Besides, a preoccupation with size and weight, particularly an American preoccupation One simply cannot ignore the bulk of this volume. It might seem unfair or irrelevant to dwell on size when assessing a novel, yet in this case it is impossible to do otherwise. Missing 150,000 words reinstated, plus a preface by the author and 12 black-and-white illustrations by Bernie Wrightson. King's publishers thought the book would be better and certainly more salable if it were cut - in fact, cut by 500 pages, nearly half of its original length. In 1978, Stephen King, the author of ''Carrie'' and ''The Shining,'' published ''The Stand'' and almost immediately added thousands of new readers to his already hugeįollowing. Unabridged and 1,153 pages long, may prove the exception. There are, of course, other longer books, but not many are novels and few of those have been able to sustain a hold on the popular imagination. What is longer than ''Moby-Dick,'' ''War and Peace'' or ''Ulysses''? If you guessed the Bible or the Manhattan telephone book, you would not be wrong (though there are small-print Bibles thatĪre under a thousand pages). Section 7, Column 1 Book Review Deskīy ROBERT KIELY Robert Kiely is a professor of English at Harvard University. May 13, 1990, Sunday, Late Edition - Final The New York Times: Book Review Search Article
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