Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came
It is done. I finally reached the door at the top of the Dark Tower and walked through with the Roland. Seven books, 6000+ pages and seven months after starting the trek. Much other reading has been put to the wayside, as those of you who pay heed to my sidebar may have noticed...the other three books donning my nightstand have not changed little while I consumed each of the Dark Tower books in turn. The call of the Dark Tower is tough to resist once you've joined Roland and his ka-tet...his fellow travelers bound by fate
I never would have imagined calling myself a Stephen King fan. It truly is his magnum opus...inspired largely from Tolkien and LotR. And by Browning's poem Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came. (which is in turn influenced by Shakepeare's King Lear--Edmund's song and possibly an 11th century ballad about a heroic palladin by name of Roland).
At 19 the epic journey of the Hobbits through Middle Earth to Mordor had encouraged him to write his own epic...a journey of a gunslinger through Mid-World and End World towards The Dark Tower. And he did...between the years of 1970 and 2004. Thirty Four years.
Tolkien's influence on the tale is apparent. Both share the theme and overall plot of a journey...both physical and internal. As does Browning's poem. The Dark Tower and the Crimson King locked out of it evokes images of Mordor, Isengard and Sauron's eye. The wizards glass mirrors Tolkien's palantir. Though if King had intended to follow through with a more Tolkien-esque tale, he did not achieve that goal. either due to the time his pages had been set aside, or as the tale itself suggests, perhaps took on a life of it's own only seeking the writer as a median the Dark Tower stampeded ahead a creation all it's own.
Unlike Tolkien's Middle Earth and it's inhabitants, the lands of Mid-world have a much more southwestern feeling. The knight's errant are gunslingers with six shooters resting at hip instead of elves, hobbits or wizards. The landscape recalls deserts and wastelands more often than rich forests or caves. It is a sci-fi, fantasy, western at its best. And so much more.
The length of time...the physical gap of time between each book, not the thin sense of time and multiple time lines writ within...probably fascinated me the most. As decades progressed and the task of continuing this tale was again picked up again, much had changed. The world itself and King as a writer. Yet he masterfully blended current pop culture and his own works into the mix. Among these, the inclusion of the Twin Towers of our time...and their impending doom as we watch the time line in one of the many worlds of the Dark Tower ticked closer to that date (though that event in not at all related to the Dark Tower itself). Tools of Roland's world take on eerie similarities to literary and movie references...tiny buzzing golden orbs that explode on impact...the sneech, Harry Potter model. Or the weapon seemingly made of light that cleanly cuts off any appendage (my guess is Rowling cheerfully allowed King to reference bits from her own literary world while Lucas greedily clung to his copyright).
Swept up in a hurricane. The story is straight forward, but like any knight errant, Roland and his group are knocked off the immediate track by long tales of Roland's past (all of the fourth book is one long flashback) and others asking for aide and succor. But in the end all things serve the Beam. And the beam holds the Tower.
I felt like a junkie reading them. And I'm still reeling from the high a day after closing the last cover. And ansty about how I will get my next fix...
I never would have imagined calling myself a Stephen King fan. It truly is his magnum opus...inspired largely from Tolkien and LotR. And by Browning's poem Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came. (which is in turn influenced by Shakepeare's King Lear--Edmund's song and possibly an 11th century ballad about a heroic palladin by name of Roland).
At 19 the epic journey of the Hobbits through Middle Earth to Mordor had encouraged him to write his own epic...a journey of a gunslinger through Mid-World and End World towards The Dark Tower. And he did...between the years of 1970 and 2004. Thirty Four years.
Tolkien's influence on the tale is apparent. Both share the theme and overall plot of a journey...both physical and internal. As does Browning's poem. The Dark Tower and the Crimson King locked out of it evokes images of Mordor, Isengard and Sauron's eye. The wizards glass mirrors Tolkien's palantir. Though if King had intended to follow through with a more Tolkien-esque tale, he did not achieve that goal. either due to the time his pages had been set aside, or as the tale itself suggests, perhaps took on a life of it's own only seeking the writer as a median the Dark Tower stampeded ahead a creation all it's own.
Unlike Tolkien's Middle Earth and it's inhabitants, the lands of Mid-world have a much more southwestern feeling. The knight's errant are gunslingers with six shooters resting at hip instead of elves, hobbits or wizards. The landscape recalls deserts and wastelands more often than rich forests or caves. It is a sci-fi, fantasy, western at its best. And so much more.
The length of time...the physical gap of time between each book, not the thin sense of time and multiple time lines writ within...probably fascinated me the most. As decades progressed and the task of continuing this tale was again picked up again, much had changed. The world itself and King as a writer. Yet he masterfully blended current pop culture and his own works into the mix. Among these, the inclusion of the Twin Towers of our time...and their impending doom as we watch the time line in one of the many worlds of the Dark Tower ticked closer to that date (though that event in not at all related to the Dark Tower itself). Tools of Roland's world take on eerie similarities to literary and movie references...tiny buzzing golden orbs that explode on impact...the sneech, Harry Potter model. Or the weapon seemingly made of light that cleanly cuts off any appendage (my guess is Rowling cheerfully allowed King to reference bits from her own literary world while Lucas greedily clung to his copyright).
Swept up in a hurricane. The story is straight forward, but like any knight errant, Roland and his group are knocked off the immediate track by long tales of Roland's past (all of the fourth book is one long flashback) and others asking for aide and succor. But in the end all things serve the Beam. And the beam holds the Tower.
I felt like a junkie reading them. And I'm still reeling from the high a day after closing the last cover. And ansty about how I will get my next fix...
posted by Unknown at
1:06 PM
3 Comments:
Sounds good. Now that I've discovered Deva has a pool the next thing I miss most about the USA is libraries where I can find what I want to read in English. I want to read Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell again so much it's like a dull ache. Haven't read Fire from Heaven or Persian Boy in almost a year and if I were home right now I'd have an itch to pick up Freddie Mercury's biography. There's a stack of stuff here I could read. In fact I just promised someone I'd put Ghandi's biography at the top of the pile but then I got the new Bitch magazine, and so I make my way through the stacks so much more slowly than I would otherwise. I have little motivation. I'm looking forward to Neverwhere though. Thanks for that. It's on the pile right under Memoirs of a Geisha.
Yeah, I know how you feel...jeez, has it been nearly a year since number 7 came out? Oddly enough one of the reasons I don't want to tackle the Dark Tower series is I'm not eager to pick up a work that requires a seven-month commitment. I'm already committed to the Aubrey/Maturin books, and they are crack enough, believe me. I have to ration them. But perhaps I'll give the first book a shot. AFter all, the best part about long series is that you don't have to learn new faces and characters all over again.
I see you're reading Perks of Being a Wallflower again. I loved that book. I would love to read it again. Come to think of it Chris lost my copy - the one I underlined random things in. >:<
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