The Blogslinger: Blogging The Dark Tower, October 2007–Day Three

Read: The Drawing of the Three–“Prologue: The Sailor”; “The Prisoner”

I don’t know if it’s just the slightly more conventional typeface used in my copy of this book or what, but even before we jump into modern-day America with the gunslinger, this book feels a lot more like a traditional Stephen King story. Maybe it’s those creepy “lobstrosities” (neologisms FTW!) that crawl out of the water and chop off Roland’s fingers and toes–not only do they feel like angry refugees from “The Mist,” but their simple presence as a swarm of megafauna in a world that I’d assumed was pretty much depleted of such things by this point changes the abandoned feel of the gunslinger’s environment instantly. They also dramatically raise the stakes right off the bat, irrevocably injuring the main character in a way that fundamentally alters his ability to live up to his own title–it’s a lot tougher to sling guns with two fingers missing from your right hand–and leaving him at death’s door.

Speaking of doors, the door concept, the portal by which Roland can enter our world through the eyes of junkie and amateur drug-smuggler Eddie Dean, is certainly a striking image, especially when you learn it’s always visible to the travelers if they turn their heads back. And Roland’s culture shock is a lot of fun, as is the basic idea that he can hijack this poor junkie dude, as is the smuggler’s-blues/never-trust-a-junkie interior monlogue King gives Eddie.

But I can’t for the life of me figure out why the door is there, or more specifically what Roland did to earn his discovery of it. Was it sacrificing Jake and catching the man in black? Who, by the way, he didn’t even really defeat–the guy just kind of gave up and ended up dying of old age in the real world while taking Roland on a guided tour of the universe in his mind or the astral plane or whatever? Having the door just magically appear feels like a cheat.

Meanwhile, Roland’s initially entertaining foray into Eddie’s world culminates in extravantly overwritten, not-at-all-believable confrontations with an airplane flight crew and a bizarrely multiethnic mafia family, the latter of which is gilded with an ersatz Godfather philosopher-king don and his central-casting goons who’re all about as realistic as comparable characters from your basic grim’n’gritty hackwork Batman comic. Surely there have been other times where King has dropped the ball this completely in his depiction of an American subculture, but I can’t think of one nearly as glaring. It undermines the already shaky realism of the climactic shoot-out and the emotional weight of Eddie’s final decision to join Roland on the other side of the door. Let’s see if the drawing of character #2 ends on a higher note.

PS: Looks like Bruce Baugh will be blogging a (re-)read-through of The Dark Tower too–including related novels from throughout King’s body of work. Compare and contrast!

PPS: Did I ever mention that Roland doesn’t still have a hawk?