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joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012
On the topic of It:
I've been having to drive around a whole lot these past few months, and I got a bunch of audiobooks to listen to while I am driving, and I would really like to praise the audiobook for It. The narrator does an absolutely fantastic job, and it is probably one of the few cases where I've found that the narration improved some of the "feel" of the book. I literally got goosebumps listening to the first time when Bill opens Georgie's photo album.

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joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012

kaworu posted:

IT will always be the scariest Stephen King book to me, and the one that is most... "Stephen King" in a way, if that makes any sense. I think he was really tuned in on an intuitive level to some very primal, lizard-brain stuff. Which is why IT is so unrelentingly terrifying in this really basic way.

There is also a very Maine vibe to IT, and I have my own thoughts about what town "Derry" is most alike to - some would say it's Bangor, because that's where the Charlie Howard murder took place (for those who don't know the "Adrian Mellon" murder that begins IT was a literal real life incident where a gay teenage boy of 17 was killed when he got thrown over a bridge into the Kenduskaeg). And the murder never achieved any real notoriety, unlike, say, Matthew Shepard's murder.

But I would say the place that Derry truly resembles is this awful little Maine "city" called Lewiston, that is just... weird. I would honestly say that Lewiston is like... every twisted Maine town King has ever written about, but Derry in IT is the most direct and overt depiction he ever did. Lewiston is that creepy place where awful poo poo is commonplace and everyone turns a blind eye. Where there is what would look to be a normal Main Street at first with typical shops and restaurants, but if you look a little closer and you'll notice that everyone and everything just looks wrong. And acts wrong. There is this awful tension in the air, and you get the sense that there is something that you are not privy to or not aware of, based on the way everything looks and the way everyone acts. It's really weird and hard to describe, but I have never been to Lewiston and not felt a weird, lingering paranoia.

There are empty streets here and there, scattered around. Most filled with abandoned mills covered in overgrown weeds that sit silent and empty, all the time. The architecture is very old, because it is a very old town, and it almost seems stuck in time. The people seem stuck in time too. Lewiston was the town where, when it gained a small influx of Somalian immigrants about 10 years ago, had residents putting signs in their yards decrying the Somalians with expletives, telling them they weren't welcome and to go home. Last time I was in Lewiston I was just walking down the street and overheard some people casually discussing "the niggers". You get that a lot all over Maine, though.

Anyway - just my opinion. Lewiston just *is* Derry, though, as far as I'm concerned. If there is a dormant and ancient evil that exists in Maine, it is loving definitely in Lewiston and I doubt most Mainers would argue on that account.

My favorite thing about King has always been his depictions of life in a small town. I never really got into the Stand, Carrie, Running Man (I know some of these take place in small towns, but they are never really about the town for any extended period of time). But I absolutely love Christine, Salem's Lot and, most of all, It. He captures the feeling of claustrophobia (for the lack of a better term) of small town living better than anyone I've read.

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012

WattsvilleBlues posted:



I was quite deflated by the end of the book. I really felt like I'd been through hell with these people, and Mike Hanlon in particular just resonated with me in a big way. His epilogue is so... melancholy? I don't know.

Absolutely. People talk about It having a happy ending, but I always thought it was bittersweet at best. I found the whole thing with them forgetting each other so incredibly sad, and specially Eddie's ending. The idea that he'd be forever a missing person for his wife just struck me as so depressing.

As far as the book itself, I think part of the reason it felt so much more powerful to me than anything else King's written is because there are some things that I can really relate to. Between 1st and 4th grade I had a small group of really tight friends, about 6 or 7 boys and 1 girl as well, and some of them have also met tragic ends. The girl died in a towed tubing accident as an adult, one committed suicide as a teenager, one died in a glider accident, one died in a car crash and one had to move out of the country because his father was threatening to kill his mother and him. Which I guess is what made the spoilered part above so moving to me, as I also completely lost touch with all of them starting at age 11 or 12, and only learned of their deaths through newspapers or second hand accounts, and despite the fact that they were my closest friends for about 5 years today I could not even remember their last names.

In any case, It is my favorite King book, by quite a bit now.

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012

rypakal posted:

Count me in as goon number four, doing the audiobook edition for the first time.

If it's the version read by Steven Weber, it is the best audiobook narration I've ever heard.

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012

Aquarium Gravel posted:

Yeah, it's true, it felt off when I was listening to the audiobook last night, Now I get it though, that's literally the Stephen King brainstorm, "How will I make it clear to my readers that everyone in town knows these guys are gay?" It's even funnier when the description of their flamboyant makeup comes within a few paragraphs of the description that states that the owner of The Phoenix bar is clueless for many months that his clientele is nearly all gay men - he never noticed the makeup or nail polish prior to this, I guess.

It's a weird "off" stereotype, and though I don't buy that it's malicious, it's trademark King at this point. I don't think he could write a lipstick lesbian, either.

I think you missed the point entirely. The owner of the Falcon (not Phoenix) is clueless that his clientele is nearly all gay men precisely because most of them didn't stand out: while the book says that many of them are dressed outrageously, it also notes that that was the style of the 70s, with the point being that most patrons didn't stand out. Others have already pointed to the Charlie Howard murder. But I would like to point out that the flamboyant behavior is limited to Adrian and is actually quite intentional, both on part of King and of the character as portrayed in the book. Adrian's "extravagant" behavior wasn't portrayed at all as simply effeminate: it is shown, quite clearly and explicitly, as an conscious act of defiance. The "flamboyantness" wasn't a matter of just to illustrate that Adrian was gay, it was described as "extravagantly partisan." Hell, the entire thing with the hat with a flower on top that Adrian wore was that he wore precisely because one of the teens told him not to so he decided to keep wearing it.

So while King will have his problems and tropes, I'd say that Adrian's portrayal was if anything far ahead of its time: the "flamboyant" behavior wasn't there to portray him as a "sissy" or to put him down, but as a particularly defiant behavior in a town that was called incredibly homophobic.

Edit:

Stroth posted:

Does anyone know if the audiobook for It is any good?
Another poster and I discuss it a couple of pages back. The reading by Steven Weber is one of the best I've ever heard, while the other poster agrees that it is good but wishes he differentiated his voices more.

joepinetree fucked around with this message at 04:00 on Dec 15, 2013

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012

Helsing posted:

They can't go back to the way they were before, of course, but the ones who survive do seem to heal and grow as people. Each of them was shown as being haunted by particular aspects of their past and there's some implication that now that they've conquered the trauma of their childhood they'll be able to move on in their adult lives. They also, presumably, might now be able to have children, something they were all incapable of doing before. Its definitely bitter-sweet, but I think it speaks to the way that for many people growing up and leaving childhood behind is both a triumph and a tragedy.


Eddie's ending is incredibly sad, though. Forever forgotten by the friends he gave his life to save, and forever a missing person.

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012

SniperWoreConverse posted:

You can almost tell when he thought it up and then went back a few manuscript pages and was like "Bev couldn't stop thinking about the grackles for a second how weird and inexplicable"

IIRC previously that technique was used to bring in stuff when a Loser remembers something about IT. Not this time.

My guess is that he wanted to tie it to her father's weird relationship to her entering puberty and how as an abuser he was very territorial over her, especially since it came after her father as IT was all trying to "examine" her but that didn't work well at all, and if anything it is good that it is so loosely connected to the rest of the story, because it is indeed very out of tune with the rest of the book.

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012
Started reading some of his short stories, and I got to say that the jaunt is perhaps the most terrifying thing I've ever read. The idea of floating through space awake for billions of years is horrible.

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012

rypakal posted:

It's the worst of the Different Seasons movies, but it has its moments, and also Ian McKellen.

And David Schwimmer, so I kept waiting for him to yell "we were on a break."

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012
Reading Pet Sematary, I was struck about how well the funeral scene is written. It was written in such a way that it actually reminded me of my father's funeral, both in the way he describes the awkwardness of "receiving" people for the funeral and the way the traditional aphorisms ("he is in a better place") bugged me.

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012

Taeke posted:

I've said this before, but for me the scariest bit part about Pet Sematary was the fact that you know exactly what's going to happen. It's like a cheesy horror flick where the one kid goes down to the basement on his own while a slasher demon is out trying to get them. You know exactly what's going to happen, and why it's a bad idea. When reading Pet Sematary, though, it's constantly in the back of your mind that if you were in the same position, even if you knew beforehand your kid is probably going to come back as some undead demon if at all, you'd probably still take chance because what if he's the exception and does come back 'normally'?

I don't even have kids, but still the overwhelming grief and resultant insanity, that tiny spark of hope and the horrific events and outcomes scare the crap out of me because I feel I would probably do the exact same things.

Pascow, on the other hand, is an incompetent friendly ghost who actually made things worse.

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012
I'm finishing 11/22/1963.

I've never been one to care about love stories, and the way King writes his female characters sometimes makes me care even less (see: Frannie and Stu, Leigh and Dennis). But sometimes King hits one out of the park with regards to love stories, in a way that really draws me in. Jake and Sadie and Louis and Rachel (Pet Sematary) are examples of the latter. I guess it may be because King writes longing better than he writes love, but for whatever reason I actually did care about the love story part, certainly more than the rest of the book

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012
Ok, so just finished 11/22/1963, and overall it was an OK book, but not an unforgettable one.

The good:

- I really liked the premise, and the basic dynamic of time travel in it. The whole you always go back to the same time and reset everything solves a number of time travel tropes. Additionally, it creates the interesting dynamic of having to live in the past for a while, socializing, etc., which leads to all sorts of interesting dilemmas.
- I liked the idea of the past fighting to keep itself intact. It makes for an interesting "antagonist."
- Finally, as I mentioned above, I think this book gives King plenty of opportunities to do something that I think is one of his strong suits, which is writing about the feeling of loss and/or longing. Which for me were the more memorable parts of IT, Pet Sematary, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank redemption. Sadie herself isn't a good character - too much "damsel in distress" - but the parts about Jake struggling with keeping her away and not involving her, and then letting her in even as he knew it might mess her up, were pretty good.

The bad:
- The book sometimes feels too nostalgic for the 50s and 60s. He mentions segregation and racism, but those parts where he does feel tacked on, as if a first draft was all positive and someone went "hey, things weren't that good."
- The whole thing with time travel destroying the world through earthquakes also felt tacked on at the end. Like he wanted to make sure that going back again would really be an obviously bad idea in order to get some finality in the book. It could have been an interesting concept if presented from the start, but added at the end of the last few chapters just felt like a cheat. I think a more interesting ending would have been one where Jake kept going back, the difficulties of keeping each reality straight in his mind, people reacting differently, including Sadie, because of his age, etc. Or even just the realization that good deeds don't always lead to good endings. It would have been a better ending than "hey, it was all for nothing anyways because if you change too much the world destroys itself, so go back once again and everything will be ok. We would have told you about this sooner but couldn't because while we are this secret group of people who are able to spot time bubbles, we can't make sure that the people we hire will do their jobs." This, in particular, felt very dissatisfying.

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012

Taeke posted:

I see where you're coming from, but I read it more as a response to the increasing glorification of the 50s/60s in the US right now where he is very, very nostalgic of the past at first (with the soda for example) but the more time he spends there the more he realizes how lovely the reality of the era actually was. Keep in mind that he doesn't really experience that life and society truly until he starts to actually live there, and it's at that point where he has to come to terms with the bad aspects he was able to gloss over or ignore when he was just a visiting tourist, so to say.

It's been over a year since I read it but the racism/segregation seemed like it was the first time he was confronted with his own misconceptions, which lead to further contemplations, most notably the issues of women and their roles in society (especially with regards to his love interest) and the poor and immigrant populations (the whole spying on Oswald and the Russians.) These issues were integral parts of the plot so I think it's appropriate he spends a lot more time on those. I think that if he had spent more time on issues of race it would've felt tacked on for correctness' sake or something, precisely because it didn't affect the story in any way. Not to say it isn't an important part of history, just that because it isn't part of the plot it's understandable that it only plays a minor role.

Anyway, a friend of mine is writing a thesis on this exact same subject, so I'm very interested in hearing what you all think about.

I don't think it would have been necessary to make it play more than a minor role. But the problem is that what reference is there feels entirely parenthetical. He spends 3 or 4 years in the south in the late 50s and early 60, and the references to race or segregation are entirely disconnected from the rest of the plot. Sometimes there will be a reference to a sign, or to some background character saying something. But none of the main characters or the main locations ever discuss it in any way. Sure, for the sake of the love story gender is at the forefront (but even then it was mostly restricted to obviously hypocritical school board members and Sadie's parents). But specially in his small town life in Jodie is like race, civil rights, segregation were entirely nonissues. For the sake of comparison, he did a much better job on race in IT.

joepinetree fucked around with this message at 18:42 on Mar 2, 2014

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012
But even in an all white town, racism and segregation would still be present. I don't mean this to say that King should have written "a time to kill" or made it a central figure in his book. Its more that in almost every sense Jodie is the anti-Derry: it's a town where everybody likes each other, supports each other, has each other's back, and students are inspired by teachers and everybody is perfectly socially progressive, with the exception of the 2 school board members.

This is an issue because, first of all, it doesn't fit in with the rest of the book. Significant changes in the past in other places lead to some sort of karmic negative backlash, but in Jodie itself all the changes lead to general improvements.

Second, and perhaps more important, it doesn't really lead anywhere. This is in large part because of something else I mentioned: the earthquakes that result from time travel that felt tacked on - especially since resetting them fixes things and they don't seem to happen when Al lives in the past, but would if Jake just went back and lived in Jodie. I would have understood setting Jodie as this perfect home for Jake if the end was based on some real dilemma about whether to go back again or not given the failure of the first time. But once you introduce world-ending earthquakes as a result of traveling back again, whatever dilemma feels hollow.

Think about Pet Sematary: part of what made it so interesting, as someone mentioned above, is that you know what the bad choices are, and yet you completely understand the protagonist doing what he did. In 11/22/1963, Jodie seems set up so perfectly to create a similar type of dilemma at the end, but world-ending earthquakes make the bad choice obviously bad and the decision about whether to go back moot.

Again, it is a good book. But it is more forgettable and far less powerful than it could have been given the above.

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012

rypakal posted:

Men were doing important things. She was doing the only important thing women do.

King's writing about women in the early days was horrible beyond belief. He all but wore a fedora in those days. The fact is that he undeniably believed that women were just bitches bent on denying men their god-given right to sex. (Every single character in the Bachman books is like this, which he openly acknowledges was based on his own "sexual frustrations" in the introduction to the collection).

Yeah, I think it is important to emphasize the early days bit. Comparing Frannie to, say, the women in Full Dark No Stars is like they were written by different people.

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012
Just finished Cell, and I've found it to be quite disappointing. Not necessarily bad, but just forgettable. A particular death in the book did not have anywhere near the weight I think King was going for, and it felt more like a first draft than a finished product.

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012

The Human Cow posted:

Agreed. I just finished reading It for the first time and would love to read either Fricke's Old Derry-Town or Michaud's History of Derry.

For whatever reason, I never read much King growing up...once on vacation I found a compilation of Carrie, The Shining and Salem's Lot but didn't really love any of them, and a couple years ago I plowed through The Stand and enjoyed that a little more. I read 11/22/63 last year and absolutely loved it, and since then I've read Under the Dome (really enjoyed until the end), Everything's Eventual (loved) and now, It (also loved). Where should I go from here? I'm planning on reading The Running Man because I love the movie (I know it's not really the same), and I've looked through the last few pages of the thread and added Duma Key, The Talisman and Black House, Needful Things, Full Dark No Stars, Just After Sunset, and 20th Century Ghosts to my "to read" list - what else should be on there?

Get Different Seasons and some of his short stories, like Skeleton Crew.

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012

Ugly In The Morning posted:

Someone described it in here as "a book where every chapter is weaker than the one before it", and it's really the most spot-on thing that could be said about the book. If it ended at the football field bomb on the sleeping zombies it would have been a thousand times better.

Absolutely. The whole "hey guys, killing 3 flocks put us in a situation that is so grim that we are driving to our deaths, but what if we killed a fourth flock?" is awkward as hell. Not to mention the computer analogies.

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012
Reading nightmares and dreamscapes and it is much more uneven than the previous 2 short story antologies. I enjoyed suffer the little children, popsy and a few others, but some of them are pretty dull, and dedication is... well... strange, but not in a good way.

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012

Sylink posted:

Fran didn't bother me. But a lot of time was spent building Nadine to be this mythical demon mother, then she just says gently caress it (as if she couldn't have done this earlier when it would have had better results for everyone involved).

It just didn't seem consistent with her character. But what does it matter when the hand of deus ex machina comes down and kills some innocent bros for no reason. And it was ultimately no reason because no one survived the event to be able to tell anyone what actually happpened. I think that is the worst part. No one really knows what happened, and if they did it would have an obvious effect on the survivors going forward with their lives.

In the end, I think Stu is the only one who comes out of everything still being a true believer. Everyone else goes back to the 'old ways' which is somewhat indicated by the ending chapters.


The Stand is far from being my favorite King book, but I am always amazed at how many people completely misunderstand the ending. I've seen it again and again where people think that it was the literal hand of god, out of nowhere, that detonated the bomb. It wasn't the hand of god (Larry just thought it looked like it), and it wasn't a deus ex machina, it was the energy ball that Flagg had created earlier, himself. Because the point there is pretty clearly that the evil destroyed itself. You had highly powerful, highly equipped, highly competent people on the Vegas side and they lost. Not because the "hand of God" was necessary, but because they did themselves in. The guys who love destruction end up destroying themselves. So Trashcanman destroyed the airforce and brought the bomb in, Henreid assembles everybody for the public execution, Horgan gets Flagg worked up enough to fling the energy ball, Flagg himself kills Nadine (the "unbroken vessel") and then flings the energy ball that eventually leads to the destruction of the Vegas zone.


The book is pretty much about the all powerful, vengeful religious leader that demands submission and tribute (Flagg) versus the new testament sort of religious view, and how the former inevitably destroys itself (like King says in the Slate interview on 30 years of the Stand:"Basically what Christ preached: get along with your neighbor and give everything away and follow me.") It wasn't an accident that the most significant thing Mother Abigail did after getting people together was disappearing.

The ending is a bit rushed, which is why it is not among my favorite King books, but it is still amazing how many people misunderstand the ending thinking that it was literally the hand of god there.

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012
I generally tend to like the small town/small group King stories (It, Christine, Misery, Salems Lot, Pet Sematary, The Shining) over the "humanity is in the balance" ones (The Stand, Cell).

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012

Khizan posted:

The problem with the Stand, frankly, was that Flagg existed at all. Humanity was set up perfectly as the villain without his interference.

Flagg was necessary because the entire 2nd half of the book is pretty much old testament vs new testament. So you need the God that demands adoration and obedience at all costs for that to work. The idea, as I took it, was precisely setting up how old testament type religion ("do what you are told and worship me, regardless of whether its right or wrong") as something that inherently destroys itself, as opposed to the new testament "be nice to your neighbor and help the poor" type of thing.

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012

Doltos posted:

True but I agree with the other guy who said that Flagg wasn't needed to make the story great. The old testament vs new testament stuff would be good on its own but didn't really seem to have a place in this novel considering the first half of the Stand.

Humanity being its own villain was a good enough message. Those four dudes who kept a moving harem of rape victims, the black soldiers going crazy and executing white people, soldiers gunning down people trying to leave NYC. The characters themselves were flawed enough to drive their own narrative without the addition of Flagg.

If The Stand didn't include Mother Abagail or Randall Flagg and instead had all the survivors meet up in Boulder through, I dunno, radio transmissions telling them to go there, that would have been better. Just have the meet up, try to start the society over but have it fall apart because of their own selfish needs. End the book with Stu and Franny escaping new Boulder after it goes to poo poo and have the same exact ending where Stu says "I don't know." That would have been better, in my mind.

While that may be the case, King has been pretty explicit that the main idea behind The Stand was this sort of take on religion. So the parts that you really liked are actually sort of incidental to the story.

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012
I wasn't really impressed with the running man, but I've just finished the long walk and it was really good.

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012
Sorry, Right Number
Night Flyer
In the deathroom
Road Virus heads north
Big Driver

As far as his shorter stuff goes, those are the ones I recall writers as main characters or protagonists.

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012
If I wasn't really into the gunslinger, should I continue reading the dark tower series? There were its moments, but for the most part it didn't really move me.

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012

Talmonis posted:

Needing a good book of horror short stories, I gave Everything's Eventual a try. It's boring, mostly just rambling stories from various people about their lovely lives and little to do with anything remotely dark or frightening. It could be made worse by the Audiobook version, which is read by multiple people of varying levels of talent. Stephen King himself was by far the most tolerable.

Everything's eventual is one of his worst short story collections. Skeleton Crew and night shift are much better.

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012

Murphy Brownback posted:

While we're on the topic of short stories, I just watched 1408 again and was wondering how the story compares. Is it any clearer what actually happens in the end than it is in the movie? I like the movie but it's like Inception, every person alive has their own little pet theory of what it was ~really about~ and they are dying to tell you about it.

There is no daughter plot in the story, as such there is no suspense as to what really happens.

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012
Reading under the dome, and while I am enjoying it, what people have said about King writing teenage dialogs is true. The skateboarder alternatively sounds like Disco Stu, the turtle from nemo or Keanu Reeves on Bill and Ted's.

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012
Just finished under the dome, and to me that is the book where King really felt like an old man writing about new things he doesn't understand. Not just the way the children speak, but pretty much everything mass media or computer related. Stuff like the reason they shut down outside calls but not the internet or TV (because King only thought internet=email), or information flows, even at a small town, in the modern age. Stuff like:


- Rennie being able to control information flows in his city even though they get the internet and satellite tv.
- Julia going around having to literally "attach" her newspaper to lampposts to spread the info after her newspaper burns. Hell, having to burn the newspaper in the first place.
- The hard copy of the Vader file and the envelope, and protecting the file by putting a laptop in a safe.
- Most people inside not having information about people on the outside, enough that no one thinks about Dodie because she might be out, etc.

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012
Just finished Joyland and I really enjoyed it. The funny thing is that I enjoyed it despite not caring at all about the murder aspect of it. If the book ended 12 hours earlier and had no resolution to the murder plot I'd have been just as satisfied.

joepinetree fucked around with this message at 23:52 on Nov 10, 2014

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012

BiggerBoat posted:

Thanks. I liked it too and, again, that illustration was rather bad rear end. He seems to have the right combination of humble and hubris, meaning he knows what he knows and admit what he doesn't. He knows what he likes and what he's good at but doesn't pretend to be an expert on the rest. He readily admits his faults, his anger and his shortcomings while at the same time acknowledging his strengths and recognizing them. He knows he's good but admits Dreamcatcher and Tommyknockers were poo poo.

He really is an artist in the truest sense of the word and I thought that came through in the interview.

I want to pick up Lisey's Story again and read it. What I managed to read seemed fine I just got busy and had to return it to the library. Even though so many people in this thread hate it he said it's his favorite, which really took me aback.

I always thought King was incredibly insightful about his own career. I forgot which book, but there is one where in the foreword he talks about his discussions with his agent, who was afraid he was going to get branded as a "horror writer," that was a great look into his mind and his approach.

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012

syscall girl posted:

That must have been an early one. I read all of his "constant reader" forewords and I can't place it.

It is either in a reprint of one of the early ones or one of the ones he wrote early but was only published later. It starts pretty much with his agent or editor saying "another horror novel? this way you are going to be pigeonholed as a horror writer and there's no market for those."

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012
Finished Revival, and I liked it. It was an interesting choice, focusing on what really is a secondary character in the main story. I don't remember if revival is one of the books that King has said will have a follow up, but I really wish it did. The idea of living knowing that the afterlife is hell no matter what you do is an interesting one to explore.

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012

Super Ninja Fish posted:

4 movies just to end with that absolute poo poo Hand of God ending. I'd rather they did IT like this.

I bet King wishes he could rewrite that part, given how many people think he was referring to the literal hand of god, instead of a guy thinking that the bolt of energy created by flagg looked like one.

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012

Rusty posted:

I think the book can legitimately be interpreted that way, I think when I first read it I did. But when I read it again, I felt like he was pretty deliberate in the religious themes. I thought the part that kind of solidified it for me was the multiple people seeing the hand of god setting off the nuke, and dream Nick telling Tom to make it back so he could tell them all. I could be wrong, it just seems a bit heavy handed in parts to dismiss entirely.

The hand of god is explicitly described as Flagg's bold of energy coming back down, and not an actual hand of god.

The religious theme is deliberate but not in the sense that a literal god comes down and destroys Vegas. The idea, as stated by King in multiple interviews, is inspired by old testament vs. new testament. Vegas has the "adore me at all costs even if what I say seems horrible to you" leader. Boulder has the "be nice to you neighbor while I disappear for a while leader." And the point is that Vegas destroys itself. Flagg creates a bolt of energy to silence one of this followers who spoke up against the executions, and the bolt of energy ricochets and hits the nuke. One of the Boulder folks thinks it looks like the hand of god, but that is it. And it is something that was built up for a very long time. Which is why I think if King could take back the reference, he would. Because the point was set up far ahead of time: we are constantly shown that Vegas has far more power and competent people than Boulder, but that they keep getting in their own way: Flagg kills Nadine, Trashcan man destroys their airforce, etc. So Flagg accidentally destroying Vegas just as they are about to reach their most powerful because he can't handle a guy questioning in public is very appropriate. But the hand of god visual has led a number of people to think it is literally a hand of god coming out of nowhere to end the story (which not only is pretty explicitly not what is said in the book, but wouldn't fit thematically in a book where the most important thing the "good" religious leader does is disappear and die).

joepinetree fucked around with this message at 08:45 on Nov 23, 2014

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012

Rusty posted:

I pretty much agree with this, and I certainly never thought that the Hand of God caused the explosion directly, and there is no doubt that Vegas, and Flagg were already faltering. I just think that the idea that everything was just a coincidence and happened on it's own, like Flagg losing his powers and influence, Stu breaking his leg, Tom getting away, the one spy getting shot in the head, etc. were predetermined. They were in Vegas for the explosion, and Tom and Stu were there to be witnesses.It also just wasn't one person that saw the hand of god, it was also Tom, and dream Nick. The hand of God was't the explosion, but the Flagg energy turned in to something to cause the nuke to explode.

I could certainly be wrong, I have never read any King interviews on it or done any looking,

I guess to put it a different way, I think the Flagg energy turned in to a hand, was kind of like God coming out of the shadows and saying "yeah, this has been my show all along" and then blowing the city up with e nuke old testament style.

That doesn't fit either King's work in general, nor does it fit the narrative. It was predetermined to the extent that mother Abigail was a sort of psychic and knew it would happen, not in the sense that literal god had to wait for a nuke to be there to be able to destroy them. If I had to guess why King used the "hand of God" imagery, it was more in reference to Flagg (the energy ball was his, after all) in a reference to self destruction, than to a monotheistic god looking for a way to get rid of Vegas. Not to mention that both references to "hand of God" are from the perspective of how characters saw it, not how King described it.

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012

Rusty posted:

I think it fits with both. King has a lot of coincidences in his books, but I think they just appear as coincidences and to King they are actually pre-determined events. He says this type of things in a lot of his books (most recently Revival) so I think it does fit his work. It also fits the Stand because there is so much foreshadowing throughout the book. Finally, I'll point out that "the hand" while being Flagg's energy (as I pointed out already) transforms in the eyes of both the characters, Larry and Ralph, in to something that looks like a hand for some reason. King kind of uses Larry to describe what was once a ball of electricity that transforms in to a hand of God. Then, dream Nick tells Ralph he has to tell the people of Boulder that he witnessed "the hand of God in the desert". So it's literally 4 characters that saw it that way.

It can be interpreted both ways, but I there is strong evidence that Stu and Tom were meant to witness so they could tell Boulder. That's why he got hurt. The main reason I responded though was the idea that just one character saw it and it could have made a mistake and just been written out. It gets referenced by 4 characters and the "hand of God" itself gets referenced throughout the book. For example, chapter 52:

"Acts was the last book in the bible where doctrine was backed up by miracles, and what were miracles but the divine hand of God at work on the earth".

On the way back to Boulder:

"Wasn't that what Tom said about Vegas? The hand of God came down out of the sky."

"If he dies, you and Kojac have to go. You have to get back to Boulder and tell them you saw the hand of God in the desert"

There are a few more. I like the idea that it was all just a big coincidence, and Flagg was just incompetent (he was and was losing people already), but I think the God stuff got so heavy handed by the end, that it is hard for me to subscribe it all to random events. And of course all the supernatural stuff and mother Abigail and so on. That's all I have to say about it. I will read it again some day and maybe not have that theme so stuck in my head the next time, like the first time I read it.

It doesn't really fit both. I mean, people can interpret things multiple ways, and there is no one way to interpret anything, but if we are to look at the text to see which things have better support, it is clear which one has better support. And no, it is not that it was all a coincidence and Flagg was just incompetent. That is completely missing the point of what I've said: the point is Flagg (and the old testament style god) will inevitably fail. It isn't that maybe if flagg was more competent things would have worked out. The entire point is that Flagg will inevitably fail, because the sort of people he attracts is people like trashcan man and Henreid, and not because god will come out of nowhere to save people.

And the support of this is the following:

- In a book with no set narrator, the hand of god comment is exclusively described from the character's point of view. At no point it is described as the actual hand of god, just as "so and so said it was the hand of god," or "so and so thought it looked like the hand of god."

- The book goes out of its way to make it so that any supernatural vision the Boulder folks have is either of Flagg or of Mother Abigail. There is no voice of god, message of god, anything like that. Only mother abigail and Flagg. There is no god telling them to follow mother abigail, or any other similar intervention. Only her communicating with them directly.

- Flagg is the only one showing with actual supernatural power beyond a psychic ability. And we know Flagg from other books. Mother Abigail's power is limited to psychic abilities (seeing the future, communicating via dreams), no other special powers.

- The most notable thing Mother Abigail does while in Boulder is disappear without leaving any instructions whatsoever. Nothing. No clues, no "do this."

So King clearly wanted to convey that people in Boulder believed Mother Abigail spoke to God, and that they believed God saved them from Vegas. But clearly also goes way out of his way to make sure that, beyond Abigail's psychic abilities, absolutely nothing that happens in Boulder is caused by any sort of divine intervention or special powers. And even when discussing the dreams and visions, King goes to great lengths to make sure that it is conveyed that they are dreaming/talking to Abigail, not God. The only one shown using special powers (besides psychic ability) is Flagg. Likewise, every Boulder "success" is showing as the result of hard, frequently dirty work as a community. Again, it is not an accident that Flagg is shown as a dictator that uses his actual powers, and Abigail is a "disappear and do nothing" leader, and the point is precisely that Flagg was bound to fail (and not that he only failed because god decided to step in).

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joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012

Kemper Boyd posted:

I'd want to note that The Stand is Flagg's first appearance. I would prefer to not interpret the character in The Stand through what Steve-O later came up with.

Still, even Flagg makes no mention of god and clearly sees his opponent as mother Abigail, not god.

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