No, you aren't. Many people don't read at all or they read 3 books in their whole life. (There is no problem with that, either.)Originally Posted by pablo
Do you like this book so far?
No, you aren't. Many people don't read at all or they read 3 books in their whole life. (There is no problem with that, either.)
Do you like this book so far?
Roland would have understood.
Oh, sure. And I'm enjoying it very much. I'm taking my time because I can't usually devote a lot of time to reading. I'm happy when there's a more or less free weekend and I can sit or lay for hours, buried in the book, engrossed in the story. Like I said, this past weekend was like that. I love times like that. But, sadly, that's rare.
The book is great, though. This is my first time reading the Dark Tower series, and I've been reading the books back to back (to back to back... etc.) for about a year now, I guess. A wonderful reading experience.
It's the journey of my life.Oh, sure. And I'm enjoying it very much. I'm taking my time because I can't usually devote a lot of time to reading. I'm happy when there's a more or less free weekend and I can sit or lay for hours, buried in the book, engrossed in the story. Like I said, this past weekend was like that. I love times like that. But, sadly, that's rare.
The book is great, though. This is my first time reading the Dark Tower series, and I've been reading the books back to back (to back to back... etc.) for about a year now, I guess. A wonderful reading experience.
Keep on reading. I am rereading it these days.
Roland would have understood.
Wow.
I am SO sorry I didn't see this in so long!
Thank you very much for replying, though, and I'm particularly impressed by the length and organization of your reply!
Yeah, you're right, the above review is very raw and disorganized, but bear in mind that I'd JUST finished reading it when I wrote that. I don't have time just at present, but at some point I probably will want to go back and revise it, clean it up, make it generally better quality.
I do appreciate your suggestions, though, and they make sense to me. In the case of the sci-fi/fantasy idea, I'm coming to appreciate the term "speculative fiction" more and more, because it's becoming more and more obvious to me that genre categories (or ANY categories, really) are not hard and fast rules, but very often the barriers are shattered entirely. That was one thing I enjoyed about The Princess Bride, for example, and that I enjoy about The Dark Tower.
Your whole "jaded" commentary I'm not quite sure what you meant by, but I'm interested in going deeper into that as well.
And yeah, I do need to be more objective about the King--while he is the author I'm the most comfortable with and most impressed by at this point, it is a fact that I don't like EVERYTHING he's chosen to do, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Again, I was on kind of a Dark Tower high when I wrote that review.
I also like your suggestion about Patrick Danville, as it reminds me of Sam in The Lord of the Rings. While Bilbo wrote the equivalent of The Hobbit, and Frodo the equivalent of The Lord of the Rings, Frodo says at the end, "The last pages are for you, Sam." It could even tie into my earlier reference to The Princess Bride, which purports to be an abridgement of an earlier work--at the end of the preface Goldman says "What you do with it will be of more than passing interest to us all," which indicates that he is inviting us the readers to get creative with it, and not feel bound to a particular vision.
And as for the obsession angle, yeah, I see your point--I just think that in terms of the major characters I was seeing more of the "good purpose" in the earlier volumes (like Roland's ka-tet), and more of the "bad obsession" in the later ones. But your examples are the exceptions that prove the rule.
As for the Susannah ending, I'd like to go further into detail about what you mean--if true, that could prove interesting, but I'm not quite seeing it. All I'm seeing so far is a "fake" world that rings hollow as a "happy ending." I'd like to discuss it more at length sometime....
As for "Is Roland a hero?", the recent debate over what constitutes a protagonist in the Best Supporting Character Award thread got me interested in that kind of idea (yes, it's protagonist vs. actual hero, but still).
Anyway, thanks again for replying, and once again I'm sorry it took me so long to realize it. I'd really like to have more such discussions in future.
EDIT: By the way, I did an essay about The Shining in that book's thread, if you're interested.... I think it's considerably better....
I'm seeing the whole series as a stream of consciousness *spoilers
My history with the series is that I read the first book and part of the second, in the early 90's, and lost interest, but recently, felt drawn to it again, and have plowed through everything, starting around 5 months ago. At this point, I'm roughly half way through book 7, and all of a sudden, the going is slow.
What's striking me is that it feels not exactly contrived, but forced, at this point in the story. It feels as if a neverending story is being put to bed, and not entirely by choice. Perhaps when I get to the end, it will feel differently, but I'm suspecting it won't.
The series seems like a total flight of fancy. Meandering wherever the writer's mind chooses to go, at whatever stage in his life. From the early, almost hamfisted, book 1, it rather takes on a life of it's own, dealing with the types of things that a person deals with at different stages of their life, giving the impression that an openended journey is quite possible.
From some of the author's notes in the later editions, it seems like outside forces, and not a need for closure, are what drew the series to an end.
Spoilers for the series up to but not including DT7, below
A lot of what King's diary at the end of SOS is actually true from what I've read. The series has come to him in fits and spurts over the years since he was 18. So yeah there is a "stream of consciousness" to it, up to Wolves. It was after his accident that a lot the series finally clicked to him. Which is why he wanted to do a re-write of the series, especially The Gunslinger and Drawing of The Three which is on his backburner for now last I've heard.
"It's his eyes, Roland thought. They were wide and terrible, the eyes of a dragon in human form" - Roland seeing the Crimson King for the first time.
"When the King comes and the Tower falls, sai, all such pretty things as yours will be broken. Then there will be darkness and nothing but the howl of Discordia and the cries of the can toi" - From Song of Susannah
Part of what spawned this particular train of thought for me, was reading around the forum last night. Something that really got the wheels turning was a long thread about the "rape scene" in Tull.
I chose not to add anything to that one, as I saw that it is a touchy subject for some, and I don't yet know the dynamics of the social order on this site.
However, in seeing how much time and thought had been invested in that discussion, how much symbolism and backstory imbued into the "scene", it really struck me about the stream of consciousness.
I see the first book as a completely different entity from the others. The drug and alcohol fueled beginning of a story that the author was too young to be embarking on.
I saw that scene as a young man, writing about a young man, filled with anger, grief, rage, and a host of other emotions, taking it all out on the embodiment of his nemesis, by simply, sticking a gun up her ****.
No more, no less. In hindsight, tomes of symbolism and metaphor could be ascribed to the scene. But I simply see it the way a young man would see it, and as thus write it in the only way he knew how.
Don't worry about discussing things that might be sensitive, believe me. I can't think of a topic that hasn't been discussed on this message board.
As far as The Gunslinger goes, King agreed with you and that's why he did a revision to it. Up until the revision it was my least favorite of the series for the reasons you and he talk about.
It felt disconnected from the rest of the series and because of the time between each up until Wolves there was inconsistences in the series, especially noticable in the first two.
"It's his eyes, Roland thought. They were wide and terrible, the eyes of a dragon in human form" - Roland seeing the Crimson King for the first time.
"When the King comes and the Tower falls, sai, all such pretty things as yours will be broken. Then there will be darkness and nothing but the howl of Discordia and the cries of the can toi" - From Song of Susannah
No need to apologize; one of the nice things about online forums is that we can get together as time permits... these are saved discussions.I trust you'll excuse me, too, if, for example, it takes me a while to get to that The Shining thread. Sounds cool, alright, but I've got a few other things to do already. I'll get there soon enough, though, I hope.
As a matter of fact, it might be ka that you just noticed this thread; just as I worried when I last posted, I haven't been much available to the site since, but just now I'm trying to be moreso.
What I was wondering was, first off, whether or not you were right about Browning's motivations for not making clear his Roland's purpose, and, secondly, whether King's form of vagueness really does stem from the same ones.
Absolutely. So why did White do that? Do you think that Arthur's own quest for the Holy Grail had any other reason than that? Had our society progressed past such purpose by White's lifetime? Has it done so since? Do you think that that's what Stephen King is talking about?
Again, I just meant it as some things to think about in preparation, if and when you do decide to revise this. Hope it helps.
Wow. Thanks for replying so quickly!
And that's fine if it takes some time--it IS similarly long, though much more organized and hopefully less unwarranted bias and better quality overall.
I think I'm going to have to re-read and perhaps rewrite (parts of) the essay, because I think I understand the Browning poem a little better now than I did when I wrote that (I won't say I understand it completely). But yeah, I think I need to re-think that claim about the Browning poem.
Also, King may well have had a somewhat different intent in mind (as evidenced by the fact that we find out what the Dark Tower is in his epic, and Roland DOES need to save it). Actually I've recently read a review contrasting the two, and while I don't like to give the author too much credit (he criticizes Stephen King and praises Harold Bloom, for example, so I don't trust him already), I can't help wondering whether he might have a point. He actually suggests that Browning's Roland actually influences his surroundings and so it's at least partly because of him that the setting is a barren wasteland--that he effectively BECOMES the Dark Tower, in other words. This author saw that as a fundamental omission (read "flaw") in Stephen King's epic, since his Roland isn't like that at all.
Even if this is completely inaccurate (as I'd like to believe, considering who it's coming from), it's at least got me thinking about it.
I'm also probably going to have to re-read The Once and Future King again, because now I think about it, I think you're right. The Quest for the Holy Grail in T. H. White was meant to address the stagnation of Camelot now that all rights had been wronged, and the corresponding restlessness of the Knights of the Round Table. In fact, I could have delved deeper into that subject, since some people have suggested that Browning's Dark Tower might have contained the Holy Grail itself. (Not to mention the other obvious Arthurian connections, and not just in Stephen King's epic....)
Anyway, I have a lot on my plate at present, and may well continue to until next summer or so--but at some point I probably will re-read it, and hopefully try to improve upon it. Thanks again for replying, as I really enjoy discussing this with you!
Heh....
Now I want to know exactly what those inconsistencies in the first two were....
I mean, I've read Volume II, but I've only ever read the revised version of Volume I, and while I swore I'd never read the original, now I'm curious just to see what's being talked about here.... I know now that Stephen King first become sober around the time Volume II came out, or thereabouts, so he may have been writing "under the influence" for the first two, but I don't really know specifically what that means....
And what exactly are the sources for this information, because I REALLY want to read more about it....
Part of the reason I think that the majority of the series meanders and goes where it will is because for the majority of the series, that is (to an extent) what Roland is doing. He only knows to follow the Beam, so he goes where it takes him.
In the last book, he knows he is close, so he trods on, straight ahead.
That's my take anyway.
YOU MUST CHILL. I HAVE HIDDEN YOUR KEYS.
Which is why I feel that the final book is, for lack of a better word, forced. Granted, I'm only half way through it, so my opinion is fluid at this point.
The story was never meant to end. At least that is my feeling. Sure, King may have always been working towards it, but only in as much as one occurance or locale, points to another destination.
It was a totally "safe" zone for a writer to escape to. Where the story was free to roam as it would. Where connections and themes could be explored, with no expectation of actual finality from the reader, and none imagined, by the author.
As was noted above, outside forces in his real world perhaps compelled him to flesh out an ending before it was finally too late. And as my own stream of consciousness has led me through this lateast thought, perhaps that is point of the final book after all.
I don't feel any of the books feel forced or rushed for that matter. I just feel the pace is different depending on the part of the saga. The pace picks up in the last two books because that's just how the story came to King.
"It's his eyes, Roland thought. They were wide and terrible, the eyes of a dragon in human form" - Roland seeing the Crimson King for the first time.
"When the King comes and the Tower falls, sai, all such pretty things as yours will be broken. Then there will be darkness and nothing but the howl of Discordia and the cries of the can toi" - From Song of Susannah
read on. I think you might actually be pleasantly surpised.
YOU MUST CHILL. I HAVE HIDDEN YOUR KEYS.
I've been thinking it over, and I think what I need is to actually rewrite, rather than simply revise, this thing.
As I said, it's a review written RIGHT after I finished the series, so I was on a post-DT high, really.
But now I've had some time to get over it and look at it in a more objective manner--which means I can write an actual essay rather than a subjective review. And I have had some ideas already....
What I want to focus on is the "Wasteland" mythological motif, because I believe that, at heart, that is the kind of story that The Dark Tower is. The difference is that in this case it is not a king that is ailing but a tower--a phallic (thus male) symbol, and rather than it just being a single land that is barren as a result, every reality is in jeopardy, is "moving on." This latter phrase sounds to me like a modern way of saying "barren" that incorporates the concept of time within it. This motif would allow me to compare the series not only to the Browning poem (and T. S. Eliot's "The Waste Land"), but also the Grail Quest of Arthurian legend and perhaps even the present day.
In fact, I think the Horn of Eld in the next loop is significant, as it's a female symbol, like the Grail itself....
Spoiler:
Sounds good.
I think you really got my point about the different authors that time.
I'll give more thought to what I meant about Susannah's ending. Maybe we'll get into that on another thread.
Like I said, I see lots of potential here; definitely like to see what you do with it, ultimately.
I am with Matthew.
I have favourite parts and less favourite parts still the whole series seems perfect to me.
About the pace... I always felt it damn quick because I had just started to read the book and I got to the end way too quickly.
Roland would have understood.
In my opinion, The Dark Tower is more than a book and, thus, its journey-feeling is more important than the way the book is written. I think it was an important journey for King himself and that justifies the pace. I think that it was actually meant to be a bit... irregular, it makes it more real.
Well, SK has said that he hates endings, and it shows in many of his works. In my opinion, this includes DT7.Which is why I feel that the final book is, for lack of a better word, forced. Granted, I'm only half way through it, so my opinion is fluid at this point.
The story was never meant to end. At least that is my feeling. Sure, King may have always been working towards it, but only in as much as one occurance or locale, points to another destination.
It was a totally "safe" zone for a writer to escape to. Where the story was free to roam as it would. Where connections and themes could be explored, with no expectation of actual finality from the reader, and none imagined, by the author.
Spoiler:
Just Finished DT Series...(My Review)
I finally finished the DT series last night. I just discovered these forums and thought I'd try to rate the books individually and get some of the things that bothered me about the last two books out of my mind by writing them down.
The Gunslinger: 9/10 Great intro to the series, got me hooked.
Drawing of the Three: 8/10 Some parts bored me, King got too caught up on details. But over all another good one.
Wastelands: 9/10 A great adventure, I felt like I was there on the journey to the Dark Tower.
Wizard and Glass: 10/10 My favorite book of the series, I really loved the story of Roland's past.
Wolves of the Calla: 8/10 This one felt drawn out. I was waiting for the wolves to attack from the first chapter. Wasn't a let down though, I thought it ended well.
Song of Susannah: 4/10 What was the deal with this one? King's attempt to place himself in the story felt extremely feeble. This book was hardly worth reading, far too much time was wasted with the librarian and the pregnancy.
The Dark Tower: 5/10 More crap with King's insertion of himself into the story. But once that was done with things started getting more interesting. I was expecting all of Roland's Ka-tet to die before he got to the tower. Instead of helping Roland reach the Dark Tower, face the Crimson King, and deal with Mordrid... Susannah spits in the faces of her dead lover and friend by abandoning the Gunslinger and living the rest of her life happily in an unreal world with phony versions of Eddie and Jake. Awesome. Then, Roland's ultimate nemesis is destroyed by an idiot boy's eraser. Classic. Okay... things can't get any worse. But apparently they can. All we find in the Dark Tower is a trip through Roland's past (which we've already seen) and someone we've never really heard of called Gann. He is the tower/some sort of God? Who knows. King ends it with a pathetic attempt to bring his story full circle at the top of the tower. I wasn't wanting or expecting a happy ending... but this? No questions answered, no nothing. Roland's friends died for nothing, and he is stuck in an indefinite loop. I guess I should have seen this coming... "Ka like a wheel" was to be taken extremely literally.
Anyways, I'll apologize in advance if I made some spelling errors or reached inaccurate conclusions to parts of the story. I listened to the entire series via Audiobook, most of the time when I was rather tired. I've never read a Stephen King book outside of the DT series, and the way this series fell flat for me, I don't think I ever intend to. Does anyone have any thoughts on my rant?
You need to give it some time to sink in a bit (some people found that helped), but even with that I'm not sure you're gonna come round to it (some don't).
There's a LOT of existing threads here on this whole subject. Have a look at what people have posted and see if it helps. personally I loved the tale all the way - including King inserting himself in the story etc...
.. and no apologies needed, you'll find a lot of differing opinions here on this whole subject.
re-read the ending of DT7/ restart of DT1 again
you may notice a little teensy detail which blows your mind even more
Spoiler:
if the worlds gonna end then let's get it over with, i got shit to do
I share a lot of your sentiments. I recommend putting the books down for maybe a year or two then reread them and see how you feel about the Ves Ka Gan. I'm growing to accept it, thoughSpoiler:.
I do disagree with you about the Crimson King though. I never really felt that either Mordred, the King, or the Ageless Stranger qualified as Roland's ulitmate nemesis. There's two characters I feel fit that title: Sylvia Pittston and Rhea of the Coos. He was more an obstacle, simply a guardian of the Tower (the Crimson King, that is). I do recommend you read Black House. That will explain some of the reasons behind things that occurred in DT7. My gripe with SOS was that instead of heading into End-World, it was back to New York. Perfectly understandable for Susannah-Mio (what pregant woman would want to cross a poisoned wasteland to bear a child? No telling what the air of Thunderclap would do to the mother or child) though.
I'm moving this thread to Gilead as it discusses the entire series and not just the last book.
I'll also be merging it with another "review" thread and then giving it a more general title. The reason being that, while you bring up many valid points, there are plenty of existing threads to discuss all aspects of the series and really, if everyone started posting their own reviews of the book the threads would become self serving and would not generate discussion between members
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