The Library Vault

The Stand by Stephen King
Spooky season is creeping around the corner, to set the mood Mac Demarco rings in my ear and Stephen King has just left my book shelf. Well, actually this specific book lived in my car. It had it’s purpose. If I were ever to be stranded, this book would be my entertainment. The book is The Stand by Stephen King. I picked up this monstrosity once before, but it curtailed my mood. The pandemic was still hitting too close to home. I was unable to embrace this journey of a Super Flu, also known as Captain Trips. I think enough time has passed that covid is a distant memory, but still looms among us like a dark cloud of Randall Flagg. 

I am an avid Stephen King reader. I have read almost all of his work. One would say that I am a fan. People have started grouping King with commercial writers like James Patterson and Nora Roberts. I don’t. Yes, he comes out with books like money printing off the press, but he is different. This could be the fan side of me talking. I know some of his books are flops or just completely strange. There is a reason everyone knows his name. Stephen King is a remarkable storyteller. The dialog of his characters are honest and true. It is how people actually talk to each other. The world building he composes it is literally out of this world. Can he always end a novel successfully? No. Does he drag on passages like an Ayn Rand monologue? Well, yes, he does. However, don’t all these knowingly attributes make him Stephen King? I think so. Let’s circle back to The Stand, all 1,153 pages of this momentous novel.

There are two versions of The Stand. The first was published in 1978; however, they cut out 400 hundred pages of the original manuscript because it would be too expensive to print. Fast forward to 1990, and the complete and uncut version of the novel was published. Those 400 pages have now entered back into the novel, with addition of art work sporadically throughout. The uncut version is the one I read. I originally had the seventies version, but a little bird told me that the complete version was the only way to go. That is the way it went. And this is how the story goes…

A deadly weapon has entered the atmosphere after a patient from a government facility escapes. The weapon is a deadly flu. It will wipe out 99% of the population. The focus stays within America among a handful of well developed characters, who are immune to the deadly virus. The characters are experiencing these vivid dreams of a peaceful warrior, Mother Abigail, and a darkness known as Randall Flagg. The characters congregate either in Boulder, Colorado or the nefarious Las Vegas. The immune people begin to build communities around the symbolic characters, this will determine the fate of humanity. It is understandable how a novel of this caliber would hit a little to close to home after the pandemic. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, in all of its entirety. Did Stephen King have unnecessarily long passages? Yes; however, his ending was complete. It did leave the reader on a cliff hanger, but a sensible one.

If I had to pair a wine with King, and specifically The Stand, it would be quite difficult. I may say this about many of the novels and authors I read. It could be due to the fact that not all of them should be paired with wine. Sometimes it’s a solid whiskey or even a generic beer. I think I will have to detour from wine and focus on something else. That something else is a solid beer: a classic, and notably of New England. 

The Stand could be paired with one thing only, and that is Narragansett Lager. I thought about pairing King’s doomsday novel with an IPA or something from a local brewery; however, it didn’t hit home. Narragansett is classic New England, and also mentioned in the novel. Now another beer was also mentioned and I had to ponder before my decision. It was Coors Light, the famous Rocky Mountain Water.

Coors Light has a reputation. The character who drinks a copious amount of Coors meets an untimely doom. Between that, the location, the reference, and the famous ‘Water’ that it’s made from, did not make the cut. Therefore, Narragansett wins the pairing. I will be frank, it has been a beer season for me. Wine has not been filling my glass, but a frozen mug and a nice cold beer has been winning the taste. I bet I could have paired a wine with The Stand, but it could have gone to the readers head, since it is almost as long as a Tolstoy novel. Narragansett is a light lager that is easy to drink. It is refreshing till the very end, just like King’s novel. As a reader, you feel refreshed. It could be due to the fact that you finished an extensive piece of writing, or something else. That is for you to determine. Now it’s time to crack open a cold one, open The Stand and breathe some fresh air because that cool autumn air is just around the corner.