The Blogslinger: Blogging The Dark Tower, October-November 2007–Day 32

Read: Wolves of the Calla–“Mia”; “Palaver”

Wow, November. I’m starting to feel like Roland. Who apparently has been at this whole “quest for the Dark Tower” thing for 1,000 years, which is lame because it busts the scale of his journey wide open and spills his mortality all over the floor. It’s fine that time is wonky, but you still need to place your hero’s life against the backdrop of a finite span of years or else his quest loses any sense of urgency. I’m certainly not the first person to point out that immortality has this effect. I know Roland’s not really immortal, but same difference.

Also in the “oh brother” category for this section: yet another obnoxious split personality for Susannah, although at least this one has the decency to slither around naked and covered in mud while eating small animals alive; the revelation that Roland and Company’s Fistful of Dollars reenactment in the Calla will be interspersed with thrilling New York City real-estate acquisition action in the Mighty Maine-Man Manner; and oodles of self-congratulatory there’s-no-such-thing-as-a-coincidence synchronicity. While the first two faults are probably more troubling in the long run because they indicate a fundamental misunderstanding of what is interesting about these books on the part of their author, it’s the third that irritates the most at the moment. Look, it’s really not that impressive that the number 19 keeps popping up–Stephen, you’re the one making that happen. Shit, you re-released the previous four books in large part so you could slap that number after the table of contents. Same thing with the name of the big-shot farmer in the Calla being the same as a Western author the bookstore owner mentioned to Jake two books back–Stephen, you named the character that! It’s all so transparently forced; none of it creeps up on you from between the cracks in the text like these sorts of mystical coincidences are supposed to do.

I remember the first time I read a book and realized not just that I didn’t like it, but that it was poorly written. It was a Kevin J. Anderson Star Wars novel in which Luke or whoever really needed to find potential Jedi to train. Any guesses as to whether an amazing ancient Jedi-detector device gets found within a few chapters? Home runs are a lot less impressive if they’re clearly the result of tee-ball.

3 Responses to The Blogslinger: Blogging The Dark Tower, October-November 2007–Day 32

  1. The 19s just get sillier.

    In contrast, I re-read The Dead Zone last year. I did get some real frisson when I found Johnny Smith’s ‘lucky number’ on the night of his car crash was 19.

  2. Sean says:

    Now THAT’S fun–when things just cropped up without being forced. “Holy shit, the Turtle!” etc. Looping all his books into one giant mythos is well and good, but this procrustean 19 stuff is gonna get old.

  3. The Blogslinger: Blogging The Dark Tower, October-November 2007–Index

    Here you shall find links to all of the posts in my blogathon reading of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series. This post will be updated with each new entry. Day 1: Introduction Day 2: The Gunslinger Day 3: The Drawing…

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