What was taken out?

[Kings_Acolyte]

I have read the complete and unabridged version of The Stand and it just left me wondering, what had originally been taken out?
I've tried looking it up myself but All I can find is that the part where we discover Randal Flagg is alive in some African continent and meets a tribe of primitives, was taken out. but that can't be it surely.
A novel that large surely wouldn't just take out he last two pages.

Does anyone know what else was taken out?

[mstay]

The whole part about Trashcan Man and The Kid was missing from the original. I don't remember for sure what else.

[JohnDalglish]

Hi,

Some of Frannie's interaction with her mother, and everything connected with The Kid, as far as I remember.

Long days and pleaasant nights

[BlackThorn]

John is right. We didn't even meet Frannie's mother in the original abridged version, for one. In the updated and expanded version, we see how she really didn't click with her mother, and we get to see a lovely argument they get into in her mothers sacred parlor. In the abridged version, we only hear word that she was rushed to Goodall Hospital, but died there.

The whole experience with The Kid was left out, which really was an absolute shame. He was edgy and freaky and more dangerous than Jonas, as far as I was concerned, and he really added to our overall vision of dominance Flagg had over his entire domain.

There was that part at the end where Flagg was reincarnated again, and we got to see how he starts over, that time at least...

There was the part where the tornado hit while Nick Andross and Tom Cullen had to hide in a storm cellar, with the corpses, as well as some shadowy beast in the blackness they could only ever put their mental fingers on.

Also, King had a whole lot there about how the United States government dealt with the flu. At one point towards the end of civilization and credit card companies as we know it, the president comes on the television, and denies the flu, as he is obviously sick, and then quickly after denying it, says the flu shots will be out by the weekend. Nobody really caught the message, because most of the power and cable companies were out of service by then.

Flagg also described how he knew where there were seven more vials, that he could go grab and just painfully snuff out life in Boulder. But that might have existed in the original version as well.

"They're an endangered speecies!" - The Kid (aka [by Larry] The Wolfman)

[K4driver]

something with Larry I think

[jchanic]

The best idea would be to find a copy of the original 1978 edition (of course, it doesn't have to be hardbound) and read it. You will definitely notice the differences. The Uncut version is SUCH a much deeper read, especially regarding the character development.

John

[BlackThorn]

I started with the cut version, and reread it at one point. I had a really nice hardcover of it someone had abandoned. It was abandoned in an old factory workers house, that it's occupants had sworn was haunted more than once. Attic lights turning on when people were on vacation behind locked doors. Waking up with shadowy perceptible figures hovering over you... that sort of thing. Stones throw from the old mill buildings. Hehe.

But oh my goodness! I think there was more at the beginning. I think there was more about Champion. I think he tested the wind at the start of the uncut. I think we got to see him tell his wife, if they were downwind of the virus lab vents, they had enough seconds to grab the diaper bag.

Oohhhhhhhh, and there was that part where Harold and Frannie and Glen and that crew come across 'The Zoo'. Where there were bad bad army deserters, (or maybe their posts just disintegrated as everyone around them died, I don't recall hearing) who carried their drugged out women around with them, but keeping their numbers under 13, and killing everyone including their weakest link in the sex slave chain, to replace with new ones.

Honestly, King isn't dark. He just says, "Look at that. That's what we do. Let's see what happens when they do it..."

[BlackThorn]

something with Larry I think

Ahh, yes. The spatula scar incident. I think this is where we originally learn that there's something in Larry that's like biting on tinfoil.

Oh, and one of the main characters only has one eye too. Yeah, just leave it to God, to go ahead and push it...

[Checkman]

The "No Great Loss" chapter when you find out that some of the survivors are not cut out for an extended stay in that Brave New World. One of the most powerful chapters if you ask me.

The very detailed chapter accounting the time period from June 25th - June 27th. That chapter has the horrific Dialing for Dollars sequence that takes place in the Bangor Maine television studio.

Just alot more character exposition. Frannie's dad confronting her mother, more time with Larry and his mom etc.