle as a battle between good and evil, but don’t attribute it to nebulous and undefined powers; it is a monumental battle between the Christian God, represented by his prophet Mother Abagail, and Satan, represented by his eternal co-conspirator Randall Flagg. The "good" characters come from all different backgrounds and faith-systems, but each is drawn, often against their will and better judgment, to placing stock in Mother Abagail and the God she must serve and represent.

Redemption is the most developed theme carried on through out the novel and applied to numerous characters, with vastly differing results. Several characters struggle with their moral failures in their “previous life” before the plague, and must war against them in their new post-apocalyptic existence. They either overcome them with new-found humility and self-sacrifice, or revolve to them in pride, greed, and ambition – all in accordance with to the camp they choose to live within, though “choosing” may be too strong a word, for sense of calling and predestination seems to be strong as well. While there are plenty of images and allegories that would not bear a strictly orthodox Christian litmus test (as would also be the case in The Lord of the Rings or the Narnia series), it is a profoundly Christian novel with an ultimately Christian worldview and a Christian conclusion. (OK, spiced with a little Zen and Ka). It looks at the world and humanity and makes a few general statements about them both – and the statements ring pretty much “Christianly” true.

I don’t know that The Stand will make it to my top ten book list, but it definitely rises up in that general direction.