Hardly an American 'Stand' in...
 

This started elsewhere as an aside but I'm continuing in this new thread.

I started rereading The Stand by Stephen King, as it's January and nothing helps with the post-holiday blues than reading about a pandemic that wipes about 99.4% of the world's population, followed by a showdown between good and evil, all taking place within a book of over a billion or so words (get the extended version if you really really need to read something). A quick note: it's a page turner, though quite disappointing in the end. It was made into a TV movie, and is out as a graphic novel.

So why am I talking about this here, on the Downs?

One of the fifty or so 'main' characters, Frannie, makes reference to Tolkien. Her father had a shed in the back yard, and the door to the same was smaller than usual. As a child, and maybe even as a young woman, she always hoped that when she opened the door, instead of finding her father's work room, she would find Bag End, and the tunnels (dry) and oddities that made up any well-to-do hobbit hole. This never happened, but she still liked her father's room just the same.

Did I mention that her father smoked a pipe? And that one of her ancestors took the name of Tobias Downs? Anyone else wonder which muse was murmuring in the author's ear?

Where was I? Oh, anyway, so in the first part of the book, you, as the reader, realize that a super germ gets out and starts killing every man, woman and child (and dog) that gets near anyone that is infected. It's sometimes bleak reading, as you know that anyone near any character that sneezes or coughs will soon be dead, and that includes the infant in the car, the kids out in the backyard, etc. Mostly the death happens off screen, but you do get to read about some of it, and it's not very uplifting.

Also, the persons responsible, instead of trying to stop the pandemic, first want to cover up their involvement, and in doing so, allow the plague to spread to the point where it gets out of hand. They even seed it across the oceans to confuse any researchers - not that any are left after a few weeks to point any fingers. After that, civilization breaks down, the dying take one last swing at the resistant people, and then, well, the real fun begins. One of the good things about the book is that you really get to know some of the characters, and you feel for them, which is similar to reading about the Fellowship. There are sets of characters, and each set tries to get to its 'base,' whether the base for the good side (Boulder, Colorado) or the base for the bad side (Las Vegas, Nevada). Crossing the country, characters have various trials to overcome, and so again it's Fellowship-like.

I looked a little on the web and found that the author wanted to write a Lord of the Rings-type book but have the story take place in America. Note sure how successful he was. His words:
The main antagonist takes the name of Randall Flagg, whom you learn is not the Devil, but one level below - I guess - or something. He's sometimes called the Imp of Satan, which might make him more like Sauron to Morgoth. Anyway, everyone has nightmares about him, and we read that everyone is like totally frightened of this creature/person. In the dreams he takes a few different forms, and one is that of a hooded creature with weasel and/or red eyes. He always stays in the shadows, and uses each person's fears against him/her. Purportedly he's just as frightening in person, but I read it as a little less so.

The leader, kinda, of the good forces is the 108 year old Mother Abigail. She somehow, like her dark counterpart, is marshalling her troops as well, putting out some kind of psychic call, all with the aid of God (who doesn't come off very nicely in this world). But she is not without fear and trial, as the dark man is looking for her, and we find another point of comparison.
Sounds familiar for some reason. ;)

Anyway, there are other points of comparison - especially the climax - which I will note, but will let the conversation persist a moment before I continue.

Holy cow that's weird.

Having read The Stand, both the uncut and original (which I prefer) versions, the parallels are certainly readily apparent. JRRT's influence can be seen in other SK books as well, most notably in the Dark Tower series. I believe in the first volume of Tower, The Gunslinger, King makes another comment in the forward that he had wanted to write a Tolkienesque fantasy, but gave it a bit of a western setting to set it apart. He said something along the lines of the world already having all the elves, hobbits, and trolls it needed.

It's no surprise Stephen King has had to look elsewhere for inspiration, considering he was for a long time a novel factory -- a book-of-the-month club in and of himself. Save for a few of his novels (The Shining, Misery, The Dead Zone, and 'Salem's Lot), I'm not much of a fan. To me, the only thing reminiscent of Tolkien in 'The Stand' is that it is long; however, Tolkien's work is long, but not interminable like King's.

High Noon at Mount Doom
 

What? He couldn't imagine dwarves riding horses and hobbits wearing chaps? I can just see the Fellowship sitting around the campfire, drinking coffee and eating beans. Oh, wait, that was another western. :eek:

Now I'm going away to practice delivering some of Frodo's lines in a John Wayne drawl. Or some of John Wayne's lines with a big-eyed hurt look. :D

I'd love to hear the late Walter Brennan doing the Gaffer in his old, rheumy western drawl: "Eh-heh-heh, hey dude, I don't go in fer wearin' iron-mongery, whether it wears well or no, consarnit."

As I recall, an artist who did the covers for one of the early editions of LotR (the Dutch edition) did depict Aragorn in a cowboy hat. I saw it once upon a time, but I can't find the image on the web anymore. Too bad. It was amusing.

I was actually quite amazed to hear that King considered TS his "American version" of LotR. To me, it felt more like his take on a Michael Crichton novel (The Andromeda Strain, perhaps). Or maybe Richard Adams' Plague Dogs.

King may have been trying to create a Gollum-like character when he penned 'The Trashcan Man.' This semi-sympathetic character has many traits of Smeagol:

• is persistent beyond human ability,

• is single-minded though very clever,

• is disfigured,

• wants to serve the Dark Man in order to be a part of something

• gets betrayed

• with some deus ex machina, ends up toppling the evil of the era

• should have been named 'Bumpty-bumpty-bump' much for the same reason Smeagol is named Gollum

Some of the characters on the bad side are really mean sick sociopaths that you can't help but root against. Not Trash, however. He burns down a few cities by igniting large oil containers, but he never actually tries to hurt anyone (though surely some do get hurt). He has a Ring-like obsession with fire, and that's why he burns. The Dark Man promises to allow him to burn the world, and so Trash signs on..."My life for you!"

Reading about Trash's life, you realize that he's one messed up person, but it seems that he never had a choice. His father - insane - was shot by the sheriff who then marries his mother. The locals torment him endlessly. Trash gets sent off to a treatment center that uses electrical shocks to rehabilitate him. He eventually makes it back home and, not being able to control his desire for fire, ends up in jail, where he learns a little information that helps him later - like about morphine and antibiotics, which comes in helpful when he scalds his arm.

Most of his fires are a desire for vengeance, like the town he burns down where his dad-shooting stepfather lived. He also burned down a church, as he believes that God never responded to his prayers.

In regards to the book, I noticed a few other comparisons with the English LotR. One is that the American stand in is way too gritty. When you read LotR, you imagine (maybe) what may be going on in the pits of Mordor, but in The Stand, you get to read about the evils that men do - it's not a book for children or younger adults. The grit takes the fantasy part away. That and the mixing of Christian mythology and some history, which, when you start thinking about it, doesn't make much sense. Maybe that's the trouble with trying to write a LotR in the Primary World.

Oh, and one more thing: I remember some 'discussion' regarding Gimli sprinting across Rohan, and the problems with the same. Well, The Stand has that controversy as well, as the Trashcan Man, wanting to pass as quickly as possible through the state of Nebraska (the home of Mother Abigail), pedals a bicycle 400 miles in three days!

A timely thread, given that al-Qaeda seems to have been playing with (and released) bubonic plague in North Africa.

I heard about that as well, and here's a link. To me, I'm not sure what's most frightening...actual plague/pandemic, the fear (and overreaction) of the same or that Stephen King will be heralded as a visionary. :eek:

I'd vote for the latter.

You obviously haven't read the *uncut* version of The Stand. :D

Aren't they all dead though? As The Sun gleefully reported the other day....

This sounds like Terry Nation's Survivors, which has recently been revived by BBC1 though I got fed up with it after a couple of episodes. I like dystopian fiction but apocalyptic fiction I find quite depressing - The Road probably gives the most realistic account of what would happen, which isn't a very cheery thought :(

And the rats........?

Actually, I have. It's notable that the disease of the book was a "superflu", deliberately modified to be of the "shifting antigen" varity, which was the cause of its overwhelming mortality rate. This real event involves an apparently entirely natural disease caused by endemic environmental factors.

It's being spun both ways. One side is saying that the CIA is behind it as it's a low tech yet effective way of combating terrorists, as they don't have access to antibiotics, as we do. The other side is saying that this is more like bio-warfare gone awry, just like in The Stand.

Note that 'plague' is treatable. Check out the CDC for more plague information. For anyone getting nervous (sorry!), there's a *whole* lot more to worry about than just the plague...unless you have it, of course.

Didn't the Gondorians experience plague as well?

Sorry for my playful retort. If you've read the book...well, I shouldn't add to your suffering. ;)

To use an argument from authority, I, as a former molecular biologist, find King's science not very deep. Why, for an example, does this ever-mutating flu still kill the entire world population in pretty much the same way? Why too does it maintain its ability to kill domestic creature and not their closely-related cousins? If the scientists were able to engineer the bacterium/virus with such specificity, then it's highly unlikely that they weren't able to have a means to combat it already on hand - if I can keep it from killing wolves and weasels, then I know how they differ from dogs, and so I also would know how I could prevent myself from being attacked by the same.

And I guess that King's monkeys are domestic (which, if you had a thousand of them...;) ), as I think that Larry Underwood watches one kick off. Now, how related are we to monkeys? Or did King mean apes? Or was the plague just a convenient way to quickly set up his primary or secondary world in under a few thousands pages?

Methinks it is the later.

Thanks for posting, and if you've read it, I'd like to read your thoughts on how it compares to LotR. :)

Sorry if I came off as testy. I was in a hurry and didn't have time for elaboration. ;)

I am by no means an expert in molecular biology or epidemiology, but I've had many of the same questions as you about the nature of "Captain Trips". On a side note, being in the law enforcement field, I think SK takes similar liberties with police matters in From a Buick 8.

Well, many of the similarites have already been noted by you and others here.
Keep in mind, it's probably been two or three years since I last read it, though I think it's still in my basement somewhere.
We have the good band of pilgrims, called together apparently at random, to fulfill their roles in an epic battle against evil.
We have Mother Abigail: seemingly a cross between Elrond, as a bastion of guidance and wisdom, and Gandalf, taking an active role in organising the resistance to the incarnate evil facing the world.
As you noted, the Trashcan Man can be said to be the book's Gollum. I didn't see you mention what I believe to be their chief likeness, however. Both do good they do not intend, fulfilling, I think, the Plan of a higher Power.
Both books have leading toward the climax, a smaller group of persons, specially chosen to go to the land of the Enemy into what they believe to be certain death. Frodo and Sam in LOTR, and Stu, Larry, Glen, and Ralph in The Stand.
Harold Lauder, I think, could be somewhat likened to Boromir. Both, due to intrinsic flaws in their character, show themselves to be particularly vulnerable to evil impulses: Boromir is the only one of the Company to give in to the power of the Ring and attempt to wrest it from Frodo. Lauder, due to childhood experiences and his jealous hatred for Stu, consciously makes the decision to attempt to assassinate the members of the Committee.
Both repent in the end, but too late.
Overall, The Stand is not bad, for what it is. To me, it really belongs in the sci-fi genre rather than fantasy. The dialogue, characters, and plotting do not measure up to LOTR, but then again, what does?

Which sort of plague was it though? Am I right that one type is carried by rats/fleas while another is transmitted human-to-human?

Well you've reassured me at least ;) I suppose plague is something we already know about and can prepare medicines to deal with, whereas Flu constantly mutates. Though there's been precious little in our media about this apart from in The Sun!

The plague in the book is human-to-human, or at least air borne. Again, King's not really clear nor deep, as it seems that if someone sneezes or coughs *near* you, you're infected. Plus domestic animals die out, so...

Don't worry about the plague. It's things like MRSA that can be more of a concern. Live healthily, and wash your hands, and you should be good. And note that (knowing you're a mother) that the little one will have sniffles and fevers and earaches and whathaveyou, but will be just fine. Been there done (and still doing) that. :)

But back to the story. Last night, the Trashcan Man gets lupine help so that he can leave another baddie, and gets escorted by these wolves as well, much like Wormtongue on his way back to Isengard.