King's Role in SoS

[Unfound One]

Aww helllll naw.
Don't even go there.

[Unfound One]

PS - Ves' ka is talked about in DTVII a lot too.

[obscurejude]

PS - Ves' ka is talked about in DTVII a lot too.

Not if you rip out certain passages with a box cutter.

[Unfound One]

Oh Jesus.

[Wuducynn]

As Marcion did with the Old Testament during the pre-Nicene period, I have opted to take Song of Susannah out of my personal Dark Tower cannon. I will no longer refer to it, because it doesn't exist.

This is a very interesting strategy for dealing with something that you don't understand and/or dislike. The "ostrich-head-in-the-sand" strategy..in honor of our dear Obscurejude I present you all this picture of Obscurejude just after he read the "no-longer existant" Song of Susannah -

[Jean]

much as I respect obscure... I can't help feeling Mattqhew has really, truly hit the nail on the head here...

[obscurejude]

Seriously Jean? I thought you of all people would understand the Marcion reference as being completely ridiculous and over the top hyperbole. Athanasius is one of my heroes and I regard his Easter letter of 347 as the first mention of the present-day New Testament cannon, although my present day agnosticism challenges cannonicity generally at times. Point being, it was a joke.

I'm pretty turned off that neither of you could tell it was a joke. I'm not going to say anything else, because it pisses me off.

[Brice]

I'm pretty sure they knew it was a joke and were joking back with you Ryan.

[Jean]

well, yes - I'm sorry if it was clumsy Ryan! it's not always easy to play on subtleties, especially not in a foreign language and where you can't really be seen

[Matt]

Its a text thing too.

On topic:

Sometimes I think King truly believes he met Roland and Jake that day. Not a bad thing because I know he believes in infinite possibilities.

[Letti]

On topic:

Sometimes I think King truly believes he met Roland and Jake that day. Not a bad thing because I know he believes in infinite possibilities.

Oh yes, I think so.

[Jean]

why not?

[cozener]

Hey why can't obscure just act like SoS didn't happen? I wish I could compartmentalize my memories like that. It would save me a lot of unpleasantness...like the last 8 years

agnosticism challenges cannonicity

I'll bet you can't say that 5 times fast.

I still don't like his presence in the book for the aforementioned reasons, but now I have a new one: why does Gan need a ves ka gan? CK, Monte, and I are wrestling with this and it seems to me that King's presence is what brings this tension within the text to the surface. Sometimes I can't help but think his role in SOS is self aggrandizing.

I still love Steven King and the Dark Tower series, or I wouldn't be here. Please don't hate me. I feel this way, in part, because I'm just frustrated.

You're not alone in this. I didn't like it either. Not because it broke any "rules of fantasy" or whatever. There are no rules in fiction...certainly not in fantasy. I just felt that it was distracting from the story. I also felt that it was fed more corn than an Iowa hog too. But it wasn't self aggrandizing, it was arrogant. Like I've said before, Roland is King's fantasy self and he wrote himself into the story because, deep down, he wanted to share that fact with the Constant Reader. He knew it was risky. He knew not everyone would like it. But he also knew that he could get away with it and that folks would, in the end, still buy his books. But I can forgive him his arrogance. He's entitled to at least a little. Even with, what I consider, this huge mistake, the ending of this story was just about the best ending to any series of books I've read, bar none. It made up for everything I didn't like about any of it.

[obscurejude]

agnosticism challenges connonicity
agngokthcism challencges conagg... you're right Cozener.

[Brice]

[Wuducynn]

But it wasn't self aggrandizing, it was arrogant. Like I've said before, Roland is King's fantasy self and he wrote himself into the story because, deep down, he wanted to share that fact with the Constant Reader. He knew it was risky. He knew not everyone would like it. But he also knew that he could get away with it and that folks would, in the end, still buy his books. But I can forgive him his arrogance. He's entitled to at least a little. Even with, what I consider, this huge mistake, the ending of this story was just about the best ending to any series of books I've read, bar none. It made up for everything I didn't like about any of it.

I don't see his portrayl as arrogant in the slightest. In fact he portrays himself in some pretty negative ways. Originally Eddie and Roland think he is their creator but it turns out that he is not Gan but Gan's Prophet or Singer. And doesn't like being it much at all, to boot. I really can't see any arrogance in there.

[cozener]

I wasn't referring to the character of Stephen King in the DT. I was referring to the author himself. When I said he was being arrogant I meant that he was very confident in that the folks that followed DT would follow it to the end even if he indulged himself in something that he knew might not come off so well. He figured that because we think he's so great (or at least because we've come this far) he could get away with showing us that Roland had always been Stephen King seen through the filter of his fantasies even at what many might see as the expense of the story.

In a way, I appreciate that he did share this with us but I would have preferred he just state as much in the afterward of DT7.

[Wuducynn]

It just sounds to me like you didn't like how the story went, with him including himself and so view it as arrogance on the part of King. I don't see any evidence that King was being arrogant in any way. He has always written what comes to him and not been overly concerned about what his fans think.
I don't see his inclusion as a character as an indulgence, but something he's been wanting to do for awhile but it finally came to him how to do it.

[Letti]

I don't think King put himself into the story consciously. He wrote down that he felt he had to write down. Like usual. His character in the books can't be arrogant because he described himself as a very weak, lost person. And if accept and believe him when he says he doesn't write consciously how can he be arrogant at all?

[MonteGss]

I agree with CK and Letti. King doesn't give seem to give a shit what his readers want. He writes what he wants and doesn't seem to "plan" much of it out. I saw no arrogance on writing himself in the story. After all, his presence in the story was building up from Book 2 and to me, it was natural.

[cozener]

It just sounds to me like you didn't like how the story went, with him including himself and so view it as arrogance on the part of King. I don't see any evidence that King was being arrogant in any way. He has always written what comes to him and not been overly concerned about what his fans think.
I don't see his inclusion as a character as an indulgence, but something he's been wanting to do for awhile but it finally came to him how to do it.

Then perhaps you, as someone that liked what he did, would rather I used the word "bold"?

[Wuducynn]

Bold is good. Better than being a wimp.

[cozener]

The reason I ask is that as soon as I realized what King was about to do I said to myself, "Wow...now thats a bold move. Hope he doesn't fuck it up..."

[John_and_Yoko]

Today I was thinking generally about King's role in Song of Susannah.

Did you like his appearance in the novel?

Do you think King created Roland by writing about him or did Roland already exist and King just wrote about him?

I enjoyed it--lately I've come to love learning about "the story behind the story," and I don't mind fictionalizations of those at all. Something about those makes them more "real," in a way, to me....

As for your last question, I think the "or" is deceptive. Why does it have to be one or the other?

[Wuducynn]

I'm so with ya on that JY. King having himself as character brought a whole nother level of intensity and reality to the Dark Tower Saga for me. I was NOT expecting it when I read SOS for the first time, I managed to stay good and clear of all spoilers on .Net.
So it REALLY blew me away. Especially the part involving his trance when he was telling about Los' sending the spiders after him to turn him into a vampire that would tell Los's story instead.
I remember having to put the book down and just step away and take a breather at that point, it was just that overwhelming.