M*O*O*N that spells the end of the world

[NightWatcher]

Are there any other fans of Stephen King's "The Stand" in here?

The miniseries is on the scifi channel right now. I love the miniseries but I wish that Trash Can Man would have been more like the book ( the unabridged version)

I only hope that when the superflu hits that I die quickly before the good v. bad shit goes down.

[TroubleMan]

1. The book was great; the mini-series was pretty good, too.

I'm not usually a Stephen King fan, but that was a good one.

[salin]

2. Loved the book. Remember the movie was good, but I don't

recall the difference between the two portrayels of trash can man. Please remind me of the differences?

[NightWatcher]

4. in the book, trash can was a little more graphic

in the movie he's portrayed as a simpleton- arsonist. In the book it gives his background and such. The book was so huge that even a miniseries could not hold all of the charaters' bios.

[salin]

5. Now that you say it...

I recall that as well. - More the movie (simpleton) description than the book (I think I have seen parts of the movie in more recent years than I have read the book.)

[RandomKoolzip]

3. I loved the book when I was real young.

I read it in a five-day stretch during a family vacation to Canada in 1985, and was obsessed with it for the next few years - I was ten at the time. I tried re-reading it several years ago and was laughing at parts I knew King hadn't intended to be funny.

With hindsight, The Stand is an imaginative piece of fiction, but it's also damnably melodramatic, cliched, and Stephen King really doesn't have the feel for colloquialism that he thinks he has; nor do I think his female characters are as richly drawn as his male ones, and his male ones are often just rough-speaking sketches. King may be THEE novelist for the times, but this speaks ill of the times, IMO, and not very glowingly of King.

Plus, the mini-series sucked. Parker Lewis as Harold Lauder?! What kind of spaz cast this goddamned thing?!

[terrya]

7. So did I.

I read "The Stand" in high school...I loved it.

But you're right....it's just so...melodramatic. Yeah Steve, we get it...it's an allegory of good vs evil. Thanks.

And I did NOT see the mini series. When I found out that they cast Molly Ringwald as Frannie Goldsmith, that's all I needed to know. All I needed to know to avoid this thing like the plague.

[SeattleGirl]

6. The Stand is my favorite Stephen King book.

M*O*O*N That spells favorite.

[devilgrrl]

8. The original 1978 release of the book was great...

the "uncut/unedited" version sucked ass.

Who's with me on this?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=208&topic_id=4535

[davsand]

9. The Stand was probably my favorite of King's books.

When I was re-reading the Stand the last time, I was reading that section early on in the book where King is talking about the spread of that Super Flu. I had to make a quick trip to the grocery store and ran out to grab a couple of things. I am standing in the express checkout line and the woman in front of me turns around and SNEEZES all over me.

I just about ran out of the store screaming.

The Stand was a good story and it created a response in me when I read it.

'Nuff said.


Laura

---

SNARK warning:


I get kind of tired of everyone bashing on King when they are trying to be all literary. I'm not sure I have EVER seen him interviewed where he's pretending to be writing literature for the ages. To be fair, I worked in a College Bookstore for too many years so I have a very real distaste for much of what passes for lit crit.

[Chan790]

13. Lit. Crit of S. King.

Kind of a topic of some ire for me...in both directions.

Yes, it's trendy to bash something popular as bad and pedestrian. OTOH, he's a occasional adjunct college writing instructor (at U of Maine) with a family full of writers (his wife and two sons are acclaimed authors in their own right)...all of whom say they learned how to write better fiction from him...and two books on writing (Danse Macabre and On Writing) which are considered to exceptional educational works of the field. Clearly, the man knows how to write serious literature...and chooses not to. (I'd argue it is possible to write good horror fiction which is also serious literature.) That tells me that he doesn't care about the criticism that he's not a serious writer...and that he doesn't really care to be thought of a literary writer. The first one is laudable...the second is not forgivable for a writer of his talent.

Re-reading the first two books of The Dark Tower...I find myself wondering if he meant it to be his "magnum opus" literary work for the ages before just deciding after Wizard and Glass* "aw fuck it" and writing the last three books hurriedly to get it out of the way (They are a convoluted mess)...or if he found he couldn't bring the epic work to an end cleanly. (This is harder than most non-writers think. A lot of great writers couldn't do it.) It started off with the potential to be a great epic novel on humanity and redemption. (In the end, it fizzled.) Sometimes a writer's feelings about a piece change over time. (Perhaps with all the attention to finish it, it ceased to be fun.) I hope that, now that the pressure is off to finish it, that he might take the time to rewrite and re-release it as a more perfect work.

*- In my opinion the best book he ever wrote...it makes you understand the indifference-towards-life and self-hatred of Roland of Gilead perfectly by revealing a tragedy for all time...one terrible sentence after another; showing how much the tower quest has truly shaped him, how many terrible things he did for it, and how much he let the tower steal from him.

[thefool_wa]

10. I read the original release first - the unabridged version came out 2 years later

and I never read it. I LOVED the original print version and have a copy to this day. Its one of my 5 fave King books.

I thought the mini-series was good - excellently cast for sure and very well adapted.

[Kerrytravelers]

11. That's when I fell in love with Gary Sinise.

Then I fell out of love when I learned he has a framed photo of ronnie ray0gun in his dressing room. That is very sad news indeed. Lt. Dan is a rethug. :cry:

[bicentennial_baby]

12. I gotta read that again...

Maybe when I have some time this summer...I love that book. Like the miniseries too :)