Dark Tower: I finally found the exit - Dave's Fiction Warehouse

Roland, Roland, Roland. Keep that ka-tet rollin' ...

When you’re coming to the end of a story that exceeds 4,000 pages, it’s hard to say with a straight face that you didn’t really care for it. Four thousand pages, after all: That’s a lot of missed opportunities to stop reading.

So I’ll say this of Stephen King’s Dark Tower septology, 34 years in the making: It’s certainly the longest thing I’ve ever read. It’s a page-turner, too, but not in the way his best work is. Toward the conclusion of this exhaustive and exhausting fantasy series, you’re flipping through those pages so you can move on, at long last, to something more edifying.

Any other opinions on this? The thing I like least about the Dark Tower books is that they lack the kind of interior logic that guides all of King’s other stuff. With all the telepathy and teleportation and otherworldly possession in the mix, anything can happen at any time. And so the deus ex machina crops up everywhere, until finally all you can do is roll your eyes as the writer jerks the strings.

Oddly, the thing I like most about this yarn is King’s many references and connections to his earlier books (remember ‘Salem’s Lot?) and his use of himself(!) as a major character. That takes some balls, but I agree with other critics that it kind of works. It’s an odd phenomenon when the writer himself becomes the most interesting part of his story.

Anyway, now I’ve read it, fulfilling a promise I made to certain relatives who love this series and couldn’t believe I’d passed it by. There, it’s done. I await the motion picture. All three of them. It says here that Ron Howard hopes to release the first of them in 2013 …

Comments

John H. says

January 13, 2012 at 12:53 am

I laughed out loud when you linked Ron Howard to this series… and then I Googled it and found that you weren’t kidding. In a way, that’s even funnier.

A couple of friends have recommended the Dark Tower series to me. Unlike you, though, I didn’t make any rash promises. It just doesn’t sound like my cup of tea.

Speaking of drawn-out series (my weak attempt at a segue), the latest from Thomas Perry, The Informant, provides a worthy conclusion(?) to his “Butcher’s Boy” series. I think this goes along with what you’ve said before about good things taking time. He’s written other novels in between, but there were 10 years between the first two novels in this series, and nearly 20 between the 2nd and 3rd.
- Dave Knadler says
  
  January 13, 2012 at 10:08 am
  
  I hate to reveal further gaps in my reading resume, but I was almost completely unaware of this guy. After reading the reviews, looks like I’ll have to give it a try. Thanks for the heads-up!
Jessie K says

January 13, 2012 at 11:22 am

I was so inspired by King’s memoir (thanks again for lending it) that I’m now reading his first book, Carrie. Trying to learn from the master.
- Dave Knadler says
  
  January 13, 2012 at 1:01 pm
  
  As I’ve mentioned before, I think his best work is The Dead Zone. Don’t let any scholarly types hear you describe King as “the master.” They hate the guy. I don’t suppose envy has anything to do with it…

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