SLOW READ: The Stand (The Circle Closes)

Welcome to SLOW READ, where we tackle the books you’ve always wanted to read at a pace you can handle. Hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland and Laura Tremaine We are currently reading The Stand by Stephen King (unabridged version) You can find our full Reading Schedule here Join the SLOW READ community on Substack for bonus episodes, book club meetings, and Side Quests with Sarah & Laura We have come to the end of our journey with The Stand by Stephen King. In this episode, we dissect what it all meant and what we’ll remember about this experience. Make sure to subscribe on Substack for our next SLOW READ! Mentioned: Wolf Hall War and Peace Don Quixote Brothers Karamazov Blazing Eye Sees All Sister Helen Prejean / Dead Man Walking The Circle That Doesn’t Close Laura: We are here today at the end of The Stand by Stephen King to close the circle. Sarah: But I think it’s a lie. Why did he say the circle closes? That’s not what happens at the end of this book. Laura: That’s true. That’s totally true. But it starts with “the circle opens.” That’s the opening. So he has to close it. Sarah: Or is it just that the circle continues? That would have been a more accurate title for this epilogue. Just saying. Laura: I do have to say that I purposely, when I made our reading schedule for The Stand — we knew we wanted to do it for six months, like January to June, which we did — I planned it to close our circle here the same week the book opens, which is the second week of June. Just because I liked that symmetry. Sarah: I love it. I love a symmetry. Laura: We have a few little pages to get through, but before we do that — we will be continuing the slow read. We have picked our next book. Sarah: I picked it and I forced it on Laura. That’s the truth. Laura: We’re going to tell you all about that next week, where you’ll hear the reveal. If you cannot wait another second to find out the book, our paid members learned last week during our book club meeting. So you can go watch the replay of that if you just can’t stand it another second. But today we’re going to tackle “dusk of a summer evening” and the circle closing — which is a lie, because it doesn’t actually close. Sarah: It doesn’t actually close, but there are things to say about how King ended this whole thing. Because if you do any sort of Reddit search, any sort of Googling about The Stand, what people want to talk about is the end. Laura: Pretty much. Whether it was a true stand, or a letdown for some people, or if it’s what people expected. There’s a lot of that. The Split Epilogue: An Epilogue for the Good Guys Sarah: We get this kind of split epilogue, right? So we get “dusk of a summer evening.” The people we get to see from the Free Zone contingent — the good side — are Stu and Franny and Peter. Laura: I’m sorry, three people. Babies are people too. On their journey back to Maine, they stop at Mother Abigail’s house. Sarah: I don’t know if that path makes sense, for the record. Geographically I’m always like, where are you guys going? What are we doing? But whatever, it’s fine. Laura: Maybe there’s something about the way you’d have to travel by foot. I’ve always thought this is weird. I’m going through all this area of the country, including Nebraska, this summer on my RV road trip with my family. So maybe I can report back to us. But they do stop at Mother Abigail’s house. They’re on the porch, the baby’s playing, and they’re talking about what happened in the Free Zone and what they think is going to happen next. It’s a little epilogue for the good guys, really. Did it feel true to you? Sarah: Yeah. I think it’s true that the Free Zone would not stay together as this tight, cohesive unit. As people came together — I love this line — “all these people make me nervous as a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.” That’s something my grandpa would say. My grandpa always said, I want to live in the middle of 400 acres with a fence around it that says no trespassing. So to a certain contingent, living with other people is never going to be on the menu. From their perspective, the circle has closed, the threat is gone, so the need to stay close together for safety isn’t as intense. It makes sense that people would start to dissipate. Laura: I do think it’s an interesting choice that he follows the people leaving instead of staying in the Free Zone to say what happens next. Although you’re getting reporting from them on what the next phase looked like before they left. So he’s trying to get the best of both worlds. Sarah: I think he’s also addressing a natural question. If this really happened — but for the dreams about Mother Abigail drawing everyone to Boulder, or the contingent that went to Vegas — after a catastrophic pandemic like this, these little communities would be sprouting up all over. They wouldn’t all gather into one place. That’s the storytelling aspect, that it’s not very normal. So he’s addressing: okay, but in reality, people would dissipate. There’d be a lot of people like Franny who are homesick for their region, for their part of the country, who want to go back. Sarah: At their last Free Zone meeting they’re ready to have a sheriff, ready to get guns — and the progression of “when we don’t have one enemy, we have many enemies” seems pretty psychologically right to me. Do People Ever Learn Anything? Laura: He’s making the point over and over again in this ending — even in the darker parts — that the more things change, the more they stay the same. People are gonna people. Do you think people ever learn anything? That’s the question he’s posing. Sarah: I do. And look, there’s a way to look back over this book, and over the whole of human history, and say people are gonna people — they can be cruel, they can be violent. But the side of the coin I’m on is: yes, and the human species has made enormous, dramatic progress over the past 500 years. From the dark, peasant-and-serf-driven structure of society where how you’re born is how you die, the end — to an enormous ability to chart your own path and create peace and prosperity for the majority of people. The statistics on the children pulled out of poverty just in the last 30, 50 years are incredible. So I get what he’s saying, but I disagree to a certain extent that this is just an endless cycle, because we’ve made enormous progress. There’s no point in human history — unless you’re a crazy person who has this vision of the ‘50s that’s not accurate — where you’d want to go back in time. I don’t want to go back. First of all, I have a Type 1 diabetic child. The technology sucked just 10 years ago. I’m always going forward in time. Laura: There’s no doubt there’s an evolution, which means we are learning as a species. We’re learning and adapting and changing. I kind of think a better question — instead of “do you think we ever learn anything” — a bigger question that feels more complicated to me is: do we think people are inherently good? Are People Inherently Good? Sarah: Well, we know what Stephen King thinks. Laura: Do we? Sarah: Well, actually, I don’t, because I think I probably sit with him. I don’t think you can categorize all people. I think there’s a small percentage that are cruel and evil and violent and dark — and some, yes, it’s a product of their circumstances and trauma, and some I think maybe there’s something else going on, and it’s just kind of baked. He dances around this nicely with the dark man. I don’t think there’s a “dark man baby,” you know what I mean? That’s the philosophical debate — would you go back and kill Hitler as a baby? Do people spring forth fully formed? I’m not naive. I understand there are cruel, violent, terrible people out there. And on the other end of the spectrum, there are people who are just naturally nice and good — and a lot of them teach preschool, you know what I mean? They’re organized a little differently. And then there’s this messy middle, where you’re deciding day to day, moment to moment, in these sliding-door moments. You… This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit slowread.substack.com/subscribe