Read: Wizard and Glass–“Come, Reap” chapters 1-5

Jeez, this is one long-ass flashback, isn’t it? I dared a peak at the back-cover blurb (something I basically never do with a book I already know I want to read until after I finish it–who needs informed expectations?) and discovered that the book is essentially touted as being one giant “remember when” story. So again we have a pretty radical break with the format of the preceding volumes.

I’m still enthralled by this story, incidentally. It’s not just King’s “period” work in the series is superior to his standard modern-day mode, though it is. And it’s not just the mounting suspense leading toward the final confrontation, though that’s a hoot. It’s little details that don’t appear to have much payoff, thrown in there just because it makes things a bit richer–Eldred Jonas and Coral Thorin’s mutually fulfilling sex life, for example. I’m not sure why that’s in there, except to make the book’s heavy and one of its supporting characters more fun to read about.

But there were several momentous revelations in this section that probably trump all the fun little touches:

1) Roland, Cuthbert, and Alain all survive whatever battle is to come. We find this out in one of those throwaway glimpses at the future of which King (and Tolkien) is evidently fond:

By the time the following year’s Huntress [Moon] came around, all three of them would be confirmed smokers, tanned young men with most of the boyhood slapped out of their eyes.

So unless they spend another year in Hambry–which, judging by how many pages remain in this flashback section according to the table of contents, is a non-trivial possibility now that I think of it–they live to fight another day. I was actually pretty happy to read this because I enjoy knowing the good guys will win, though a similar throwaway bit about how the young gunslingers would rue Roland’s decision not to kill Rhea the witch and have done with it indicates that there’s some bad stuff heading their way even though they survive. There’s no guarantee Susan will, that’s for sure, and I’m guessing she doesn’t.

2) The Wizard’s Glass is an object of Ring of Power/Palantír-level magic and addictiveness. I enjoyed how this sort of slowly worked its way into the story–brief unexplained joking references made to the Wizard’s Rainbow by the boys–before we get the flashback-within-a-flashback where Roland’s dad explains to them what these 13 magic crystal balls are and advises them to be on the lookout for the pink-colored one because it’s believed John Farson has ahold of it. It’s a hell of a coincidence that they happen to stumble across this very object in their backwater hideaway, but I guess that’s ka. Ka, destiny, fate, and magic are wonderful cheats for writers, you know.

3) Um, Walter is Flagg? Walter is Flagg! Admission: I had this revelation, which would have had me totally flipping my shit and probably actually waking my sleeping wife up this time around, spoiled for me by the dopey Wikipedia entry for Eyes of the Dragon, goddammit. I tried to convince myself it was a mistake, but I wasn’t good enough at that to un-spoil myself. Oh well, it’s still pretty fucking rad. But it begs quite a few questions: Walter/Flagg gives everyone who meets him, including cold-blooded killers, a serious case of the heebie-jeebies–so how come he fit right in as a “loyal” member of Roland’s dad’s retinue? Why pick a name that doesn’t have the traditional “R.F.” initials–is it just because King thought of Walter before Flagg and was stuck with the moniker? Did Flagg also have a non-R.F. name at some point during his career in the world of The Eyes of the Dragon or am I misremembering? Why does Walter speak in modern-day Flaggisms to Jonas (and presumably everyone else he deals with on Farson’s behalf) yet in the more archaic mode of Mid-World and In-World when he and Roland meet in The Gunslinger? Is that the part of The Gunslinger that gets the most heavily revised, in order to make Walter mesh with Flagg as we know him? Earlier “Argument” sections have called Walter a servant to the “even more powerful sorcerer” Marten–is he really Marten’s servant, and is Marten really more powerful, or is that deliberate misinformation, or did King just not know where he was going with all this yet, or what? Roland once recalled seeing Flagg–as Flagg, not as Walter, presumably–turn some dude into a dog while being chased through Mid-World by Dennis and Thomas from The Eyes of the Dragon–how did he not put two and two together? Does this, and Flagg’s ability to dupe Roland and his dad, have to do with his previously undisclosed power to appear as completely different people depending on who’s looking at him? When Walter warned Roland about the Ageless Stranger, he was really warning Roland about himself? Whose bones were those on the ground after Roland woke up from his long vision if not Walter/Flagg’s? Yes, questions, questions, questions, flooding into the mind of the concerned young person today.

Anyways, it’s a crackling good yarn. One final observation: I’m keeping my eye on Olive Thorin.

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