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Publisher's Weekly
A pilgrimage that began with one lone man's quest to save
multiple worlds from chaos and destruction unfolds into a
tale of epic proportions. While King saw some criticism for
the slow pace of 1982's The Gunslinger, the book that
launched this series, The Drawing of the Three (Book II,
1987), reeled in readers with its fantastical allure. And
those who have faithfully journeyed alongside Roland, Eddie,
Susannah, Jake and Oy ever since will find their loyalty
toward the series' creator richly rewarded.The tangled web
of the tower's multiple worlds has manifested itself in many
of King's other works— The Stand (1978), Insomnia (1994) and
Hearts in Atlantis (1999), to name a few. As one character
explains here, "From the spring of 1970, when he typed the
line The man in black fled across the desert, and the
gunslinger followed... very few of the things Stephen King
wrote were 'just stories.' He may not believe that; we do."
King, in fact, intertwines his own life story deeper and
deeper into the tale of Roland and his surrogate family of
gunslingers, and, in this final installment, playfully and
seductively suggests that it might not be the author who
drives the story, but rather the fictional characters that
control the author.This philosophical exploration of free
will and destiny may surprise those who have viewed King as
a prolific pop-fiction dispenser. But a closer look at the
brilliant complexity of his Dark Tower world should explain
why this bestselling author has finally been recognized for
his contribution to the contemporary literary canon. With
the conclusion of this tale, ostensibly the last published
work of his career, King has certainly reached the top of
his game. And as for who or what resides at the top of the
tower... The many readers dying to know will have to start
at the beginning and work their way up. 12 color illus. by
Michael Whelan.
Washington Post
The long march to the
Dark Tower began in 1970 when Stephen King, still a
fledgling writer with outsized ambitions, was an
undergraduate at the University of Maine. It was then that
he wrote the opening chapters of the first book in the
series. The project faltered for a while, was eventually
revived and has since proceeded in fits and starts, with
gaps as long as six years between installments. Recently, in
the aftermath of his near-fatal accident in 1999, King
turned his full attention to this long, protracted saga,
producing three large volumes in rapid succession. The
seventh and final volume, The Dark Tower, should more than
satisfy his voracious readers. It is an absorbing,
constantly surprising novel filled with true narrative
magic, a fitting capstone to a uniquely American epic.
Inspiration for that
epic comes from all points of the aesthetic compass. The
primary source is Robert Browning's narrative poem "Childe
Roland to the Dark Tower Came," which provided King with his
central motif and a name for his carved-from-granite
protagonist: Roland Deschain of Gilead. Other sources
include J.R.R. Tolkien, L. Frank Baum, Clifford D. Simak and
the work of filmmakers such as John Sturges, Akira Kurosawa
and -- most centrally -- Sergio Leone. Leone's sprawling
"spaghetti western" "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,"
created the template for Roland -- a distinctly Clint
Eastwood-like figure -- and for the alternately brutal and
beautiful landscape through which he journeys.
That journey begins
with the memorable opening sentence: "The man in black fled
across the desert and the gunslinger followed." Roland, a
lineal descendant of King Arthur, is the last gunslinger in
a rapidly decaying world. He has embarked on a quest for the
eponymous tower, which stands at the nexus of all times and
places, binding together an infinite number of parallel
worlds. The tower, held in place by a number of intersecting
"beams," is under attack by a psychotic entity known as the
Crimson King, who plans to tear it down and rule forever in
the chaos that will follow. Roland's twin goals are to
preserve the tower -- and, by extension, the worlds it
supports -- and to climb to the room at the top of that
tower, where an unknown fate awaits him.
The first few
volumes focus on Roland's efforts to draw a trio of
prospective companions from three different versions of
20th-century America. The first of these is Eddie Dean, a
heroin addict rapidly running out of hope and chances. The
second is Odetta Holmes, a crippled civil rights activist
with multiple personalities who eventually becomes known as
Susannah. The third is Jake Chambers, an 11-year-old boy who
returns from the dead to join Roland's cadre of apprentice
gunslingers. These three form the core of the "ka-tet"
(i.e., sacred fellowship) that will accompany Roland on his
quest. They are joined, at various stages, by many others,
including Father Donald Callahan, a central figure in
Salem's Lot (1975), and a popular (and endangered) novelist
named Stephen King, who has a crucial story to tell.
By the time the
final volume opens, the ka-tet is closer to the tower after
surviving a daunting array of pitched battles, supernatural
encounters, out-of-body experiences and journeys between
worlds. On the heels of the multiple cliffhangers that ended
the previous volume, Song of Susannah, a number of critical
developments are under way. Jake and Father Callahan move
toward a fateful meeting in a Manhattan restaurant called
the Dixie Pig. Susannah gives birth to a murderous,
shape-shifting entity named Mordred. Roland himself,
accompanied by Eddie Dean, travels to the town of Lowell,
Maine, where the border between worlds has grown thin and
permeable. In time, the diminished ka-tet reassembles,
resuming its increasingly treacherous journey. Their path
leads from Algul Siente, where imprisoned "breakers" chip
away at the two remaining beams, back to Maine, where
Stephen King awaits his life-altering encounter with an
out-of-control Dodge Caravan. From there, the path moves
through a blighted, wintry landscape leading to a field of
roses where the Tower awaits.
King combines these
diverse elements into an archetypal quest fantasy
distinguished by its uniquely Western flavor, its emotional
complexity and its sheer imaginative reach. In the course of
nearly 4,000 pages, the Dark Tower saga fuses slightly
skewed autobiography with an extravagant portrait of an
imperiled multiverse. The series as a whole -- and this
final volume in particular -- is filled with brilliantly
rendered set pieces (including a stand-up comedy routine
that turns unexpectedly lethal), cataclysmic encounters and
moments of desolating tragedy. In the end, King holds it all
together through sheer narrative muscle and his absolute
commitment to his slowly unfolding -- and deeply personal --
vision.
As King notes in his
afterword, the series has become his "ubertale." As such, it
has gradually established a web of connections with much of
his earlier fiction. The most prominent example is the
reappearance of Father Callahan, who was last seen in
ignominious retreat from the vampire-infested village of
Jerusalem's Lot. In his new incarnation, "Pere" Callahan is
an affecting, multidimensional character for whom
redemption, which once seemed impossible, has come suddenly
within reach.
Elsewhere in the
series, Randall Flagg, architect of the apocalypse in The
Stand (1978), shows up in a variety of guises, among them
that of the man in black whose flight across the desert in
volume one began the story. Also back are Dinky Earnshaw
(Everything's Eventual) and Ted Brautigan ("Low Men in
Yellow Coats"), who now work together as conscripted,
ultimately rebellious "breakers." And Patrick Danville, who
appeared briefly onstage in Insomnia, joins the ka-tet in
the final stages of its journey and plays a pivotal role in
the climactic confrontation with the Crimson King. Other,
less overt references -- names, phrases and images that
deliberately echo similar elements of earlier books -- are
scattered throughout the text, creating the sense of a
coherent, if loosely connected, fictional universe.
Although King's
detractors -- a vocal, often contentious bunch -- will
doubtless disagree, The Dark Tower stands as an imposing
example of pure storytelling. King has always believed in
the primal importance of story, and his entire career --
encompassing 40 novels and literally hundreds of shorter
works -- is a reflection of that belief. On one level, the
series as a whole is actually about stories, about the power
of narrative to shape and color our individual lives. It is
also, beneath its baroque, extravagant surface, about the
things that make us human: love, loss, grief, honor, courage
and hope. On a deeper level still, it is a meditation on the
redemptive possibility of second chances, a subject King
knows intimately. In bringing this massive project to
conclusion, King has kept faith with his readers and made
the best possible use of his own second chance. The Dark
Tower is a humane, visionary epic and a true magnum opus. It
will be around for a very long time.
Booklist
The end of King's
quantitative magnum opus, the Dark Tower, some 34 years in
the making and god knows how many thousands of pages long,
begins where Song of Susannah [BKL My 1 04] left off. Boy
gunslingers Jake and Pere Callahan (once upon a time, the
priest of 'Salem's Lot) are entering the Dixie Pig Cafe in
Manhattan, in whose backrooms the heir of two fathers--the
evil Crimson King, lord of the Dark Tower, and the saga's
hero, the gunslinger Roland Deschain--is aborning. Chief
gunslinger Roland and Eddie Dean, whose fellow gunslinger
and wife, Susannah, is bearing the horrid child in tandem
with the formerly immortal Mia (two dads require two moms,
though the moms are merged, the dads poles apart), are
speeding to the rescue from Maine. Neither birth nor rescue
is short-circuited, but abandon all hope that either
develops straightforwardly. The tower is ever so
digressively approached, and many die in the process. It
would be unforgivable to leak just who in Roland's
ka-tet--he, Eddie and Susannah, Jake, and the billybumbler
Oy--achieves the tower with him, but saying that the tower
is achieved gives nothing essential away. Despite plenty of
action and quite a few unforeseen bombshells, this massive
conclusion may strike some as drawn out. King leans on his
talent for covering 30 seconds of action in, say, 30 pages,
rather too often. But what the vast, allusive (to several
other King books and plenty of others) tale is all about is
more teasingly evident than ever before: it's a fable,
possibly theological, of creativity--among, indubitably,
other things. Ray Olson Copyright © American Library
Association. All rights reserved
Publisher's Weekly A
pilgrimage that began with one lone man's quest to save
multiple worlds from chaos and destruction unfolds into a
tale of epic proportions. While King saw some criticism for
the slow pace of 1982's The Gunslinger, the book that
launched this series, The Drawing of the Three (Book II,
1987), reeled in readers with its fantastical allure. And
those who have faithfully journeyed alongside Roland, Eddie,
Susannah, Jake and Oy ever since will find their loyalty
toward the series' creator richly rewarded. The tangled web
of the tower's multiple worlds has manifested itself in many
of King's other works -- The Stand (1978), Insomnia (1994)
and Hearts in Atlantis (1999), to name a few. As one
character explains here, "From the spring of 1970, when he
typed the line The man in black fled across the desert, and
the gunslinger followed...very few of the things Stephen
King wrote were 'just stories.' He may not believe that; we
do." King, in fact, intertwines his own life story deeper
and deeper into the tale of Roland and his surrogate family
of gunslingers, and, in this final installment, playfully
and seductively suggests that it might not be the author who
drives the story, but rather the fictional characters that
control the author. This philosophical exploration of free
will and destiny may surprise those who have viewed King as
a prolific pop-fiction dispenser. But a closer look at the
brilliant complexity of his Dark Tower world should explain
why this bestselling author has finally been recognized for
his contribution to the contemporary literary canon. With
the conclusion of this tale, ostensibly the last published
work of his career, King has certainly reached the top of
his game. And as for who or what resides at the top of the
tower...The many readers dying to know will have to start at
the beginning and work their way up.
Publisher's Weekly A
pilgrimage that began with one lone man's quest to save
multiple worlds from chaos and destruction unfolds into a
tale of epic proportions. While King saw some criticism for
the slow pace of 1982's The Gunslinger, the book that
launched this series, The Drawing of the Three (Book II,
1987), reeled in readers with its fantastical allure. And
those who have faithfully journeyed alongside Roland, Eddie,
Susannah, Jake and Oy ever since will find their loyalty
toward the series' creator richly rewarded. The tangled web
of the tower's multiple worlds has manifested itself in many
of King's other works -- The Stand (1978), Insomnia (1994)
and Hearts in Atlantis (1999), to name a few. As one
character explains here, "From the spring of 1970, when he
typed the line The man in black fled across the desert, and
the gunslinger followed...very few of the things Stephen
King wrote were 'just stories.' He may not believe that; we
do." King, in fact, intertwines his own life story deeper
and deeper into the tale of Roland and his surrogate family
of gunslingers, and, in this final installment, playfully
and seductively suggests that it might not be the author who
drives the story, but rather the fictional characters that
control the author. This philosophical exploration of free
will and destiny may surprise those who have viewed King as
a prolific pop-fiction dispenser. But a closer look at the
brilliant complexity of his Dark Tower world should explain
why this bestselling author has finally been recognized for
his contribution to the contemporary literary canon. With
the conclusion of this tale, ostensibly the last published
work of his career, King has certainly reached the top of
his game. And as for who or what resides at the top of the
tower...The many readers dying to know will have to start at
the beginning and work their way up.
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