Oh, Discordia!

Late last night, in the wee hours, I finished reading The Dark Tower.

To say that the book was a valiant effort implies that it didn't quite live up to its potential. This much is true. But it also implies that some effort was put into it, which is terribly misleading. Apart from the energy expended in hitting the keys, writing this 680 page tome must have been a breeze for King because everything in it has been cribbed from pre-existing sources. From Sergio Leone westerns and the Lord of the Rings trilogy to The Wizard of Oz, The Magnificent Seven, Harry Potter (!), and King's own work, there’s hardly an original idea to be found.

Not surprising, really, since The Dark Tower has become a dumping ground, a manufacturer's outlet, if you will, where King can move what merchandise he has left, be they damaged goods or just remainders, before calling it quits. And his rush to release the last three books in the series within one year (the first four were released over a 12 year period) makes it seem all the more that he rushed to the finish.

Taking into consideration all seven volumes -- weighing in at about 4000 pages -- I can say that it is, without question, the worst book I've ever read. (And I've read some sucky books: Hannibal, I'm looking at you!) Even on its own, this last book was nothing to scream about. Unless you're screaming in frustration, in which case even a herd of banshees couldn't scream to equal the frustration I was feeling when I turned the last page. I won't go into detail, suffice to say that there seemed to be no point to the whole thing.

Well, a little detail won't hurt: In the end, Roland reaches the top of the Tower, and is then transported back in time to when the first book started, chasing the man in black across the desert. Only this time, he has his fabled horn with him (read Browning's poem for more info on this), which he lost in battle some 23 years before and never stopped to retrieve. Except this time, he did. But what that has to do with anything, or how things would have been different had he had the horn with him when he reached the Tower is something we'll never know. And since we don't know why he was chasing the man in black across the desert in the first place, or what happened in the fifteen years between the story he tells in Wizard and Glass and the beginning of The Gunslinger, the whole thing seems kind of hollow.

After 4000 pages, read over nearly 20 years, I expected a better pay-off.

Even King, in his afterward, said he wasn't wild about the ending. That he doesn't make this stuff up (not exactly), he just writes what he sees.

Man, is that a cop out or what?

Look, I'm not the greatest writer in the world, I know this. But -- okay, here's an example of what I'm talking about when I say King just didn't care in the end.

In the fifth book, Wolves of the Calla, the children of the dusty town of Calla Bryn Sturgis are kidnapped once in every generation by robotic wolves wearing green cloaks. The children are returned, but they're never the same, and grow up to be retarded giants. There's a character in the Calla known as Andy the Messenger Robot (many other functions). This seven-foot-tall mechanoid -- with an inexplicable penchant for fortune telling -- has been a fixture in the Calla for time out of mind. Andy knows all about the Wolves. He's seen 'em come and he's seen 'em go, Andy has, for the past century and a half. It's never occurred to the folken of Calla Bryn Sturgis -- not once in over 150 years -- that Andy may know more than he's saying about the Wolves. Which is very little, anyway, because he is unable to impart any information without a password. Now, Roland and his gang are in town for about 15 minutes before Eddie Dean (not the sharpest knife in the drawer, not by a long shot) starts questioning Andy. One would think the robot is a treasure trove of information, but Eddie, when he finally figures out the password, commands Andy to shut down. No big interrogation scene; not even one little question. Just shuts him right down. What the fuck, I ask you, is that all about?

There's too much in the way of deus ex machina in these last few books (most blatantly in the final one), which King explains away in Wolves by saying that "coincidence has been cancelled". Of course this gives him license to write whatever outrageous shit his mind can conjur, and don't you worry that it doesn't particularly make sense because -- as Roland himself is so fond of saying (endlessly, it seems) -- "There will be water if God wills it". Coupled with the ever-popular, "I don't know how I know this. I just do," it's King's way of saying, "Fuck explaining it. It's on the page, that should be good enough." Which, of course, it ain't.

Last year he was the recipient of the coveted National Book Award. It's so sad that he's finally getting the recognition he deserved back in the early 80s for the kind of work he's turning out now. Work that is, I'm sorry to say, mediocre at best.

I'm glad the journey is over. I'm glad I read the entire series. I'm glad I stuck with it.

Now that I think about it, though, I guess I have read worse (Dreamcatcher, From a Buick 8), but I've never been so profoundly disappointed.