Read: Song of Susannah–“8th Stanza: A Game of Toss”
Even though I read it today, I had to flip through this chapter before starting to write this post just to remember what was in it. As best I can tell it exists to point out that Roger Clemens is a good pitcher, that people in New England like the Red Sox a lot, that Eddie dislikes that Calvin Tower character, and that King thinks that ‘Salem’s Lot is “a corker” of a book and that he himself is a pretty nice guy. Mostly it makes me wish that I could use Black Thirteen to go back in time and stop the goddamn fucking Red Sox from ever winning a World Series ever, just to ruin King’s day.
Seriously, what the hell, people. This is not entertaining. You people who encouraged me to stick with this? I’m coming for you.
If you somehow inexplicably do the Red Sox any harm, I’m coming for YOU, Collins.
I think you’re at the part I was at when I realized King was really for real inserting himself into the book as a major character and I wanted to hit him in the head. But then I kept reading (you’re so close to the end!) and it turned out better than I thought it would. So not to say that you’ll feel the same way but I actually ended up liking how he tied it all together in his own way in the end.
What Matt said. It is really not the usual self-insertion.
But also…
You may want to take a break. Seriously. It’s not like King wrote these all at once, and they add up to a lot of pages. Burning out for the sake of monomania seems…seems…not like your usual failure mode, for one thing. 🙂 Set them aside and go do something else for a week.
I gotta keep going. I want to be finished!
Did you get to the Demon Baby’s into yet? It’s very frickin’ cool and you will love it.
This chapter… been a while since I read it, but I don’t remember not liking it. An appropriate sense of urgency creeps back into the prose as the books crawl on (I mean, if the tower collapses, it’s the end of life, the universe and everything, so it’s like, sort of important, ya know?)
um, stylistically, you know, this isn’t a short story, it’s a novel, bloated and meandering at times, this is something I noticed as well, reading it. perhaps it’s not as tight as the earlier books.
And ultimately, everything is a matter of taste, so maybe you won’t like it after all. :p
But you are almost done and I do think you’ll dig the ending.
As you may have guessed, by “Demon baby’s into” I meant to type “Demon baby’s INTRO”.
Also, the sox are lame.
I stopped stone dead a year ago after finishing Song of Susannah. You’ll know what I mean when you get there. I just could not continue from that point, because all the stakes in the story were to me erased completely.
Dan,
I’m dying to know what part you mean?
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…