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anythingstephenking · 5 years

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The Dark Tower: Wizard of Oz Edition

Another three months passed without reading. What are you to do when the new Game of Thrones season is starting? Watch the entire series twice through obviously, while avoiding all other obligations.

After trudging through King’s “women endure awful things” years, the prospect of the next Dark Tower really kept me moving. This series is quickly becoming my most beloved in the King-o-verse, with Mid-World beginning to surpass even Derry, Maine in my favorite fictional places. Who cares about killer clowns when you have magic and Roland Deschain?

Here’s the thing though - Wizard and Glass was not my favorite installment. It’s ok - I have four more left to read and according to the afterword from King, at least two of these will be set in Mid-World (with one in our world (which is mucho intriguing to me)). I didn’t dislike the story per-se; I just wanted the ka-tet story of Roland, Eddie, Jake, Susannah and Oy. Instead we get the ka-tet story of Roland, Cuthbert & Alain from the time before the world “moved on” and Roland wasn’t a super cynical nutbag yet. This dude-wolfpack is fine and their adventures worthy of the almost 700 pages of material, but I sure missed my main gang.

Back up a bit - Wizard and Glass picks back up where The Waste Lands left us - stuck on a talking train that likes riddles and also likes killing humans. Basically Thomas the Train of your nightmares. While we’re right back where we left off, we’re 7 years later in the publishing world. That’s some George RR Martin shit right there; I’d be so bummed to wait 7 years for this. King published 9 more novels between, most of them about women getting beaten the fuck down. We’ve got a little bit of women getting the short end of the stick here too, unfortunately. More on that later.

After he finished producing his Fuck-You-Stanley-Kubrick miniseries version of The Shining, King was driving home from California (like can’t you afford a private jet, yo?) and decided it was time to kick around the next chapter of The Dark Tower. King says he took so long because this installment is a love story, which he claims is not his strong suit. I mean, Annie Wilkes, like, really loved Paul Sheldon, so ::shrug emoji::

So, we do begin with our pals from The Waste Lands. They’re all aboard the bizarro-thomas train, shooting riddles instead of bullets, trying not to die. If my life ever depends on my ability to tell riddles, I’d definitely be dead. This time Eddie, rather than Roland, saves the day and they depart off the train relatively unscathed and back marching towards the tower.

One of the most fascinating pieces of The Dark Tower universe is what is does with time and place. As Roland says, “there are other worlds than these.” This comes into focus a bit more as the gang gets off the train and appear to be in post-The Stand Kansas. We get references to Captain Tripps, Abigail, Randall Flagg (what a dick!) and others. Leave Mid-World, land in post-apocalyptic America! Hows that for a vacation? Precarious portals referred to as “thinnies” connect parallel worlds and apparently are really dangerous. Beware the thinnies y’all. The connective tissue between worlds is confusing and exciting and interesting and weird all rolled up into one. This connectivity gave us the opportunity to join Eddie, Jake, Susannah, Roland and Oy together, and for that I am thankful.

The rest of the story plays out mostly in flashback form. While this storytelling through the youth of Roland is certainly interesting, it did very little to move the core story forward. We get the lengthy tale of Roland’s original ka-tet, traveling as a means to keep an eye on a potential upheaval of power in Mid-World. We get a handful of new bad guys, most of whom are easily defeated. A mysterious general of rebellion John Farson is discussed but little seen - but I’d guess it’s not the last we’ve heard from him.

Roland (at the ripe age of 16) meets and falls in love with a local beauty, Susan Delgado, that has been promised to another. Pretty standard romance novel shit. Their love lives at the core conflict of the story, while Roland and Susan are sneaking around, boning each other brains out as horny 16 year olds will do, everything falls apart around them. It’s ok (spoiler alert) because everyone in Roland’s ka-tet makes it out, except for Susan who gets thrown into a bonfire, because, well she’s the woman and who needs her anyway?

We’ve also got some magic witch stuff, and a crystal ball that shows Roland his future, including Susan’s death. We learn that Roland already knows the fate of his current gang. It was shown to him by the wizard’s ball ages ago, but what he knows he’s not telling. Y’all, my friends are going to die at some point and I’ll be real sad.

We end circling back up with a Wizard of Oz confrontation with Randall Flagg (dick!) himself. Like for real Wizard of Oz - there’s a man behind a curtain and everything. At the end, our gang is back on the road where they started, following the path of the beam.

They’re off to see The Tower.

While we get a lot of backstory here - what started the conflict in Mid-World, why Roland is so grouchy all the time - we don’t get any forward progress to The Tower. I know, it’s the journey, not the destination. But I’ve got 6 more books to get through before The Wolves of Calla.

It was a beautiful love story and nice to see Roland as a young human with emotions - he’s one of my favorites but the more I read, the less I can picture him as Idris Elba. He carries the weight of knowing the future and reliving his past, I suppose I’d be a curmudgeon if I was him too.

Best part was when Jake referred to their situation as “ka” (fancy word for “fate) and Roland replies: “kaka”. The Roland that makes a poop joke is my favorite Roland.

8/10

First Line: “ASK ME A RIDDLE” Blaine invited.

Last Line: With Oy in the lead, they once more set out for The Dark Tower, walking along the Path of the Beam.

I finished this while on vacation in the caribbean (HOT DOG LEGS); without my reference bibliography, I read my next two books out of order. So we’ll be doing The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon next, then Bag of Bones. Tata for now.

#book reivew #dark tower #stephen king #wizard and glass

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