Thoughts having just completed this beast...again

[Takoren]

1. Having it hit you two days later that

Spoiler

Larry, Glen and Ralph really are dead. Deaths like Nick and Mother Abigail you had time while reading to absorb and deal with. But I still get sad realizing that Larry, Glen and Ralph are really gone.

2. This one really does suffer ending fatigue.

Spoiler

Stu and Tom's

journey back could have been covered in about 30 fewer pages than were devoted to it.

3. That said, I realized today that I'm having a hard time moving on. I'm trying to read The Long Walk now but still living in The Stand's world.

4. Sai King, There Are Other Worlds than These.

Spoiler

Bring. Back. Nick. In another world. And Larry, Glen and Ralph.

5. Damn but this book is long! I honestly don't know if I've read a longer book than this. I don't feel like I read a book, I feel like I read a series. I'd think of something that happened and realize that it felt like it happened in a previous volume. Nope; one book.

6. Somehow, I remembered characters like the Rat Man and Barry Dorgan being pretty major from the first couple of times I read it. This time it struck me that they aren't even mentioned until well into the last fourth of the book.

 

[Bernice Goldblum]

I just re-read the unabridged version-and this time I didn't care for the "upgrade" on the timeline to 1990. The characters thoughts and points of reference didn't feel in sync with someone that would have been born in the 70's. Never noticed the first time I read it.

 

[GNTLGNT]

1. Having it hit you two days later that

Spoiler

Larry, Glen and Ralph really are dead. Deaths like Nick and Mother Abigail you had time while reading to absorb and deal with. But I still get sad realizing that Larry, Glen and Ralph are really gone.

2. This one really does suffer ending fatigue.

Spoiler

Stu and Tom's

journey back could have been covered in about 30 fewer pages than were devoted to it.

3. That said, I realized today that I'm having a hard time moving on. I'm trying to read The Long Walk now but still living in The Stand's world.

4. Sai King, There Are Other Worlds than These.

Spoiler

Bring. Back. Nick. In another world. And Larry, Glen and Ralph.

5. Damn but this book is long! I honestly don't know if I've read a longer book than this. I don't feel like I read a book, I feel like I read a series. I'd think of something that happened and realize that it felt like it happened in a previous volume. Nope; one book.

6. Somehow, I remembered characters like the Rat Man and Barry Dorgan being pretty major from the first couple of times I read it. This time it struck me that they aren't even mentioned until well into the last fourth of the book.

...we all have people, places and things we wish he would revisit-but alas, he is a finite man in an infinite cosmos of creation....

 

[César Hernández-Meraz]

4. Sai King, There Are Other Worlds than These.

Spoiler

Bring. Back. Nick. In another world. And Larry, Glen and Ralph.

I immediately liked this suggestion when I read it.

But then

Spoiler: Talk about a character we all know is dead

I realized that, if the Nick from another world does not meet Rudy, then he would be more "Randall Flagg" material than he would be Mother Abagail's. He would be bitter, ignorant (even if he would still be smart) and full of hate.

So, I think it would still be interesting, but it might present us with a character who is in a very different place than the one we know and love.

Or perhaps he might have found some other way to become the saint he is in "The Stand".

Fate vs. environment, which one would win?

 

[doowopgirl]

I immediately liked this suggestion when I read it.

But then

Spoiler: Talk about a character we all know is dead

I realized that, if the Nick from another world does not meet Rudy, then he would be more "Randall Flagg" material than he would be Mother Abagail's. He would be bitter, ignorant (even if he would still be smart) and full of hate.

So, I think it would still be interesting, but it might present us with a character who is in a very different place than the one we know and love.

Or perhaps he might have found some other way to become the saint he is in "The Stand".

Fate vs. environment, which one would win?

I'm not really sure about environment being the most important in a life. We all have a path and that path has turns that affect our journey. But I also think we have a fate that we are destined to. So I think Nick would have come to the same 'saint' one way or another.

 

[Bernice Goldblum]

I immediately liked this suggestion when I read it.

But then

Spoiler: Talk about a character we all know is dead

I realized that, if the Nick from another world does not meet Rudy, then he would be more "Randall Flagg" material than he would be Mother Abagail's. He would be bitter, ignorant (even if he would still be smart) and full of hate.

So, I think it would still be interesting, but it might present us with a character who is in a very different place than the one we know and love.

Or perhaps he might have found some other way to become the saint he is in "The Stand".

Fate vs. environment, which one would win?

I think not so much fate vs environment as fate vs choice. Stuart wasn't impressing anyone in his home town...wasn't until the need was there for him to step up and he didn't have to even then but he did. I think this book's sub theme is that everyone has a choice. Harold did, he could have been somebody in Boulder. Nadine wanted to be stopped but chose a route that wouldn't stop her because it would have been the harder choice at the moment. Mother Abigail, Larry, Glen, Ralph-They all had a choice and they made the hard ones. Not a lot of character study for the characters in Las Vegas but they probably had a story to tell about choice.

 

[Arbitrary Refrain]

Regarding point 2 - this is not an issue for me in any way. I remember that the very first time I read it I was willing the book to go on longer while willing the characters not to die. I think there was (on first reading at least) sufficient tension in whether they would make it or not for me to keep turning those pages, but from the first read I also love the way that their relationship is built up - it felt to me like it could be a standalone novella and (with a bit of tweaking) work just as well. That section was its own little story of survival, of handling grief, of holding on to the smallest hope, and it was full of emotional points that echoed earlier parts of the novel. The vision of Nick helping Tom decide on medicine for Stu, the companionship between Stu and Tom, Christmas day in the hotel - just so powerful and fully realized.