The Stand: Expanded Edition: For the First Time Complete and Uncut (Signet) | Stephen King

The Stand: Expanded Edition: For the First Time Complete and Uncut (Signet) | Stephen King | Just my opinion

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The Stand: Expande...

	The Stand: Expanded Edition: For the First Time Complete and Uncut (Signet) Stephen King Signet, 1991 - 1141 pages average customer review:based on 933 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

This one still haunts me........thanks a lot, Mr. King

I admit it. I am one of those people (just like in the not-so-recent poll everyone keeps referring to on here) who believe that this is Stephen King's greatest literary work. A bit long......yes. A book oozing just about every emotion that one could experience in the face of death and the end of the world.......check. Vivid characters that seem so real you still think of them more than your mother..........affirmative. This book has it all (maybe that explains why it's 1100+ pages) and the fact that King wrote this earlier in his career is quite impressive. His portrayal of the ultimate struggle between Good and Evil will have a place in my heart (not to mention my bookshelf) until the end of times (hopefully, not tomorrow).

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Just my opinion

Everyone else has provided such a wonderfully detailed synopsis of what happens in The Stand. There's no way I can improve on what has already been said.

I just want to add my voice (and that of my daughter, as well) to those who believe this is King's best novel ever. I originally read the abridged edition, and was somewhat intimated by the length of the unabridged version. Once I started, I couldn't put it down. King has such a wonderful way of describing events and places and people that stimulate your own imagination ... you can actually *see* everything he describes.

My daughter is currently reading it again for the 2nd time; I have to admit I've read it at least 3 times. Yes, you know what's going to happen. But there is always something new every time you read it that you didn't quite catch the first time.

I realize not everyone liked it. That's fine. People are entitled to their opinions. I'm not trying to coerce anybody ... I just want to add my voice to those who enjoyed The Stand. Stephen King will always be "king" to me!!

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An incredible post-apocalyptic journey

It's easy to be drawn deeply into this book, to feel so connected to the characters that to finish it is a kind of death. I still feel slightly depressed and it's been about a week since I finished it. King is constantly underrated and glossed over by elitist critics (such as Master Snob Harold Bloom, who never published any fiction worth reading), but this novel is truly a masterpiece and deserves respect. You know the plot - a superflu kills 99% of the population. The survivors migrate west to Colorado and Vegas, attempting to rebuild society, trying to figure out the meaning of their collective dreams. What is the "good" dream really about? Who is the "dark man"?

King created several strong characters. Among my favorites are Glen, Tom, and Kojak; I still grieve for Nadine, Harold, and Trashcan Man, all clever and pathetic in their own ways - and I believe many readers can sympathize with them. Trashcan Man began to thrive in Vegas, only to regress to his former ways and thought patterns because of a random comment made by a person from his new life. You can feel on top of the world, feel as if you're "fixed"...until you hear those words again, which trigger painful memories ("unquiet corpses come back to life"), and you might lose all progress made up to that point. You realize how fragile you are, and this can be terrifying.

Nadine and Harold are both disturbed souls, though Harold is driven more by revenge and Nadine is driven by evil. Nadine is tormented by and attracted to the dark man, but she is also drawn to Larry, who is desperate to make the right choices this time around to atone for his pre-plague life of darkness. The lines "Only this time the boy would catch her. She would let him catch her. It would be the end. But when he had caught her, HE HADN'T WANTED HER" are ones I can imagine Nadine replaying in her head as she travels over the mountains. She mourns for lost chances, acceptance, and goodness as she yields to her fate.

Along with the powerful theme of good vs. evil, a number of characters sacrificed themselves (for good and evil), seeked redemption, and many "innocents" were rewarded (such as Tom and Kojak). And remember that the devil is not all-knowing, but he does not want anyone to know this.

This novel really makes you think about the end of the world, and whether you would stand for good or evil. King, the dark genius, describes the growth of evil:

"Far away over the mountains was another cloned creature. A cutting from the dark malignancy, a single wild cell taken from the dying corpus of the old body politic, a lone representative of the carcinoma that had been eating the old society alive. One single cell, but it had already begun to reproduce itself and spawn other wild cells. For society it would be the old struggle, the effort of healthy tissue to reject the malignant incursion. But for each individual cell there was the old, old question, the one that went back to the Garden - did you eat the apple or leave it alone?"

The plague gave humanity another chance. They could build a superior society, choosing not to repeat mistakes from the past, or they could throw away this great opportunity to start over by giving in to the old ways. This chance is so rare that to waste it would be the worst mistake. And yet, inevitably, humans cannot be "good." The dark is too tempting, too consuming, and will always exist.

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One of the Authors Best

A very enjoyable read. If you like stories that cover a lot of ground geographically and present memorable images you should read this. King was peaking when he wrote this.

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, page 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15

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