The Gunslinger: Chapter 1, The Gunslinger

[sarajean]

The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.

almost 20 years since i first read that opening line, and it still sucks me in every time.

okay, so...chapter one. we meet the gunslinger for the very first time ever. he's been treking for quite some time. he's already left 4 waterskins behind...this is the first we hear of the manni, khef, the horn and the beam. can i just say...who the hell picks a piece of bacon out of someone else's firepit and eats it? i mean, yeah...it's bacon...but still.

some old guy has given him a silver compass to give to the Man Jesus. i wonder what ever happened to that compass?

a raven-headed taheen...searching for algul siento...did one of "the holes in the world" drop him off in the wrong place, or what?

flashback

so, the gunslinger meets a farmer named brown. he's got a bird named zoltan who sings a song about farts. good stuff. did anyone else think it was creepy when zoltan was rapping on the walls outside, tak-tak-tak? anyway...roland thinks of sheemie...aw, bless. brown thinks this is the afterlife. roland's mule dies, the bird eats it's eyes. (gross) roland decides to tell this desert dweller who has invited him in a little bedtime story.

so, as far as i can tell, the story of tull is a flashback within a flashback, right?

anyway, roland is strolling into town, his mule at his side...hey, jude is one of the first things that he hears. cool. the "sparklights" along the highway are dead, and no one passing in the coaches or wagons wants to look at him. is it the guns? all i know is that the enmity he meets in tull seems quite different than the reactions that people have towards him later in the series. he passes quite a few people, most of whom ignore him. the only thing i'm going to point out here is that he passes some women in slacks and high collared blouses. slacks. hmmm. okay, so he boards the mule...incest. nice.

sheb's. hey, we know that name, don't we? oh, wait...that comes later. nevermind. pigs dance the commala. awesome. so, he orders some mutie-burgers, washes em down with a beer. no one has any fucking change in this town? sucks for him. some weird guy with bad breath comes up to him asking for change. damn, he's bold. so, anyway...he takes the bar-matron to bed, and she tells him a bedtime story. flashback within a flashback within a flashback. also nice. seems the weirdo panhandler was dead not too long ago. he was all laid out in the bar (they were going to eat off of those tables again?) when in comes the man in black. he starts talking to allie of worlds next door and offers to show them a trick. apparently, he's some type of acrobat, as well, cos he's jumping over the table and the weirdo's dead body over and over again. meanwhile, allie's taking care of herself under the bar. in public?! for shame. okay, so...weirdo nort comes back to life...he smells. allie runs and hides, and when she comes back, everyone else is gone 'cept ol' weird weed chewing guy. he's got a letter for her.

blahblahblah19blahblah19blah.
blahblah,
walter o'dim
(19)

end flashback within a flashback within a flashback.

hmmm. seems that if she wants to know the secrets of the afterlife, she's just got to say the word 19. i like roland's advice on how to avoid it. there is no such number. as if.

okay, so sheb comes running up the stairs with a knife in a jealous rage. roland breaks his wrists, and reminds him of their time together in mejis when shebbie-poo helped burn our hero's young love at the stake. scared as hell, he runs off...i wonder who bandaged him up?

let's see...next roland pays a visit to the preacher lady. seems she's been hanging around tull for sometime between 2 and 12 years. oh, and she came from the desert, so she knows what he's got coming for him. she's one of those scary types who should probably be handling snakes. she tells him that she's carrying the crimson king's child. well, walter's too. hmmm. boy, am i glad all this shit gets explained later on. um, did it seem like she might have been enjoying having a gun up her lady parts a little too much? grosser still. and it never mentions him cleaning up afterward, even though we know him to be quite fastidious about such things. grossest yet.

ah, here comes the massacre. allie broke down and said the magic word to the weirdo, and now she wants to die. much obliged, ma'am. a total of 58 dead at the end of the "feverish parade." the only one who manages to get a decent wound in edgewise is a kid...who loses his head a moment later.

um...think i'll go make myself some burgers and have a beer (or three). nothing like killing folk to work up a terrible hunger and thirst. next morning, all the bodies are gone. damn, that desert wind is strong.

end flashback within a flashback.

brown still lets him stay the night. that's awfully cool of him. he just wants to live, and every time, i'm surprised again that he gets to. roland heads off the next morning...brown says he'll eat the mule. how nice of him.

end flashback. roland wakes up, thinking of susan and cort. hey, i wonder who this cort guy is? maybe we'll find out next chapter.

discuss.

[fernandito]

a total of 58 dead at the end of the "feverish parade." I like this. Sigged.


As for your sypnosis, there is something that [IMO] is of vital importance: When they're talking about the cartridges contained within his belts, it says 'there were fewer of them now'. Many believe that is due to the fact that he caught up with Rhea of the Cöos and disposed of her. Your thoughts?

[sarajean]

part of the beauty of this being here, and not in onnest is that we can do away with the spoiler tags.

you know...i had never even thought of that. i just assumed that since he'd been going and going for so long...of course he had fewer.

i really like that, though.

good call.

[Bethany]

that is freaking awesome sarajean.

[sarah]

thanks for the run through, sarajean.

a raven-headed taheen...searching for algul siento...did one of "the holes in the world" drop him off in the wrong place, or what?

It's nice to get a vague heads up to what's coming. SK sparks your interests and creates questions that he won't answer for a few books. He keeps you thinking and that is one of the best things about this quest, you have to pay attention.

so, the gunslinger meets a farmer named brown. he's got a bird named zoltan who sings a song about farts. good stuff. did anyone else think it was creepy when zoltan was rapping on the walls outside, tak-tak-tak?

Does Stephen King love to throw in farts when he gets a good chance or what? beans beans the magical fruit. LOL! I love the simple potty humor in a serious and sometimes tense story. The frist chapter is serious and nothing like hey jude and farts to make me "lol" for real.



I also enjoyed the writing of how the town of Tull died. We get to see the gunslinger in full on action before he meets his next ka-tet...before his fingers get eaten, before his fever almost takes his life. In chapter one we see a glimpse of Roland in true gunslinger form. up next...the boy.

[pol]

Spoilers abound....including Wizard and Glass...hope I can post this here.




Looks like this is going to be a great thread. I just actually started a re-read of the series and just got past this part.

I love "The Gunslinger"...with Roland's introduction and the vastness of the desert.

One of my favorite parts was the interaction with Brown...as well as his strange bird. I have always liked this character and never quite been able to figure him out. Roland seems to like him and he seems nice enough....but when looking at Book IV it seems it may be this nice farmer who is the first of the crowd to say "Charyou tree" and put the fire into the crowd.

"Nothing was clear to Susan until she saw the man with the long red hair and the straw hat which did not quite obscure his lamb-slaughterer's eyes; the man with the cornshucks in his hands. He was the first...."

Roland wonders whether or not his time with Brown is real...Brown thinks its the afterlife...Roland wonders if its a trap...I think he even wonders if it is The Man in Black himself???

I'm interested in what you guys think...is the guy in IV who is the first to encite the crowd even Brown?...sounds like him, and we know of folks from Susan's part of the world who end up in Tull (and Brown's hut is in close proximity). If so maybe maybe King did place him in the story for a deeper meaning...maybe he did spring a trap on Roland...maybe it was just many years ago...remember it was the events surrounding Susan that got Roland off in the first place.

Any thoughts????

[Matt]

um, did it seem like she might have been enjoying having a gun up her lady parts a little too much? grosser still. and it never mentions him cleaning up afterward, even though we know him to be quite fastidious about such things. grossest yet.

This is great SJ, I love the sum up.

I would think that Roland had one hell of a time with the "ritual" that night

[sarajean]

Spoilers abound....including Wizard and Glass...hope I can post this here.

no worries about spoilers here. this group read is essentially a re-read for people who have already read the entire series. you don't have to mark things with spoiler tags.

Looks like this is going to be a great thread. I just actually started a re-read of the series and just got past this part.

there will be a new thread every few days with a summary of the next chapter. glad you're looking to participate!

I love "The Gunslinger"...with Roland's introduction and the vastness of the desert.

One of my favorite parts was the interaction with Brown...as well as his strange bird. I have always liked this character and never quite been able to figure him out. Roland seems to like him and he seems nice enough....but when looking at Book IV it seems it may be this nice farmer who is the first of the crowd to say "Charyou tree" and put the fire into the crowd.

"Nothing was clear to Susan until she saw the man with the long red hair and the straw hat which did not quite obscure his lamb-slaughterer's eyes; the man with the cornshucks in his hands. He was the first...."

Roland wonders whether or not his time with Brown is real...Brown thinks its the afterlife...Roland wonders if its a trap...I think he even wonders if it is The Man in Black himself???

I'm interested in what you guys think...is the guy in IV who is the first to encite the crowd even Brown?...sounds like him, and we know of folks from Susan's part of the world who end up in Tull (and Brown's hut is in close proximity). If so maybe maybe King did place him in the story for a deeper meaning...maybe he did spring a trap on Roland...maybe it was just many years ago...remember it was the events surrounding Susan that got Roland off in the first place.

Any thoughts????

holy crap. that is not something that had ever ever occured to me.

i love it.

[sarah]

pol, i missed that too. what a thinker you are. thanks for pointing it out. It wouldn't suprise me one bit if brown and the red-headed man were one and the same. I mean we are all on a loop and maybe other people have lessons to learn, too.

thanks for the post, pol

[fernandito]

I mean we are all on a loop and maybe other people have lessons to learn, too.

I like this theory, a lot. I think I need to skim through W&G when I get home.

[Matt]

But how could outside "Tull" and outside "Mejis" be the same place? I remember reading that description of the first man and thought about the bean eater but figured they were too distant.

[sarajean]

i don't think that's what he's saying, matt. what (i think) he's trying to get across is that people (sheb, for example) from the mejis area have already showed up in the vicinity of tull, so why couldn't we say the same about brown.

right?

[Ruki]

this is a really interesting thought, they do sound like they could be the same guy. it has me thinking of how roland was so suspicious of brown, asking who he really is and all that even though he liked the guy. was king hinting that there's more to brown than what we were seeing?

[Matt]

i don't think that's what he's saying, matt. what (i think) he's trying to get across is that people (sheb, for example) from the mejis area have already showed up in the vicinity of tull, so why couldn't we say the same about brown.

right?

I always considered Sheb believeable because he was a piano player, easily drifting around out there.

But distances are wrong in places and it could be that the whole Sheb and bean eater thing is an indication of the loop

[OchrisO]

I have often wondered if maybe Zoltan was the Man in Black, being that Flagg has been known to take the form of a crow/raven and all. Perhaps it was him there as the raven, using his glamour to conjour up someone from Roland's past to get at what he had been doing. Perhaps Brown was never there at all, and just an illusion created by Flagg as Roland thought it might be.

The insidious, manipulative way that Brown gets Roland to tell him about Tull seems like Flagg's MO to me as well.

Oh, and I hadn't read Desperation or The Regulators when I first read The Gunsliner, but not taht I have, the tak-tak-tak of Zoltan pecking at things is definately eerie.

[Matt]

Perhaps Flagg in both places...

[pol]

This is an interesting line of thought, thanks for everyones input....I have always thought that Brown and the red head were very closely related and perhaps one and the same. There are a few other passages that really link these characters and they are during the first time Roland travels in the grapefruit....

"And so the storm whirls him first up and then away. He flies across the Drop,
rising and rising through stacks of air first warm and then cold, and he is not
alone in the pink storm which bears him west along the Path of the Beam. Sheb flies past him, his hat cocked back on his head; he is singing 'Hey Jude' at the top of his lungs as his nicotine-stained fingers plink keys that are not there—transported by his tune, Sheb doesn't seem to realize that the storm has ripped his piano away."

This reminds me so much of The Wizard of Oz...when Dorothy is in the house in the cyclone seeing various characters on the way to Oz...here Roland is in the grapefruit "storm" watching various characters whom, like Sheb, will resurface or show up later in the story.

Next....

" 'Roland, come,' the voice says—the voice of the storm, the voice of the glass—and Roland comes. The Romp flies by him, glassy eyes blazing with pink light. A scrawny man in farmer's overalls goes flying past, his long red hair streaming out behind him. 'Life for you, and for your crop, ' he says—something like that, anyway—and then he's gone."

I think this is Brown being cast in the same light as Sheb above.

Other examples foreshadow other characters, including The Lady of Shadows and Oy.

So sarajean seems to get what I am trying to get across...sorry if I was unclear Matt...I am just talking about the character of the farmer and Brown being one and the same....just at different points in Roland's life...I don't think that Tull and Mejis are related in another way...like they are reciprocles or twins of one another. I just think that various people are resurfacing...and likely for a reason.

Brown is a very mysterious charcter...and to me one of the most interesting in the series...it is his actions, if he is the farmer, that are responsible for a large portion of what drives Roland...of what damns him.

[Darkthoughts]

I'd never made that connection before, but now you mention it it seems almost...obvious!

I have a question which I'm afraid is quite banal after all that

Are dungarees something different in the US than they are here? It says that Roland is wearing dungarees, yet hes always drawn as wearing jeans - and I picture him wearing jeans. I think what we call dungarees over here might be bib overalls to you guys (in the DT books at least)? Its not important other than it being something that always bugged me when visualising Roland.

[OchrisO]

The basic "dungaree" is either jeans or overalls made from denim. Given the U.S. western spin of Roland I'd say they are jeans in his case.

[fernandito]

DT - Where are you from?

[OchrisO]

I was just reading over the scene where we first see Sylvia Pittston addressing her congregation. Having grew up among Old Regular Baptist and a few Pentecostal churches, this part of the book is rather creepy to me. Sometimes you can feel so much energy and power in those rooms, and it isn't always good energy. King really got that across in that scene.

[sarajean]

I was just reading over the scene where we first see Sylvia Pittston addressing her congregation. Having grew up among Old Regular Baptist and a few Pentecostal churches, this part of the book is rather creepy to me. Sometimes you can feel so much energy and power in those rooms, and it isn't always good energy. King really got that across in that scene.

that's why i made the snake handling comment. i was raised episcopalian, but, having watched a ton of pbs shows on the subject, she really seemed like one of those hellfire types. it really creeped me the hell out reading it again.

[fernandito]

Anybody else here imagine Kathy Bates as Pittston while reading the Gunslinger?

[Darkthoughts]

I'm from Gloucestershire, England FP

I really enjoyed re-reading those first few chapters. I normally read very quickly, but I tried to pace myself and really pay attention to the text, and I felt like I noticed alot more than I had in previous readings.

[Matt]

I feel the same way, re reading at a set pace may be the best way I have ever been through them.

And on that note. I noticed the very beginning this time. How Roland has a moment of disorientation in like the first two pages of the book. I grabbed the version that had not been redone and it was there.

Is there any way King could have been planning what we all know as then end all the way back to the first two pages of the first book?