Cover Charge #2: The Heroic Journey Part II
On to Stephen King's Dark Tower saga. The plot of the tale is that Roland, a gunslinger (think cowboy meets knight) must find the title landmark, save it from being destroyed, and kill the Crimson King (somewhat like Sauron in the LOTR trilogy), who is the one trying to destroy it from his prison at the top.
Book I (The Gunslinger) opens with Roland (a descendant of King Arthur) following a man in black through the desert. Along the way he wipes out a few mutant villages with his unreal shooting skills, kills a boy named Jake (who will come back to life later), and finally confronts the man in black (who may or may not be Randall Flagg from The Stand, a.k.a. "the Wizard Flagg" from Eyes Of the Dragon).
Book II (Drawing Of the Three) opens a few minutes later with Roland 50 years older, sitting on a beach with waterlogged guns and giant lobsters trying to eat him. It centers around Roland's journey down the beach, where he finds doors into various times in our world's New York. Soon, Roland has a drug dealer (Eddie) and a schizophrenic black woman (Susannah) trapped in his world, and a paradox destroying his mind because he both killed Jake and wound up saving Jake's life.
Book III (The Waste Lands) revolves around the developing relationship between a drug-free Eddie and a single-minded Susannah, drawing Jake into Roland's world so that Roland's paradox will disappear, making their way through the war-torn city of Lud (where they knock heads with a man named Andrew Quick--the descendant of David Quick, who killed Goliath with a Nazi plane). Once through Lud, they board a computerized monorail who will kill them if they cannot ask him a riddle he cannot solve. Eddie fries the computer by asking it to solve dirty jokes, and despite a crash, they all survive.
Book IV (Wizard and Glass) opens after the crash and centers around Roland's childhood romance with a girl named Susan. Susan is killed by a trio called The Big Coffin Hunters (aka: Regulators--see The Regulators, or Low Men--see Hearts In Atlantis), as are Roland's childhood friends. Following the flashback, Roland & Co. find themselves in Randall Flagg's version of Kansas, where a superflu (see The Stand) has killed everyone and Flagg rules all from a green castle (see The Wizard of Oz).
Book V (Wolves Of the Calla) is a throwback to spaghetti westerns, opens after their confrontation with Flagg, and centers around the town of Calla Bryn Sturgis (named by King after his favorite spaghetti western director). In the Calla, all the women have twins, everyone has 19 (see Bag of Bones) letters in their name, and the town priest is Donald Callahan, who fought the vampire Barlow in King's book Salem's Lot. Roland & Co. spend most of the story preparing to save the town from Wolves (robots who look like Dr. Doom, carry Star Wars-style lightsabers, and throw exploding Sneetches--labelled "Harry Potter Model #HPJKR19"), who take one twin from each family every thirty years and send them back as retarded giants a year later. Roland's group is successful, and the story closes with Father Callahan reading Salem's Lot and finding out that he is not a real person.
Book VI (Song Of Susannah) piles a lot of story into a novel so short when compared to the rest of the series. Chief among them are the heroes' efforts to return to New York in "the key world" so they can protect a rose they believe to be the gateway to the Dark Tower, stopping Susannah's newly formed personality (Mia the Mother) from giving birth to the Crimson King's son (a plot that has been brewing since Roland re-drew Jake in Book III), and in a Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions twist, Roland and Eddie hold palaver (long periods of storytelling) with Stephen King himself before the book ends on a double-cliffhanger with Susannah/Mia handing herself over to the enemy and King's real-life accident on June 19, 1999, just 14 feet from the edge of Route 5 (see where King gets his 19 fixation from?).
Book VII (simply titled The Dark Tower) is the ultimate in tying up loose ends. As Jake and Callahan race to rescue Susannah from a dive bar full of Low Men and vampire elders, Roland and Eddie have a showdown with Eddie's old mob buddies. Travelling back to End-World (the evil suburbs of Mid-World, where demons, carniverous cacti, were-spiders, and shapeshifting butlers run rampant), the original ka-tet embark on a mission to storm a fortress and free a horde of imprisoned psychics (among them are Ted Brautigan from Hearts In Atlantis, Dinky Earnshaw from Everything's Eventual, and Roland's friend Sheemie from Wizard and Glass). When all is well (not that Callahan sacrificing himself and Eddie dying of a gunshot wound are good things, but at least the vampires and gangsters are all dead), Roland, Susannah, and Jake learn of King's impending accident and manage to do some damage control at the cost of Jake's life...again. Another round of dimension-hopping lands the remaining duo back in a frozen corner of End-World where they encounter Dandelo (a creature similar to the monster in It) who has imprisoned a gifted artist named Patrick Danville (whom we first meet in Insomnia as a child, and who may or may not be responsible for the magic painting in Rose Madder). After killing the Crimson King's son, rescuing Patrick, and seeing Susannah leave Roland's world via a magic door, we finally follow Roland to the Dark Tower, where he has a final showdown with the Crimson King and makes his way to the room at the top.
Now, at this point, prepare to be disappointed. You could stop reading the story as King suggests and leave things with a happy ending and a feeling of semi-satisfied irresolution in the pit of your stomach (in addition to that ball of tears in your throat from finding out that most of your favorite DT characters were killed off--it was Oy's death that really got me choked up), or you could choose to keep reading and follow Roland to the door at the top of the stairs. But remember that doors in this story aren't all they're cracked up to be. This door in particular opens on...the desert, with Roland having forgotten his entire journey thus far, once more following the man in black as he did in Book I. What the F---?
In Cell (King's foray into the zombie genre), graphic novelist Clayton Riddell is attacked on the way to a sales meeting and his work on a comic book series called "The Dark Wanderer" is destroyed in the confrontation, giving The Dark Tower a literary funeral of sorts. But King's use of what he terms "High Speech" in Lisey's Story and the introduction of Edgar Freemantle (a Patrick Danville-like character who forms a ka-tet of his own) and the red-cowled villainess Perse (a representative of the Crimson King?) in Duma Key would suggest that the struggle between good and evil for the Tower--and metaphorically, for the souls of men--is far from over...moreover, said struggle is a perpetual one.
On the commercial side of things, I guess that leaves room for expansion of the King Mediaverse, since the line that opens The Gunslinger and concludes the Dark Tower saga is the same line that begins the graphic novel, The Gunslinger Born, implying (although the details of the graphic novel do not clearly support or refute this) that the comics follow from Roland's passing through the door at the top of the Tower. Cool journey, good essay fodder, and a brilliant marketing ploy, but otherwise a big letdown of an ending.
In this series, King parallels many of his own books--as well as other pieces of literature, Hollywood classics, and world history--in an epic and highly original fashion. If I have bored you at this point, I apologize for wasting valuable time and web space. But if you are interested at all by the freakish nature of the plot and my own extensively nerdy research and frightening memory, I shall disappoint you with what I always say: there are too many intricate details to list here, so you must waste your own time by reading the books yourself.
A-
I apologize for stealing the catchphrase of a nonexistent, schizophrenic blind man (see King's second team-up with Peter Straub: Black House). But I'm ghetto, so here goes:
"Chew it up, eat it up, or wash it down, IT ALL COMES OUT THE SAME PLACE!"
I also apologize for modifying the catchphrase of an overpaid talk show host with bad hair. But again, I am ghetto, so here goes:
"SW@
out"
I have not yet read the eighth book, which chronologically takes place between Book IV and Book V, but I have found synopses online that describe it as yet another flashback novel like Wizard and Glass, and as such seems like an unnecessary appendix to the series, in this King-obsessed reader's point of view. Perhaps I will read it one day, but as Roland has been fond of saying (usually to keep some key piece of information close to the vest until he has time and opportunity to puzzle out its meaning), that is a story for another time. In place of palaver this issue, we have the Critical Quickie:
One In the Chamber--Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Dolph Lundgren. Cuba still wants you to show him the money, but this time he'll kill for it. The buyers: two factions of the Russian mob, who else? Lots of shooting, conversations in Russian, and a barely explained love interest worth losing interest in. The Russian mob angle has been done to death, but at least we get to see that the twice-Expendable Lundgren has a personality for once.
C-
Speaking of The Expendables, next issue leaves SW@ Ticket for the column formerly known as Sniperscope, whose inaugural issue saw me having the idea for the film well before its release. Stay tuned, stay focused, and beware the Coming Distractions.
Book II (Drawing Of the Three) opens a few minutes later with Roland 50 years older, sitting on a beach with waterlogged guns and giant lobsters trying to eat him. It centers around Roland's journey down the beach, where he finds doors into various times in our world's New York. Soon, Roland has a drug dealer (Eddie) and a schizophrenic black woman (Susannah) trapped in his world, and a paradox destroying his mind because he both killed Jake and wound up saving Jake's life.
Book III (The Waste Lands) revolves around the developing relationship between a drug-free Eddie and a single-minded Susannah, drawing Jake into Roland's world so that Roland's paradox will disappear, making their way through the war-torn city of Lud (where they knock heads with a man named Andrew Quick--the descendant of David Quick, who killed Goliath with a Nazi plane). Once through Lud, they board a computerized monorail who will kill them if they cannot ask him a riddle he cannot solve. Eddie fries the computer by asking it to solve dirty jokes, and despite a crash, they all survive.
Book IV (Wizard and Glass) opens after the crash and centers around Roland's childhood romance with a girl named Susan. Susan is killed by a trio called The Big Coffin Hunters (aka: Regulators--see The Regulators, or Low Men--see Hearts In Atlantis), as are Roland's childhood friends. Following the flashback, Roland & Co. find themselves in Randall Flagg's version of Kansas, where a superflu (see The Stand) has killed everyone and Flagg rules all from a green castle (see The Wizard of Oz).
Book V (Wolves Of the Calla) is a throwback to spaghetti westerns, opens after their confrontation with Flagg, and centers around the town of Calla Bryn Sturgis (named by King after his favorite spaghetti western director). In the Calla, all the women have twins, everyone has 19 (see Bag of Bones) letters in their name, and the town priest is Donald Callahan, who fought the vampire Barlow in King's book Salem's Lot. Roland & Co. spend most of the story preparing to save the town from Wolves (robots who look like Dr. Doom, carry Star Wars-style lightsabers, and throw exploding Sneetches--labelled "Harry Potter Model #HPJKR19"), who take one twin from each family every thirty years and send them back as retarded giants a year later. Roland's group is successful, and the story closes with Father Callahan reading Salem's Lot and finding out that he is not a real person.
Book VI (Song Of Susannah) piles a lot of story into a novel so short when compared to the rest of the series. Chief among them are the heroes' efforts to return to New York in "the key world" so they can protect a rose they believe to be the gateway to the Dark Tower, stopping Susannah's newly formed personality (Mia the Mother) from giving birth to the Crimson King's son (a plot that has been brewing since Roland re-drew Jake in Book III), and in a Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions twist, Roland and Eddie hold palaver (long periods of storytelling) with Stephen King himself before the book ends on a double-cliffhanger with Susannah/Mia handing herself over to the enemy and King's real-life accident on June 19, 1999, just 14 feet from the edge of Route 5 (see where King gets his 19 fixation from?).
Book VII (simply titled The Dark Tower) is the ultimate in tying up loose ends. As Jake and Callahan race to rescue Susannah from a dive bar full of Low Men and vampire elders, Roland and Eddie have a showdown with Eddie's old mob buddies. Travelling back to End-World (the evil suburbs of Mid-World, where demons, carniverous cacti, were-spiders, and shapeshifting butlers run rampant), the original ka-tet embark on a mission to storm a fortress and free a horde of imprisoned psychics (among them are Ted Brautigan from Hearts In Atlantis, Dinky Earnshaw from Everything's Eventual, and Roland's friend Sheemie from Wizard and Glass). When all is well (not that Callahan sacrificing himself and Eddie dying of a gunshot wound are good things, but at least the vampires and gangsters are all dead), Roland, Susannah, and Jake learn of King's impending accident and manage to do some damage control at the cost of Jake's life...again. Another round of dimension-hopping lands the remaining duo back in a frozen corner of End-World where they encounter Dandelo (a creature similar to the monster in It) who has imprisoned a gifted artist named Patrick Danville (whom we first meet in Insomnia as a child, and who may or may not be responsible for the magic painting in Rose Madder). After killing the Crimson King's son, rescuing Patrick, and seeing Susannah leave Roland's world via a magic door, we finally follow Roland to the Dark Tower, where he has a final showdown with the Crimson King and makes his way to the room at the top.
Now, at this point, prepare to be disappointed. You could stop reading the story as King suggests and leave things with a happy ending and a feeling of semi-satisfied irresolution in the pit of your stomach (in addition to that ball of tears in your throat from finding out that most of your favorite DT characters were killed off--it was Oy's death that really got me choked up), or you could choose to keep reading and follow Roland to the door at the top of the stairs. But remember that doors in this story aren't all they're cracked up to be. This door in particular opens on...the desert, with Roland having forgotten his entire journey thus far, once more following the man in black as he did in Book I. What the F---?
In Cell (King's foray into the zombie genre), graphic novelist Clayton Riddell is attacked on the way to a sales meeting and his work on a comic book series called "The Dark Wanderer" is destroyed in the confrontation, giving The Dark Tower a literary funeral of sorts. But King's use of what he terms "High Speech" in Lisey's Story and the introduction of Edgar Freemantle (a Patrick Danville-like character who forms a ka-tet of his own) and the red-cowled villainess Perse (a representative of the Crimson King?) in Duma Key would suggest that the struggle between good and evil for the Tower--and metaphorically, for the souls of men--is far from over...moreover, said struggle is a perpetual one.
On the commercial side of things, I guess that leaves room for expansion of the King Mediaverse, since the line that opens The Gunslinger and concludes the Dark Tower saga is the same line that begins the graphic novel, The Gunslinger Born, implying (although the details of the graphic novel do not clearly support or refute this) that the comics follow from Roland's passing through the door at the top of the Tower. Cool journey, good essay fodder, and a brilliant marketing ploy, but otherwise a big letdown of an ending.
In this series, King parallels many of his own books--as well as other pieces of literature, Hollywood classics, and world history--in an epic and highly original fashion. If I have bored you at this point, I apologize for wasting valuable time and web space. But if you are interested at all by the freakish nature of the plot and my own extensively nerdy research and frightening memory, I shall disappoint you with what I always say: there are too many intricate details to list here, so you must waste your own time by reading the books yourself.
A-
I apologize for stealing the catchphrase of a nonexistent, schizophrenic blind man (see King's second team-up with Peter Straub: Black House). But I'm ghetto, so here goes:
"Chew it up, eat it up, or wash it down, IT ALL COMES OUT THE SAME PLACE!"
I also apologize for modifying the catchphrase of an overpaid talk show host with bad hair. But again, I am ghetto, so here goes:
"SW@
out"
One In the Chamber--Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Dolph Lundgren. Cuba still wants you to show him the money, but this time he'll kill for it. The buyers: two factions of the Russian mob, who else? Lots of shooting, conversations in Russian, and a barely explained love interest worth losing interest in. The Russian mob angle has been done to death, but at least we get to see that the twice-Expendable Lundgren has a personality for once.
C-
Speaking of The Expendables, next issue leaves SW@ Ticket for the column formerly known as Sniperscope, whose inaugural issue saw me having the idea for the film well before its release. Stay tuned, stay focused, and beware the Coming Distractions.
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