Stephen King's 'The Stand': original (1978) vs. "Expanded edition" (1990)

[devilgrrl]

Howdy folks,

This has been driving me nuts since I re-read Stephen King's 'The Stand' a few years ago. The first time I read the book was in the summer of 1980 at the age of 16 and I remember absolutely LOVING IT!!!! "Wow! What a great book!" I thought.

Years go by, then that made for TV movie came out, which I thought kinda sucked ass but it made me want to read the book again. Three or four years ago I finally did after buying a new copy of the "Expanded Edition: For the First Time Complete and Uncut" version. "This should be interesting," I thought. "I can't wait to dive into it."

As I read the "newer" one, I noticed that King updated cultural references, added some characters and situations that were interesting but at the same time, annoying. To be perfectly honest, I was thoroughly disappointed in it, I liked the original heavily edited version MUCH BETTER.

Did anyone else experience the same disappointment as I or is it just me?

[alittlelark]

1. I didn't know about that, but I loved the book

I read it at the same time you did.

PS- if you have a pre 1978 dictionary and a post 1982 dictionary lay them out and look up Fascism..... you will be amazed how the def's changed once the co's were bought my corporations.

[Ladyhawk]

2. The Stand = King's Best

I re-read it once every couple of years. I think I've only read the updated version, but I'm not sure because the first time I read it was right after college at a friend's house. The novel was just lying there and I read the whole thing. :) Once you pick it up, you can't put it down.

[MuseRider]

3. Read them both

several times and I don't remember being disappointed at all. Hmmmm, I don't remember the differences either. Must be time to read them again as soon as I finish the last of the Dark Tower series. I have been putting off finishing that book since it is the last of a series I have really enjoyed. Too sad to give Roland up.

[devilgrrl]

5. Well, I'm going to find a copy of the original release...

and see what I think. It just didn't do it for me the second time around.... weird. :crazy:

[Chipper Chat]

4. The Stand - great book - really made me think, but....

I've noticed that Hollywood (or TV) takes liberties with King's original storylines (like at the end of the movie Cujo the boy lives instead of dying). I wonder how King feels about this.

[givemebackmycountry]

6. Well grrl, I don't know

But, for some reason, this book disturbed me like no other.
I read it in my 20's and it freaked me out.

Being from New York, the thought of everyone in the city dead, journeying through the tunnel with all that horror, scared the shit out of me.

I always hoped they would make a major Hollywood movie out of this book, but all we got was some made for TV bullshit.

Maybe some day.........

I never read the "expanded" version.

The original was enough for me.

[Downtown Hound]

7. I'm one of the few King fans that does not think The Stand

is one of his best books. Actually King himself agrees with me. He has stated that he considers The Stand to be only one of his decent books. I've also read both versions, the older one when I was 15 and the new one when I was 24. I really didn't feel much of a difference between the two, so perhaps you just outgrew the story. That's happened to me with a few of King's books, I thought they were great when I was younger but now they seem kinda cheesy.

My big problem with The Stand is the ending. So, God destroys the world so it can break into two factions, one of good and one of evil. Then he has four chosen ones travel across America just so they can be sacrifices to the hand of God setting of an atomic bomb? Sorry, but that just seems rather stupid to me. I loved the first half of the book, didn't like the second. It is possible that you've just gotten older and the story doesn't have the same power over you it once did.

[NationalEnquirer]

10. I think King had his religious brain fart on that one.

I agree, it seemed like he was trying too darn hard to incorporate god into one of his stories.

[AngryOldDem]

15. What's do you consider as King's "best"?

For me, it's the short story, "The Body." (In Different Seasons.)

[Downtown Hound]

19. Honestly, I've always thought Salem's Lot was his best.

I've read that book three times and each time I love it even more. I also really loved the first four Dark Tower books. The Shining and It both get honorary mentions.

[Iris]

25. Wasn't "The Long Walk" also in Different Seasons?

[RebelOne]

8. I read both versions

and I preferred the expanded edition.

[HuckleB]

9. The Original...

It had enough filler itself. The expanded version was simply unnecessary.

[devilgrrl]

12. Thank you!

Also, weren't some of the characters way more annoying in the expanded version? Especially Fran, she was such a whiney pain in the ass! :grr:

[ernstbass]

11. I loved both versions of the book

but didn't like the movie. I think it is King's best work by far.

[harper]

13. Loved both versions

IMO its the best King book. The movie sucked big time but the mini series wasn't bad.

[AngryOldDem]

14. I totally agree

There is a reason why authors have editors. If anyone needs any explanation, all they need to do is read the first edition of The Stand, followed by the "new and improved" version.

I had to read The Stand as part of a college lit class back in the early 1980s, along with The Shining and Rosemary's Baby. I literally could not put The Stand down. I was reading it everywhere. The storyline was taut, the characters believable, the flow keep the plot going. Compare that to the "new and revised" version, which was plodding from the get-go. Major disappointment.

[devilgrrl]

16. Here's a great review from amazon.com...

The "Uncut" version is not the Original Everyone Loved, October 3, 2004

Reviewer: Robert E Whelan "REW" (NY, NY United States)

I did a side by side comparison of both books, and it seems that King did a lot of revising and rewriting. Strangely, he makes subtle changes in almost every chapter that make the villains more repulsive and stupid, and the good guys more wise-ass. A lot of scenes, where originally the reader felt for the characters, even if they were "bad", are changed so that the reader is encouraged to sneer at them. One of the most significant examples of this is the story of Nick and the "Good Ole Boys". In the original, the story ends with Nick letting the last of his former tormentors out of jail, a note of forgiveness and shared humanity in the face of the descending plague. The "Uncut" adds a horrid horror-movie coda of another guy coming to gouge Nick's eyes out, and Nick ends up kicking his dead body after their struggle, which gives a much nastier feel to it. All the "Good Ole Boys" have had their dialogue changed to make them sound stupider, or their descriptions are changed to make them seem comical, so that you are laughing at them instead of feeling for them as human beings. Another chapter, involving Lloyd in jail, where in the original one felt for Lloyd, makes his horrible ordeal seem like a big joke on him, and one moment of Lloyd's misery and sadness is sabotaged by King adding a line about Lloyd masturbating, with the snarky line "it was as good a way to get to sleep as any."

King in this "Uncut" version, has, I'm convinced, actively added, not restored, material in which stupid people die, a formerly tragic General wanders around playing with corpses, black and white soldiers humorously gun eachother down on TV, a scene where Flagg tortures a gay man, and a scene where a girl, who in the original buried her father with affection and love, becomes a whiny brat who needs to be shocked into realizing her father is dead by the belching/farting of his corpse. King apparently transplanted the Belching Corpse scene from his novel Pet Sematary, which had a "belching corpse" scene deleted prior to publication, so the ruining of this scene in the Uncut seems to have been motivated purely by the desire to have that deleted scene seen somewhere, even as it ruins a poetic portrait of Frannie's state of mind.

Everywhere in the "Uncut" goofiness proliferates, puncturing the original's focus on the deadliness of the plague, and ignoring the original's poetry and sense of beauty. King overfocuses on sneezing and snot, probably because, when revising, he thought it was funny to do so.

I give the original version of THE STAND maybe 3 1/2 to 4 stars, but this version is so horrible, with King's weird attitude towards the characters and the story itself, that I ought to give it zero stars. If you are thinking of buying this "Uncut" version, please don't. Please try to find a used copy of the original. It's shorter (only 800 as opposed to 1200 pages) and it's a much better read. You'll feel filthy after reading the "Uncut", and most people who recommend this book are recommending the original version. If you want to read this after reading the Original version, there are only a few scenes that seem to match the Original's tone.. One phone conversation between Fran and Jess and a spookey and magical scene with Flagg in a car lot, picking up his car (though it follows the horribly rewritten and goofy scene where Flagg humorously tortures a gay man.)

King says he had trouble with the original's ending, and it is a bit disappointing. Unfortunately, it looks like he took the opportunity to revise this and decided to pretend that he never meant any of it seriously, and graffitied all over what was good about it. You must realize that the man who revised to create this "Complete and Uncut" version was older, more bitter, more angry, and suffering from the afteraffects of years of drug and alcohol abuse. He wasn't in any condition to appreciate the writing of a younger, more ambitious, more poetic man.

[AngryOldDem]

17. Amazon is right on

Two things the original Stand had going for it were the characters and the theme of a modern-day morality tale/allegory. Good vs. evil, with good in the world winning in the end. The longer version was like a 1,000-page comic book full of pointless violence. The characters, exquisitely drawn in the original, became grossly unsympathetic to me. I took personal affront to that, because I thought the character development in The Stand was one of the best examples of the art that I have seen in this genre. (Two scenes still stick out: Franny burying her father and Tom being sent out on the journey to Las Vegas.)The power of the Apocalypse story retold was so utterly and completely lost in the new version.

Halfway through, it got downright boring, because it was so grossly overwritten.

I will never understand why King wanted to do this (other than for the obvious reasons).

[NashVegas]

18. I Much Preferred It Without All the Revisions

The "uncut" version of The Stand is a good argument / example of why even the best writers need a good editor to keep them from getting too self-indulgent.

Other than that, and I've had this conversation on DU before, the cultural revisions that The Stand goes through every five years or so annoy the crap out of me. They're done for the soul purpose of milking a cash cow.

[last_texas_dem]

20. Interesting discussion

A while back I picked up an old copy (early eighties or so edition) of the original version of The Stand and was planning on reading it, until my friend, who has the expanded/uncut version, recommended I borrow his when I'm ready to read it. I may have to rethink this now. I think people are naturally inclined to want to read the "unabridged" version of something so they feel like they're not missing out on anything, but if it's actually the weaker version I think I'd rather just stick to the original...

[last_texas_dem]

22. I finished reading the original

and enjoyed it for the most part. The concept is fascinating and disturbing and a lot of the characters as I got to know them in my mind, will never leave me. I read the original (800 or so pp.) edition. It did get a bit slow about 3/4 of the way through and the ending was bit disappointing, but this has been the case with a couple of other King books I've read (The Tommyknockers comes to mind). The first 200-300 pp. were fantastic, though, and overall I thoroughly enjoyed the book and am now curious to read the parts in the expanded edition, just to see if I really missed out on anything or not.

[Onceuponalife]

21. top 5 King books

imo

1. The Stand (original version)
2. The Shining
3. 'Salem's Lot
4. The Dead Zone
5. It

[gauguin57]

23. I just finished listening to "On Writing" by King ... on tape

... and sort of following along in the book (I like falling asleep listening to tapes, and King's voice is second only to Garrison Keillor's in lulling me to sleep (that's a good thing ... not that they're boring ... it's just nice to fall asleep to something erudite wandering in and out of one's brain).

ANYWAY -- I really enjoyed it ... part of it is an autobiography, part of it is advice to writers. I love the way he read the book. The description of his accident (where the guy in the van hit him on the road) and his recovery is very interesting.

And his wife comes across as a hero so many times during the book ... he sounds like he's still crazy about her, and depends on her as the first reader for all his manuscripts. She did an intervention for him when he was on booze and drugs, and helped him recover and start writing again after his accident. He speaks of her with such respect and affection.

[ET Awful]

24. I have a copy of the new version at home, and it's been 15 years or

more since I read the original.

Let's put it this way, you gave me enough motivation to track down a used copy of the original on E-Bay and order it (only $11.70 after shipping).

I'll report back after I re-read the original :).

[jayctravis]

26. King is one of those people who needs an editor...

or some type of restraint to limit his prose, which gets out of hand otherwise. My favorite books of his are those where he writes himself into a limited or difficult situation:

The Shining - essentially a three character book, the bulk of the narrative has them cut of from all other civilization.
Gerald's Game - the entire book is about a woman handcuffed to a headboard.
Cujo - main action takes place with two characters trapped in a car.
Dolores Claiborne - Told completely in first person monologue, like a transcript of a recording.
The Talisman - cowritten with Peter Straub
Carrie - epistolary novel told through letters and excerpts of newspaper articles.

Many of his short stories are also amazing.

The books of his I've hated the most are the 900 page "garage sale" monstrosities he got in the habit of publishing at the zenith of his popularity, such as "It" and "The Tommyknockers". Those almost seemed like he was clearing his brain of a bunch of disconnected ideas and narratives.