So off all of the books in the Dark Tower series, the fourth installment, Wizard and Glass, actually wound up being my favorite.
Being mostly a love story, that took me by surprise.
Perhaps a part of it would be the circumstances during which I read this book. It was during my six week visit to Paris back in the summer of 1998. I really got into the book - and finished it - in the final few weeks of my stay in Paris. Usually, I would go to either the Luxembourg or Tuileries gardens and just sit and relax, reading for hours. It still conjures pleasant memories for that reason.
So with this latest trip to France, it seemed like a good idea to begin rereading this one once again.
The emphasis, of course, is on starting the book. After all, Stephen King has a reputation for having written some long books. And while this hardly ranks as one of his longest - not even in the Dark Tower series - it still is a pretty decent length. So it took a while.
One thing that I noticed over the years is that experiencing something, whether reading a book or watching a movie or tasting some food or perhaps visiting someplace where you have not been for a long time.
Well, reading a book like this one is a little bit like that, as well.
To be sure, it's the same book. Yet, it is at least a little bit of a different experience the second time around. Especially if it has been a long time in between readings. This one came 27 years after the first time that I read it.
Parts definitely felt familiar. Other parts I did not remember nearly as well as perhaps I should have. It's a bit strange that way, is it not?
Before I go any farther, however, let me give the usual warnings to stop reading if you intend to read this book, because there will be spoilers ahead.
SPOILER ALERT
SPOILER ALERT
SPOILER ALERT
Okay, so by now if you are still reading this, I have to imagine that you either are familiar with this story already, or perhaps you do not mind the spoilers. Please just don't say that you were not given advanced warning.
Now, when I mentioned earlier that this was my favorite Dark Tower book - as well as one of my very favorite Stephen King books more generally - there were reasons for it. I will expand on this, but let me say briefly that this book surprised me. At the time when I first read this, Stephen King seemed to me almost strictly an author of horror, with very few exceptions. But this particular novel is closer to being a love story, albeit a tragic one. It surprised me that it was as good as it was, that King made it work so well. Also, it probably admittedly surprised me that I enjoyed what felt almost like a romance novel as much as I did.
Also there is this: we get to really meet some of the characters from Roland's past. If memory serves correctly, they are mentioned in other books. But in this one, we actually get a bit more familiar with Cuthbert and Alain, his two traveling companions. Also, we see him have detailed interactions with Steve, his father, as well as Cort, his trainer. There are other episodes from his past that prove revealing regarding Roland's mysterious past. This also made this particular book a bit more memorable and enjoyable to read, at least in my opinion.
Finally, we see the more human side of Roland. He is young, he makes mistakes. There are glimpses of the cold, seemingly robotic gunslinger he will become. Yet, we see him at times seemingly overconfident, and at other times, uncharacteristically unprepared, such as when he gets caught with his pants down - literally - by his father. Most importantly, we see him even more uncharacteristically seem to grow dreamily unfocused and thus, at least at times, shockingly careless, as he falls in love with Susan Delgado and his friends catch him dreaming, as opposed to focusing.
Before all of that, however, this book starts off where the previous book, Dark Tower III: The Wastelands," left off. Roland's current ka-tet is trying to survive the mad train Blaine, who seems intent on crashing with everyone on board. However, Blaine loves riddles, and so he has set them the challenge of coming up with a riddle that he cannot solve in order to live. Everyone but Eddie tries and fails, and shows proper respect in so doing. But Eddie tricks Blaine and shows no respect, ultimately driving Blaine mad, quite literally. This saves the group, and they are able to get off the train safely in a version of Wichita. However, this version of Wichita is empty, as it has been hit by a plague which we learn was called Captain Trip's. So fairly quickly, we get a tie in to another King work, The Stand.
The ka-tet moves on, out of Wichita and towards a thinny. These are described as unpleasantly noisy and almost like a strange kind of shimmering on the edge of known existence. They walk through, while Roland gives each member of his ka-tet a bullet to stuff into their ears, so they do not have to hear the noise from the thinny. At the end, they see a greenish crystal palace, and know that they will be heading towards this destination.
However, they stop for the night. Roland finally tells the group his story, and this is where the rest of the book (well, most of it) picks up. That is when we are taken back in time to Roland's youth. And it is fascinating.
Basically, these three young men (Cuthbert, Alain, and their leader Roland) travel in disguise to a faraway town of Hambry, in the Barony of Mejis. There, they meet local officials, particularly Mayor Thorin and Chancellor Rimer. They pose as troublemaking boys who were sent to this faraway town as punishment. They keep this appearance up, hoping that the town folk, and the town officials, will be tricked into underestimating them. In reality, they are gathering information to find out if this town, and district, is still allied to Gilead.
This seems necessary, as the good man (Farson, also known by other names, including Randall Flagg, in some other King works) seems to be posing a challenge. So on the pretense of a punishment for bad behavior, the boy are sent to this far away, dusty outpost of their semi-charmed empire, if you will. And they feel a need to reinforce the bumbling image so that the town folk will hopefully underestimate them.
Still, this carefully preserved image is almost shattered out of necessity shortly after they arrive. They have a run-in with the Coffin Hunters, a trio of false gunslingers, and it is the boys who come out on top. Not only do they create potentially dangerous adversaries with these not quite gunslingers, but they alert some of the sharper officials in town that there is more than meets the eye with these seemingly elite, bratty children from the Inner Barony.
These boys have to be sharper than ever. Really have their wits about them. Yet the least likely of the three to be a weak link, Roland, suddenly seems more distracted than the other two have ever seen once he falls in love with local girl Susan Delgado.
Yet, while we do not know what is going to happen, specifically, we have our suspicions. After all, the Roland we have by now grown so used to is a loner, and seems incredibly cold, almost to the point where we are left to wonder about his humanity. As if, if he has any. So we kind of know in advance that this romance will end badly, that it is clearly not meant to last. Personally, I felt that King was able to make this heartbreaking story come alive.
This book always brings back pleasant memories, as the first time I read it, back in the summer of 1998, came during the last really long summer vacation of my younger days. My brother had moved to France the previous year, and he invited me over. So while I was switching from Bergen Community College to Rutgers for the fall of 1998, one last trip to France for several weeks seemed like a good idea. I suspected that it likely would be the last such long trip like that. And this was one of the books which I read during that trip, often reading it while sitting and enjoying some of the wonderful gardens of Paris, like the Tuileries and Luxembourg.
While I cannot claim to have had the bulk of this most recent reading of this book in such beautiful settings, I still very much enjoyed this book, just like the first time. A must for any fan of Stephen King, and especially to anyone who wonders just how much range King has with his writing ability. This is a big departure from his normal genre. And it is a testament to his being such a solid author that this proves to be very good and enjoyable. One of my favorite King books.
Highly recommended.
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