Taking a Stand

At long last I steeled myself to tackle the 1,400 page doorstop that is Stephen King's The Stand.  Almost all books this length are too long, and this was no exception, but that aside, The Stand is a powerful and impressive novel.  It wears its desire to be the American The Lord of the Rings on its sleeve (Tolkien is referenced explicitly several times, and the final quest across the mountains to destroy a dark lord with his all-seeing eye will be familiar to most); but all 20th century fantasy writers owe a debt to Tolkien, and The Stand succeeds on its own terms.

Indeed, so adeptly does it build its apocalyptic narrative on the late Cold War American zeitgeist, that a case could be made that it is The Great American Novel, defined by Wikipedia as "presumed to be written by an American author who is knowledgeable about the state, culture, and perspective of the common American citizen".  Actual real live Americans may send me screaming for the hills for a) forming a judgement on this most American of questions and b) suggesting that fantasy/horror novel should be admitted to the company of The Catcher in the Rye & co.  I merely offer it as a suggestion...

King's virtues as a writer are unarguable: he sharply and economically delineates character; he understands pace and structure (to pull off a 1,400 page novel, you have to); and he can terrible significance in the most everyday details.  His core gifts of character and plotting are seen as almost too humdrum to be worth celebrating, except perhaps by anyone who has settled to the business of writing their own novel.

The Stand is not without its imperfections, but whole is immersive and accomplished.  I highly recommend it - but make sure you have a lot of spare time once you pick it up...

Long Live the King

In thirty-plus years as a reader of books for adults, including a strong interest in science-fiction and fantasy, by some quirk I've managed never to read a novel by Stephen King.  I'm not sure quite why that is.  I don't particularly care for horror, and I've always seen King as at the horror end of the spectrum.

The magic of the Kindle is that I can download sample chapters of books I'm not really sure about, and wouldn't spend actual cash on.  (There used to be an artefact known as a "library" which performed a similar function, but these seem to have fallen into disuse).  Thus buttressed, I downloaded the openings of The Stand, seemingly King's most popular novel, and The Green Mile, which I knew from the excellent Tom Hanks film.

It is a possible to have a long career as a bestseller without being much cop as a writer, but there's no doubt King can write.  I devoured the opening of The Stand--a killer plague is on the loose: disaster beckons--in about an hour.  This was cracking stuff!  King does all the basics with unobtrusive excellence: inject pace, differentiate interesting characters, nail place and period.  The Stand is unputdownable, so imagine my dismay when I logged on to Amazon only to find the Kindle edition has been withdrawn!  I really don't want another 1,400 page paperback in my house, but the opening is so compelling there's no other option.  £4.99: click here for One-Click Ordering.  Job done.

To keep me going until the postman arrives, I downloaded the whole of The Green Mile, which is similarly impressive.  I know the story from the film--which appears to follow the source closely--but it's still compelling.  King has an uncanny command of voice, and critics who dismiss his work as populist pap have probably never realised how difficult it is to write something engaging and accessible.

I've got a holiday coming up and a long book in the post. What could be better?