I occasionally have cause to wish that I didn't feel compelled to finish most every story that I start, regardless of its quality. Either the story is good, so I finish it for plain enjoyment, or it's bad, so I finish it so I can feel smug and superior (I suppose). Only in a handful of cases do I chuck the book across the room, or peel my lazy ass off the couch, or whatever--those times when I can't even get that sort of negative pleasure from absorbing the fruit of someone's creative labor.
Unfortunately, my threshold is such that I've been subjected to S. King's The Stand three times now, enjoying none of them. Back when I was a middle-schooler or whatever, I was rather devoted to the guy. I would have said that his appeal stemmed from the sympathy he could elicit for the characters, or something like that. I knew that lots of his fans were big into The Stand, which was a big, fat book. (I don't know how I knew that, or anything, in the days before the Internet.) Eventually I got around to it and, well, it fizzled around a third of the way through. I don't really remember that well what I didn't like about it, I just remember not really seeing what the fuss was about. It was no The Shining or Skeleton Crew, say.
Not much later, a friend liberated a copy of the new, extended version of the book. He'd sped read it without much interest, but knew I liked the guy, so he passed it on to me. Perhaps the added 700 or however many pages would add whatever the story needed? I read it again and still: meh.
So who knows why I started the 90's mini-series the other night, when I saw it available on Netflix streaming. I probably guessed it would be so bad I'd switch it off within 5 minutes. Maybe my schadenfreude tank was getting low. Well, I didn't remember enough of the original story to compare them, but it certainly was shorter this way. That's probably the best thing I can say about it.
At least I can now remember better what was so unsatisfying about the story. I would probably describe myself as agnostic in the days I first read it. I had a pretty deep opposition to religion, but big mystical matters in general were a bit more of an open question. And maybe some of the incessant, insipid chatter about GOD'S WILL wasn't quite as noticeable if spread over 1200 pages. But the tedious manichaean sorting of all people into two camps, and the complete absence of consideration of those parts of the planet outside the US, would have been equally pervasive.
That story has claimed enough of my time, I suppose. I just find it a little bit funny that I gave it another 6 hours of my life these past few days.
A friend of mine told me an anecdote he'd read somewhere about something that happened during the production of Kubrick's The Shining adaptation. (I remember I didn't much care for that movie, seeing it fresh off of reading the book. But now I love Kubrick to death and have written King off, so I suspect I would like it more now.) Creative differences between K&K had led to a fairly strained production, I guess.
CUT TO: INT, NIGHT. A phone is RINGING. An ALARM CLOCK-RADIO reads 3:17. A tousle-haired STEPHEN KING picks up the phone and switches on the LIGHT.
KING. Hello?
INTERCUT WITH: INT, NIGHT. VERY CLOSE on a mouth surrounded by dark stubble. A glass filled with ice and an amber liquid is raised to the mouth, which drinks. PULL BACK to reveal STANLEY KUBRICK.
KUBRICK. This is Kubrick.
KING. What the... it's three o'clock in the morning!
KUBRICK. Listen. Do you believe in God?
KING. What? Is this some kind of joke?
KUBRICK. Well?
KING. I don't know, who can say...?
KUBRICK. Just yes or no. Do you believe in God?
KING. Er, I don't know... er... I guess so*.
KUBRICK. Oh.
KUBRICK hangs up.
ROLL CREDITS.
* "Ayuh"
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