Original or Revised, if you HAD to choose

[Matt of Gilead]

I vote revised, but I've never read the original. From what I've heard, it sounds like the changes were an improvement.

[EdwardDean1999]

I've probably sullied the vote by voting without ever reading the original. I base my vote on SK's argument/forward for revising The Gunslinger. He describes it as comparatively pompous in contrast to later works and of later DT chapters. I have to agree. Even the revised edition halts and stalls in its narrative flow. You can almost imagine young SK writing this stuff and stopping every paragraph to comb through his words with a thesaurus. (Really? was it the "Apotheosis of all deserts"?)

The narrative gets much better and you can tell when SK is not agonizing over which adverb to throw in. Those better passages seem more like an exercise in free-writing. Dialogue is smoother. We don't choke on detail. We allow the narrative to wash over us because dumbasses like me don't have to look up "apotheosis" in the dictionary. We can just enjoy the novel.

I say revised. But without ever reading the original. I don't even think I want to read the original.

[MonteGss]

Though I agree with your vote for revised....you DEFINITELY should read the original version.

[jayson]

I agree with Monte, about the advice to read the original. I prefer the original, but either way, I think if you can get a copy of the original it's worth a read. You may still prefer the revised, plenty of people do.

[Letti]

I don't think it has the same effect if you read the original first and then the revised or the opposite.. if you read the revised first and then the original. I don't think that the original can win you if you started with the revised one. I might be wrong.

[MonteGss]

Letti, I'd be willing to bet that those people who started the series reading the revised and then at a later date picked up the original version ALL voted that the Revised is their preference. Shit...we've all heard from people that didn't even know there was an "original" until they came to this site.

[Letti]

Letti, I'd be willing to bet that those people who started the series reading the revised and then at a later date picked up the original version ALL voted that the Revised is their preference. Shit...we've all heard from people that didn't even know there was an "original" until they came to this site.

Yeah, they cannot get that feeling we did. When you didn't know anything about anything. I mean the original one has much more mysteries and secrets somehow. It's like being a fog.. That's why I love it so much.

[MonteGss]

Letti, I'd be willing to bet that those people who started the series reading the revised and then at a later date picked up the original version ALL voted that the Revised is their preference. Shit...we've all heard from people that didn't even know there was an "original" until they came to this site.

Yeah, they cannot get that feeling we did. When you didn't know anything about anything. I mean the original one has much more mysteries and secrets somehow. It's like being a fog.. That's why I love it so much.

I agree....though I truly do like the revised better.

[stone, rose, unfound door]

I didn't vote because they don't compare. They're not the same book and they don't tell the same story so I actually take the original version as the starting point of a first

DT7

loop

and the revised one as the starting point of another

DT7

loop

.

[EdwardDean1999]

Though I agree with your vote for revised....you DEFINITELY should read the original version.

I wish they would republish it. I don't enjoy reading used books as much as new.

[AnOutsider]

Old thread I know, but here goes:

King has talked of revising all the books but I'm not sure I want that to happen...

I don't want this to happen either. I'm curious what he thinks he needs to edit/rewrite. As mentioned by others, I do understand the edits to The Gunslinger though.

i think part of it is little things like the western sea being on the wrong side when they're walking up the beach in drawing of the three.

nothing *huge*, but stuff like that.

Man, that bugged me SO much that my search for a map of the world of The Dark Tower is what brought me to this forum in the first place. It annoyed the heck out of me and no matter how much I told myself that it must be intentional since the world is in drift, it still irked me.

I didn't vote because they don't compare. They're not the same book and they don't tell the same story so I actually take the original version as the starting point of a first

DT7

loop

and the revised one as the starting point of another

DT7

loop

.

That's a really good way to think about it. I'd love to have SK

DT7

rewrite the series in a newer loop. maybe even have someone go into the tower with him at the end.

[pathoftheturtle]

i think part of it is little things like the western sea being on the wrong side when they're walking up the beach in drawing of the three.

Man, that bugged me SO much that my search for a map of the world of The Dark Tower is what brought me to this forum in the first place. It annoyed the heck out of me and no matter how much I told myself that it must be intentional since the world is in drift, it still irked me.

That's nothing. How about this:

DT3

Lud

DT7

is New York

How can a train run southeast from there

DT4

to Kansas

?

Best just to forget about maps for that world, but still, very glad that you have made your way to our site.

[Brainslinger]

Okay, minor The Waste Lands spoilers:

How about this:

DT3

Lud

DT7

is New York

How can a train run southeast from there

DT4

to Kansas

?

Best just to forget about maps for that world, but still, very glad that you have made your way to our site.

I didn't see that as a problem at all as I don't think

Spoiler:

the two cities were ever meant to be the same to that extent. I think Ludd is certainly a twin of New York (of sorts) but they're geographically in different places, else New York being on the Atlantic. (I suppose the Mid-World equivalent of that would be the Clean Sea, but I'm not certain.) Even if they were in geographically equivalent places, portals such as doors and thinnies don't necesarily deposit one in the equivalent place in that world to which you left.

Back to The Gunslinger:

The whole east/west left right thing is weird though, something too drastic to just be put down to directions in drift I think. I agree it's a shame King didn't alter that part when he revised the book.

[MonteGss]

I didn't vote because they don't compare. They're not the same book and they don't tell the same story...

Well, you actually didn't answer the question.
The thread is....
If you HAD to choose. There are many reasons to like one over the other or to ignore one or treat them as two different stories but that really isn't what the thread is asking.

[Woofer]

I have not read all the comics, so can someone answer this for me?

How do we know that Roland's ancestors didn't sail west across the Western sea to the land where we find Roland, thus making it the Western sea?

[pixiedark76]

I own both the original and revised. I voted for the revised. I think that the original makes no sense at all! I am totally lost when I read the original version. Especially when you read the rest of Dark Tower volumes. For instance:

Spoiler:

the number 19 is not mentioned in the original (19 is the secret word that Randall Flagg tells Allie in regards to asking Nort about the secrets of death)In the revised version it is mentioned and this is why the revised version flows better with the rest of the DT volumes.

[Letti]

I own both the original and revised. I voted for the revised. I think that the original makes no sense at all! I am totally lost when I read the original version. Especially when you read the rest of Dark Tower volumes. For instance:

Spoiler:

the number 19 is not mentioned in the original (19 is the secret word that Randall Flagg tells Allie in regards to asking Nort about the secrets of death)In the revised version it is mentioned and this is why the revised version flows better with the rest of the DT volumes.

When I was 12 or so I read the original in Hungarian and it blew my mind. It left tons of open questions but I didn't mind. Many years later I read the revised in English and I felt it.. so.. unnatural. All those extras.. a very bad example came to my mind but it's like when you have a beautiful daughter with blond hair and blue eyes but you tie damn big pink shiny ribbons into her hair to show how cute she is... all those extras feel like... sweaty, too much.
Just my two cents but I have written it down because it's the opposite of yours.

[Woofer]

I own both the original and revised. I voted for the revised. I think that the original makes no sense at all! I am totally lost when I read the original version. Especially when you read the rest of Dark Tower volumes. For instance:

Spoiler:

the number 19 is not mentioned in the original (19 is the secret word that Randall Flagg tells Allie in regards to asking Nort about the secrets of death)In the revised version it is mentioned and this is why the revised version flows better with the rest of the DT volumes.

When I was 12 or so I read the original in Hungarian and it blew my mind. It left tons of open questions but I didn't mind. Many years later I read the revised in English and I felt it.. so.. unnatural. All those extras.. a very bad example came to my mind but it's like when you have a beautiful daughter with blond hair and blue eyes but you tie damn big pink shiny ribbons into her hair to show how cute she is... all those extras feel like... sweaty, too much.
Just my two cents but I have written it down because it's the opposite of yours.

Agreed. I think the lack of all those "extras" adds to the mystique that draws us into the series.

[pathoftheturtle]

I'm just glad that I DON'T have to choose. I can see the pros and cons of each, and very much like having both.

[CyberGhostface]

I own both the original and revised. I voted for the revised. I think that the original makes no sense at all! I am totally lost when I read the original version. Especially when you read the rest of Dark Tower volumes. For instance:

Spoiler:

the number 19 is not mentioned in the original (19 is the secret word that Randall Flagg tells Allie in regards to asking Nort about the secrets of death)In the revised version it is mentioned and this is why the revised version flows better with the rest of the DT volumes.

I have to disagree with you on that because

Spoiler:

the number 19 makes no sense at all in the Gunslinger when taken in greater context with the rest of the series.

In DT1, 19 was the word that unlocked death's secrets, and the Land of 19 was (I think) where Nort went when he died.

In DT5, the number 19 just pops up randomly and the ka-tet treat it as an oddity with no explanation as to what it means when it first appears. And yet, Roland never goes "Hey, wait a second! I remember seeing this number before! It was back in Tull, when..." In fact, the connection between the Land of 19 in DT1 and the whole "19 99" bit in the last three novels is not elaborated on at all. It would make much more sense if Roland had never encountered it all until DT5.

It's just like how Roland knowing about the Crimson King--in the Revised, he's told that the King's the father of Sylvia's child and the thing that Roland must defeat at the end of his journey. Yet in DT4..."Who's the Crimson King?" "I don't know."

The Revised causes more problems, many of them unnecessary, with the continuity of the series than the Original did.

[pathoftheturtle]

Right. I think that what you're saying there, Cgf, suggests a better answer to the following than the one quoted from sj below:

King has talked of revising all the books...

I'm curious what he thinks he needs to edit/rewrite.

i think part of it is little things like the western sea being on the wrong side when they're walking up the beach in drawing of the three.

nothing *huge*, but stuff like that.

[CyberGhostface]

I really don't think King should revise the rest of the series. It would be George Lucas and his "special editions" all over again.

I think the concept of revising DT1 to make it more accessible and linear with the rest of the series was a good idea (as it is harder to read than the rest of the series). I just think King just went the wrong way by making new changes to the continuity that end up contradicting 2-4 moreso than the original did. With the exception of the town being called "Farson" (which could have easily been fixed by saying that Farson's ancestors built it or something), a lot of the 'errors' were pretty small. I never once noticed that Roland's guns weren't the right weight, for example, when reading the book. And when Roland mentioned the rarity of paper in DT2, I had all but forgotten about him flipping through a magazine in Tull.

And 90% of the changes he made could have easily been introduced in books 5-7. For example, what point was there in changing the Beast to the Crimson King? Couldn't a later novel just make reference to the the Crimson King as the Beast? It's a pretty vague moniker that could easily have been applied to him. The guy has so many aliases as it is--Kingfish, Abballah, Los--that one more couldn't hurt.

[ola]

Agreed. I think the lack of all those "extras" adds to the mystique that draws us into the series.

I have to agree with this. I like having mystery. I was a little weirded out when listening to the revised version for the first time - I didn't know it was revised, and I thought I'd forgotten all that stuff somehow.

[Brice]

I have not read all the comics, so can someone answer this for me?

How do we know that Roland's ancestors didn't sail west across the Western sea to the land where we find Roland, thus making it the Western sea?

Yes, if the sea was named the Western Sea that doesn't have to mean it was west of Gilead.

[candy]

Letti, I'd be willing to bet that those people who started the series reading the revised and then at a later date picked up the original version ALL voted that the Revised is their preference. Shit...we've all heard from people that didn't even know there was an "original" until they came to this site.

Yeah, they cannot get that feeling we did. When you didn't know anything about anything. I mean the original one has much more mysteries and secrets somehow. It's like being a fog.. That's why I love it so much.

i totally agree with this, when I first picked up the Gunslinger, i loved it because of the difference in writing style. I think its the same in anything in life the first experience will always be the favourite, this is why there are so many arguements over remakes.

however i also think anyone who has read the revised, should also read the original, just because it is so different.

I own both the original and revised. I voted for the revised. I think that the original makes no sense at all! I am totally lost when I read the original version. Especially when you read the rest of Dark Tower volumes. For instance:

Spoiler:

the number 19 is not mentioned in the original (19 is the secret word that Randall Flagg tells Allie in regards to asking Nort about the secrets of death)In the revised version it is mentioned and this is why the revised version flows better with the rest of the DT volumes.

When I was 12 or so I read the original in Hungarian and it blew my mind. It left tons of open questions but I didn't mind. Many years later I read the revised in English and I felt it.. so.. unnatural. All those extras.. a very bad example came to my mind but it's like when you have a beautiful daughter with blond hair and blue eyes but you tie damn big pink shiny ribbons into her hair to show how cute she is... all those extras feel like... sweaty, too much.
Just my two cents but I have written it down because it's the opposite of yours.

Letti i was coming to say that. For me the revised version with its 'additions' took away a lot of the mystique of the later books.

Spoiler:

why mention 19 at all when roland is so indifferent to it later in the series, he is a very intelligent man and would have remembered its significance from Gunslinger 1

and there is just so much that - to me - knowing whats coming takes the surprises and the changes in roland away.

Agreed. I think the lack of all those "extras" adds to the mystique that draws us into the series.

I have to agree with this. I like having mystery. I was a little weirded out when listening to the revised version for the first time - I didn't know it was revised, and I thought I'd forgotten all that stuff somehow.

! this is what i was trying to say ola
i must admit though, that i read the original years ago and lost it in my many house moves. i bought a Gunslinger book last year and it was very strange as you say Ola to read it again with such small and sometimes quite large additions.