11/22/63: A Novel by Stephen King — novel #261

  

What is the most devastating watershed moment of your lifetime? Would you change it if you could? Can you be certain the world would be better today if you did?

 

Stephen King’s 11/22/63 grapples with these questions in a mesmerizing thriller.

 

• Author: Stephen King
• American Lit, Science Fiction, Historical Fiction, Suspense, Thriller, Fantasy
• Published: 2011
• My edition: Scribner (eBook)
• Setting: Maine, 2011 and Texas early 1960s
• Awards: 2012 International Thriller Writers Award for Best Novel
• Also by this author (that I’ve read): The Stand; Dark Tower Series

 

In 2011, Jake Epping, a divorced high school English teacher from Maine, discovers a time portal, that always takes him back to 1958. No matter how long he stays in the past, when he reverses his path through the portal, he returns two minutes later than the moment in 2011 when he left.

 

And Jake has the chance to re-write history. He just has to hang out in the past for five years or so, until the title date of November 22, 1963, the date of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Stopping that would be a good thing, right? He can’t go back far enough to stop Hitler. He probably wouldn’t live long enough in the past to stop 9/11, but getting Lee Harvey Oswald, that would be well within his sights (pardon the macabre pun).

 

No brainer, right? It’s almost his duty.

 

But Jake learns several nuances of time-travel. Some of these nuances even have real-world names, like the “butterfly effect”: (in chaos theory) whereby a minute localized change in a complex system can have large effects elsewhere.

 

If you mix the butterfly effect with time travel, well just buckle up. There is no possible way to predict the outcome. And under no circumstances fall in love whilst redirecting the course of human history.

 

Throughout the story, Jake observes that the past is obdurate. It is almost a consciousness that resists Jake. The bigger changes he attempts to make, the more the past resists. I believe this was King’s main point. The past is obdurate. Some people say everything happens for a reason. I don’t believe the past has a conscience, but I do believe it has a sentient director, and he doesn’t need our help.

 

That’s my point, not King’s, but I don’t think his was far off. He makes a strong case, that even if we have the capability, we shouldn’t go messing with the past.

 

My rating 4 ½ / 5 stars

 

 

 

You probably know that King’s novels are all interconnected; some very bluntly, others more subtle. There’s a fairly blunt allusion in this novel. Jake makes a stop in Derry, Maine, the setting for IT, for some lesser time altering, and he learns there was a string of murders, children mostly, some years back. One of the locals tells him…

 

Other folks say he [the murderer] was a local who dressed up like a clown to keep from being recognized.

I love it when I catch those allusions. I’m certain I miss many.

 

King often references other writers. When Jake was describing the town of Derry, and the despairing malaise he sensed, he compared it to Ray Bradbury’s fictional town of Greentown, from the Green Town Trilogy, which includes Something Wicked This Way Comes, Jake states…

 

But there had been hidden horrors in Bradbury’s Greentown too.

Love that. Jake, the fictional character, had read real life Bradbury’s fiction.

 

Elsewhere, Jake’s love interest in the past, Sadie Dunhill, mentions a short story by Bradbury, A Sound of Thunder, that is entirely about time-travel and the butterfly effect.

 

And in the course of the novel Jake reads Tess of the d’Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy, and Oswald reads Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.

 

Finally two quotations:

 

Sadie reminiscing with Jake about their past…

 

How we danced!

And Jake sometime later to someone else…

 

Dancing is life.

This was an absolutely riveting read. I don’t think I’ve ever read an 800+ page novel so quickly. I’ve loved everything I’ve read by King. I’d welcome your views on Stephen King, and recommendations for what to read next by this prolific author.

 

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A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving, 1989 (novel #249)

I am a Christian because of Owen Meany. ~ John Wheelwright

A Prayer for Owen Meany is a coming-of-age story that is clearly personal for Irving, yet with themes that should resonate with many: friendship, fate, childhood-trauma, disillusionment, and faith. More than anything else it is Owen Meany’s life and testimony to the idea that everything happens for a reason.

 

In the opening paragraph, narrator John Wheelwright reveals some astonishing things about his friend Owen. According to John, Owen…

had a “wrecked voice”

was “the smallest person I ever knew”

was “the instrument of my mother’s death”

and was “the reason I believe in God”

Owen and John were best friends, indeed each other’s only friend, growing up in Gravesend, New Hampshire. Most of the novel is John’s childhood and young adult memories from the 1950s – 60s New Hampshire, with occasional flash-forwards to his current life in Canada, 1987.

 

Owen is an unusual child: small and with an unnatural high-pitched voice, which Irving always denotes by putting Owen’s dialogue in all-caps. (not yelling, just distinctly Owen Meany’s voice). Owen’s unimpressive physical traits are offset by a highly intelligent and perceptive mind.

 

Several events in Owen’s life convince him that he is fated, or more precisely, chosen by God for an extraordinary purpose. Some of these epiphanies are vague, some are crystal clear, such as the precise date of his own death. Owen develops several puzzling obsessions, such as practicing a basketball shot over and over, for years, with John. Neither were basketball players, and the shot would not have been lawful in any regard, and yet Owen is obsessed with perfecting the shot in under three seconds.

 

All these quirks are quite out of character for Owen and puzzling to John, but John obliges as he has become accustomed to Owen’s eccentricities. Owen never reveals all that he knows — or believes? — about his destiny, but John begins to realize that Owen is convinced about his fate and calling.

 

At first, I just thought Owen was a little nuts. Along with John I slowly realized he was a man on a mission. According to John…

…on the subject of predestination, Owen Meany would accuse Calvin of bad faith. 

And… 

I know that Owen didn’t believe in coincidences. Owen Meany believed that “coincidence” was a stupid, shallow refuge sought by stupid, shallow people…

Irving’s narration, via John is vivid and accessible. The characters are hopelessly flawed and believable, with the possible exception of Owen, who is intended to be extraordinary. Irving paints a quaint picture of a small-town New England where everybody knows everyone, and the slightly annoying issue that they know everyone’s business too.

 

John Wheelwright is in many ways autobiographical, but Irving has stated the character is a “what-if” version of himself. John is boring, even to himself, but he has Owen, and according to John… 

Owen Meany was enough excitement for a lifetime.

That’s the good stuff. But Irving does something during the flash-forward sections that I didn’t like. John, and I presume Irving by proxy, makes political commentary on the United States late 1980s. I didn’t feel it was relevant or necessary to the story; nor was it compelling. I believe the author has the right to use his novel in this way, and I have the right to not like it. I didn’t like it. I found it hypocritical when John accused a historical person of “bullying patriotism” and more so when John admitted that he possessed a “shallow, superficial” understanding” of world affairs, but not such that it stopped him from his own intellectual bullying.

 

Overall, it was an enjoyable read. I’m taking off half a star for the politicization.

 

My rating: 3 ½ out of 5 stars

 

 

This novel satisfies the “First and Last Name” category (the title must contain a first and last name) in the What’s in a Name? 2025 challenge.

 

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O Pioneers! by Willa Cather (novel #244)

But the great fact was the land itself, which seemed to overwhelm the little beginnings of human society that struggled in its sombre wastes.

Willa Cather’s O Pioneers!, published in 1913, is the first book of Cather’s Great Plains Trilogy: O Pioneers! Song of the Lark, My Ántonia. O Pioneers! tells of the Bergson family, Swedish immigrants to the Nebraska frontier. The story focuses on Alexandra, the only daughter, who, at her father’s death and by his wishes, becomes the business head of the family farm. The Bergsons, like others around them, are struggling to make ends meet, and there is mounting pressure to sell out and move back east.

 

Alexandra’s father is determined not merely to take a living from the land, but to love it and prosper.

 

John Bergson had the Old-World belief that land, in itself is desirable. But this land was an enigma. It was like a horse that no one knows how to break to harness, that runs wild and kicks things to pieces. He had an idea that no one understood how to farm it properly, and this he often discussed with Alexandra.

 

Alexandra inherits the vision from her father, and when he is unable to realize it in his lifetime, he wisely chooses Alexandra to see it through.

 

She had never known before how much the country meant to her. The chirping of the insects down in the long grass had been like the sweetest music. She had felt as if her heart were hiding down there, somewhere, with the quail and the plover and all the little wild things that crooned or buzzed in the sun. under the long shaggy ridges, she felt the future stirring.

 

It is a sweet tale, though not fast-paced nor thrilling. There are sometimes gaps of many years in the narrative. Contextual clues make it clear they were filled with slow, determined struggle, resilience, sacrifice, and human drama.

 

In addition to man, or in this case, woman, versus nature, there is indeed human drama. Alexandra is often at odds with her two oldest brothers, though they acquiesce for the most part. They seem to understand, but never acknowledge, that she is the brains of the operation. And there are two love stories: Alexandra and a family friend, and her youngest brother and his childhood friend. Circumstances don’t allow much of a chance for either.

 

Cather does an expert job of creating empathy for Alexandra. Remarkable since this reader at least has little pioneer spirit, nor any sense of connection to the land, which is Alexandra’s defining trait. She is a completely likable heroine in a story with few villains.

 

I did live in Nebraska a century after Cather, who moved there when she was nine. I lived in a modern city, and she grew up on the plains, so I defer to her portrayal of frontier life.

 

My rating 4 of 5 stars

 

For its timeless portrayal of American frontier life, for its themes of pioneer courage and vision, sacrifice, family, community, and love.

 

This is the second novel by Cather that I’ve read. The other being Death Comes for the Archbishop. I enjoyed both and will certainly read more by Cather, probably from the Great Plains Trilogy. I understand the trilogy is a new set of characters and non-chronological, so it may be read in any order.

 

This novel satisfies the “Wanderlust” category in the What’s in a Name? 2025 challenge. Titles for this category need to include words or phrases related to wanderlust.

 

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They Shoot Canoes Don’t They? by Patrick F. McManus

This is a collection of humorous short stories by Patrick McManus that originally appeared in Outdoor Life and Field and Stream magazines. All of McManus’ stories revolve around his outdoor misadventures – mostly hunting and fishing.

 

This particular volume includes the first story I ever read by McManus, the title story: "They Shoot Canoes Don’t They?" I read it in a doctor's waiting room, and I’ve been hooked ever since. One of very few authors who can actually make me laugh out loud.

 

The stories are droll and self-effacing, and although they are preposterous, I get the distinct impression many might just be based on actual events, albeit wildly embellished – perfectly appropriate for any sportsman yarn-spinner.

 

They are also marvelously relatable and often reminiscent to any outdoorsman.

 

In one story, "The Fishing Lesson", McManus reminisces...

 

Over the years, I’ve introduced several dozen people to the pleasures of outdoor sports. So what that some of them didn’t want to be introduced!

 

Yep, been there, done that.

 

They might otherwise have ended up as criminals or drug addicts or golfers. I like to think I’ve had some small part in saving them from such dismal fates.

 

This is the third collection published of at least 14. There are numerous recurring characters: Ma and Gramms, sister known affectionately as The Troll, dog Strange. There is his novice outdoorsman neighbor Al Finley and hunting and fishing companion Retch Sweeney. My favorite: the curmudgeonly mountain man and mentor from Patrick’s youth Rancid Crabtree (Crazy Eddie Muldoon does not yet appear).

 

Just good clean hilarious fun!

 

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Rabbit, Run by John Updike (novel #242)

There is this quality, in things, of the right way seeming wrong at first. ~ Harry (Rabbit) Angstrom

Rabbit, Run is the first of five in Updike’s “Rabbit” series, which follows the life of Harry (Rabbit) Angstrom. Rabbit has been described as the “middle-class everyman,” presumably of the
American 1950s.

 

Ugh…I hope not. I would borrow from another commentator, different author, different character. For me, Rabbit is “one of the most feckless characters in literature.

 

But before I comment further on this novel, I want to mention that in addition to being a Pulitzer-winning novelist, Updike was a distinguished literary critic. The following are his personal rules for literary criticism:

• Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.
• Give enough direct quotation—at least one extended passage—of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.
• Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy précis.
• Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.
• If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's œuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

I like these rules. They are fair and systematic. So, in deference to the author and the critic, I will attempt to review Rabbit, Run according to Updike’s rules.

 

Harry Angstrom, or Rabbit, a nickname picked up in childhood for a nervous flutter under his nose, is a married father of one, plus one on the way. He has an uninspiring job, demonstrating and selling kitchen gadgets. Rabbit was a big basketball star in high school and daydreams about his not-so-long-ago heroics. He reminds me of the characters from Springsteen’s Glory Days. His wife, is simple, alcoholic, and seven months pregnant.

 

So, I get the “everyman” designation. He has a deep sense of dissatisfaction; how could he not, following the world-saving exploits of the Greatest Generation, selling vegetable peelers, must have felt maddeningly impotent.

 

One evening, after work and getting his honey-do list from Janice…

Rabbit freezes, standing looking at his faint yellow shadow on the white door that leads to the hall, and senses he is in a trap. It seems certain. He goes out.

Meaning he runs. He intends to make it to the Gulf of Mexico and sleep on the sand, but he doesn’t have a map or much of a plan. He stops to ask directions, though Rabbit cannot say precisely where he is headed. He doesn’t get any helpful advice and prepares to leave…

[Rabbit] walks to his car door. He feels through the hairs on the back of his neck the man following him. He gets into the car and slams the door and the farmer is right there, the meat of his face hung in the open door window. He bends down and nearly sticks his face in. His cracked thin lips with a scar tilting toward his nose move thoughtfully. He’s wearing glasses, a scholar. “The only way to get somewhere, you know is to figure out where you’re going before you go there.”

 

Rabbit catches a whiff of whisky. He says in a level way, “I don’t think so.” The lips and spectacles and black hairs poking out of the man’s tear-shaped nostrils show no surprise. Rabbit pulls out, going straight. Everybody who tells you how to act has whisky on their breath.

I’m not very good at determining an author’s intent, and I’m not sure that Updike ever called Rabbit “every-man.” However, it does seem that he is trying to explain a dreadful ennui pervasive in mid-century American men. Did he achieve this? Powerfully, but I’m unconvinced that Rabbit was “every-man.” Most did not drive away, leaving wife and family.

 

I didn’t like Updike’s style of prose at first. There is never a break, never a pause. He doesn’t have chapters and only one or two blank passage of time sections. There might be a name for this, but I don’t know it. I’m certain this is not right, but it was almost like stream of consciousness by the omniscient narrator. I did grow more accustomed to his style, and I think it worked. It may have been intentional to show that life never lets up, leaving Rabbit feeling trapped.

 

I know this…I didn’t like Rabbit. I couldn’t even feel sorry for him most of the time. I just wanted to say, “Dude!?” An unlikeable character does not mean bad storytelling, but maybe Updike intended Rabbit to be at least a little likable. In that regard, for me, he failed. While reading this, I often thought of the eponymous character from Saul Bellow’s The Adventures of Augie March. Augie was immature and his own worst enemy, yet somehow, I liked him. He says of himself…

Lord, what a runner after good things, servant of love, embarker on schemes, recruit of sublime ideas, and good time Charlie.

Now that I’m done, I think I’ve written a fine review. Updike was a clever fellow.

 

My rating:  3 1/2 out of 5 stars

 

 

This novel was my read for the Classics Club Spin #40

 

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The Dark Tower: The Dark Tower series #7 by Stephen King (novel #241)

NOW COMES ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER! I HAVE BEEN TRUE AND I STILL CARRY THE GUN OF MY FATHER AND YOU WILL OPEN TO MY HAND!

The Dark Tower is #7 in Stephen King's eight-volume The Dark Tower series. It is a dark fantasy set in Earth’s future, where physical and metaphysical laws are significantly altered. There is some collective memory of the old world and occasional portals between the old and new; characters do not refer to different “worlds” but different “whens”. This is the final novel in the series…sort of. The story reaches its climax and conclusion with this volume, and I believe King intended it to be final. But then, I don’t know if it was fan interest or the author’s, but he wrote another volume, which takes place between volumes 4 and 5, unofficially volume 4.5.

 

Roland Deschain is a Gunslinger, not so much a description as a title or profession: a knightly order trained in personal combat to be defenders of justice. Roland is the last of the gunslingers; more precisely, he was. He is on a quest to find the Dark Tower and to set something right that has somehow gone horribly wrong in the world that moved on.

 

In volume #1, Roland was alone pursuing the man in black. In volume #2, he picks up two companions from a different when: 20th-century America. He encounters Eddie, a former drug addict, and Susannah, a former schizophrenic and double-leg amputee. Eddie and Susanah fall in love and become Roland’s companions and gunslingers in training. In volume #3, the three risk great peril to add one more to their group, a boy named Jake, also from the 20th century. Volume #4 is a flashback telling part of Roland’s backstory. Volume #5 is a detour from the quest when they assist a farming community harassed by evil and dangerous beings. The very end of volume #5 leaves a cliffhanger: Susannah, pregnant with an unnatural child. She leaves her companions and travels to a different when to deliver the child. In volume #6 Susannah delivers her “baby” with terrifying affect, while Roland and Eddie hunt down an author in Maine named Stephen King. King hates the term meta-fiction, but there it is. Meanwhile Jake and Oy are on Susannah's trail in New York. Both missions are crucial to the quest, which is tantamount to saving the universe.

 

In the Dark Tower, the five companions: Roland, Susannah, Eddie, Jake and Oy a dog-like creature fiercely loyal to Jake are reunited back in Roland’s when. They all sense the Dark Tower is near, as well as the end of their quest. These companions are known as ka-tet in Roland’s ideology/religion: a group of individuals fated together as one pursuing a common purpose.

 

When they are first reunited. There is a marvelous moment that the reader has been yearning for:

    “Hile, Jake,” Roland said.

    “Hile, Father.”

    “Will you call me so?”

    Jake nodded. “Yes, if I may.”

    “Such would please me ever,” Roland said. Then slowly – as one performs an action with which he’s unfamiliar – he held out his arms. Looking up at him solemnly, never taking his eyes from Roland’s face, the boy Jake moved between those killer’s hands and waited until they locked at his back. He had had dreams of this that he would never have dared to tell.

As they draw nearer to the Dark Tower, the perils grow greater, threatening not only the quest, but the survival of the ka-tet.

 

My rating for The Dark Tower individually is…

 

4 out of 5 stars

 

 

 

But, none of the individual volumes stand very well on their own, so I’ll now try to summarize my feelings for the entire series. Yeah, I’m not going to read volume 4.5. I’ve been to the Dark Tower now, and I don’t care to return to a back-story detour from the past. May it do ya fine.

 

But goodness, this is a daunting task. First, I really enjoyed it. Though, I didn’t quite love it, not as I did my only other experience with King, The Stand. The Dark Tower series is very long, and I think it suffered a bit in that. I know King wanted to write an epic fantasy, and he surely did, but at times it felt a bit contrived. I don’t believe he plotted out the entire story before writing, but rather wrote “as it came to him”. And it felt like that. I know that’s his process, though my words are surely a gross oversimplification, so my insignificant observation isn’t worth much and certainly isn’t a criticism. It just wasn’t always completely satisfying for me.

 

One of the advantages of reading classics is that it is mostly dead authors. Ugh! that sounds terrible. What I mean is, if I call Dickens a talentless hack, he’s never going to read my words so I can’t offend him. By the way, I love Dickens. A Tale of Two Cities is my #1 all-time favorite novel. But I experience a little trepidation when reviewing living authors because there is a slim chance they’ll read my review. I had that happen once. So Sai King, if you happen to read this…I love you man. The Stand is one of my top 10. No really. Check out Wanderer’s Top 100. And The Dark Tower #7 is in the Top 100. We good? Cool!

 

For the Dark Tower SERIES…

 

4 out of 5 stars

 

 

But I’ve a bit more to say. King says Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings was part of his inspiration. I believe that was mostly evident in just the epic fantasy part, but there were some very specific allusions: the dark tower itself, several glass orbs with communicative powers, a minor character named Thorin, a family named Took, and the hero of the tale loses not one, but several fingers, and others I’m certain I’ve forgotten.

 

Another inspiration was the spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Leonne, and the man with no name portrayed by Clint Eastwood. I recommend if you read The Dark Tower series to just go ahead and envision Eastwood as Roland.

 

Perhaps the most explicit inspiration is the poem by Robert Browning Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came. The poem is included in an appendix to volume 7.

 

King mentions many other authors and/or their works in his narrative. Volume 7 alone included references to: Ray Bradbury, C.S. Lewis, Richard Adams, John Fowles, J.R.R. Tolkien, John Updike (who I’m reading next), and H.P. Lovecraft. I love that King does this.

 

In the beginning of the series, the apparent villain is the man in black whom Roland is pursuing. He is a recurring villain in many of King’s writings and is also known as Randall Flagg, Walter o’ Dim, the Walking Dude, and many other names. He is a wicked sorcerer, always smug and almost always smiling. Ya learn to hate this dude. But he is the mere under-villain and servant to the Crimson King. They’re a little like Saruman and Sauron.

 

King includes two separate epilogues. In the first, there is a reunion of several characters who, we’ll just say completed their part in the tale before the finish. King writes a beautiful summary to their lives:

 

And will I tell you that these three lived happily ever after? I will not, for no one ever does. But there was happiness.

 

And they did live.

 

Now the second epilogue: I wish King had not included it. The final chapter of volume 7, and hence the series does not offer complete closure. At first, I was incredulous, not yet knowing the content of the second epilogue, but thankfully, I put the novel down for the night and by the time I picked it up the next day, I’d grown to love the ending. I could imagine the rest as I like, and it was…sorta clear…that all would be well. So, even though I said I’d wished King hadn’t written the second epilogue, I also think it was brilliant. He gently scolds the readers whom he knew would demand to know “what happened after that?” King rather reluctantly gives them what they want. It was very clever, cuz I’m sure he was right. There would have been many angry betrayed fans.

 

I don’t suppose I could convince you to just skip this section? Trust me; better that way.

 

Finally, I’m glad to have read this and I will definitely read more by Stephen King. Any suggestions? Thank ya fine.

 

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Song of Susannah: The Dark Tower series #6 by Stephen King (novel #240)

I’m nothing but Roland of Gilead’s [expletive] secretary. ~ spoken by fictional Stephen King, self-inserted into this novel by the real Stephen King

Song of Susannah is #6 in Stephen King's eight-volume The Dark Tower series. It is a dark fantasy set in Earth’s future, where physical and metaphysical laws are significantly altered. There is some collective memory of the old world and occasional portals between the old and new; characters do not refer to different “worlds” but different “whens”.

 

Roland Deschain is a Gunslinger, not so much a description as a title or profession: a knightly order trained in personal combat to be defenders of justice. Roland is the last of the gunslingers; more precisely, he was. He is on a quest to find the Dark Tower and to set something right that has somehow gone horribly wrong in the world that moved on.

 

In volume #1, Roland was alone pursuing the man in black. In volume #2, he picks up two companions from a different when: 20th-century America. He encounters Eddie, a former drug addict, and Susannah, a former schizophrenic and double-leg amputee. Eddie and Susanah fall in love and become Roland’s companions and gunslingers in training. In volume #3, the three risk great peril to add one more to their group, a boy named Jake, also from the 20th century. Volume #4 is a flashback telling Roland’s backstory. Volume #5, Wolves of the Calla, is a detour from the quest when they assist a farming community harassed by evil and dangerous beings. The very end of volume #5 leaves a cliffhanger when Susannah, pregnant with an unnatural child, leaves her companions and travels to a different when, late 20th century America to give birth.

 

Susannah is possessed by Mia, a minor demon who made a sort of reverse Faustian bargain to exchange her immortal being to become a mortal woman in order to have a baby. Mia needs Susannah, a fully human host, to carry the baby until the moment of delivery when the baby will be transferred from Susannah to Mia. Initially, Susannah fears the baby is a monster, but she learns it is the very human offspring of herself and Roland, though her pregnancy came about quite unnaturally.

 

Meanwhile, Roland, Eddie, Jake, and newly recruited gunslinger Father Callahan attempt to follow Susannah. Actually, Roland and Eddie intend to pursue Susannah, to 1999, while Jake and Callahan travel to 1977 to conduct business regarding their quest. However, the two pairs are sent to the other’s intended destination at the critical moment of passing through the portal. The gunslingers persevere and carry on, determined to do their best. This is particularly hard on Eddie, who is desperate to follow Susannah, but he soldiers on trusting Jake and Callahan to rescue his beloved.

 

In many ways, this was my least favorite volume thus far. It gets very weird; well, a King novel that isn’t weird would be weird, but this feels very contrived. I will spare further critique until I review the series as a whole.  In other ways, this volume was very good. The previous volume, Wolves of the Calla, hinted at a bit of metafiction, which comes full force in Susannah’s Song. It also contains very clever author self-insertion. King writes himself into the tale, every bit the best-selling author he is. Roland and Eddie travel to 1977 Maine on the quest business I mentioned. While there, they learn that Stephen King lives nearby and that he has written about Callahan, the newest member of their company. Callahan is in a different King story: Salem’s Lot. They find King and learn that he has written, but not yet published the beginning of The Dark Tower and created the character Roland of Gilead. He hasn’t gotten to Eddie yet. He tells them…

Yeah, The Dark Tower, it was called. It was gonna be my Lord of the Rings, my Gormenghast, my you-name-it.

And…

…you started to scare me, so I stopped writing about you.

Meeting his fictional creation in the flesh was rather disturbing to King, but Roland and Eddie convince him that he must complete The Dark Tower series. It was very clever and a bit confusing.

 

My rating: 3 ½ out of 5 stars

 

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Wolves of the Calla: The Dark Tower series #5 by Stephen King (novel #239)

As always, he [Roland] was never so happy to be alive as when he was preparing to deal death. Five minutes of blood and stupidity.

…he always felt sick afterwards.

 

Wolves of the Calla is #5 in Stephen King's eight-volume The Dark Tower series. It is a dark fantasy set in Earth’s future, where physical and metaphysical laws are significantly altered. There is some collective memory of the old world and occasional portals between the old and new, but characters do not refer to different “worlds” but different “whens”.

 

Roland Deschain is a Gunslinger, not so much a description as a title or profession: a knightly order trained in personal combat to be defenders of justice. Roland is the last of the gunslingers. He is on a quest to find the Dark Tower, and to set something right that has somehow gone horribly wrong in the world that moved on.

 

The precise meaning or mission of gunslingers is revealed gradually through this series. From volume 5:

He [Eddie] knew from Roland’s stories (and from having seen him in action a couple of times) that the gunslingers of Gilead had been much more than peace officers. They had also been messengers, accountants, sometimes spies, once in a while even executioners. More than anything else, however, they had been diplomats.

Roland himself explains more succinctly:

Fighting for those who can’t fight for themselves is our job.

In volume #1, Roland was alone. In volume #2, he picks up two companions from a different when: 20th-century America. He encounters Eddie, a former drug addict, and Susannah, a former schizophrenic and double-leg amputee. Eddie and Susanah become Roland’s companions and gunslingers in training. In volume #3, the three risk great peril to add one more to their group, a boy named Jake, also from the 20th century. Volume #4 Wizard and Glass was a flashback and Roland’s backstory.

 

Volume #5 returns to the quest, but only briefly. The gunslingers are forced to detour when they encounter a farming community harassed by evil and dangerous beings. According to their code, the Gunslingers must render aid and succor. The Calla is the farming community of Calla Bryn Sturgis, and the enemy is the Wolves: not actual wolves but seeming humans behind wolf masks.

 

The odds seem impossible, and there is a traitor in their midst, but Roland is undeterred.

As always, he was never so happy to be alive as when he was preparing to deal death. Five minutes of blood and stupidity.

 

…he always felt sick afterwards.

Besides the looming battle, an important sub-text is present. Susannah is in a delicate condition: she doesn’t show because the “chap” within her is an unnatural and evil being that will likely destroy her once released. At the critical moment of battle his arrival seems imminent, but Susannah forces it to wait by force of will. Shortly after the fight, she leaves her fellow Gunslingers and travels to a different when…the story of the next volume, Song of Susannah.

 

I’ve spoken of the four companions or the four Gunslingers: Roland of Gilead, Eddie Dean, his wife Susannah, and a boy Jake Chambers. There is one more companion I’ve not mentioned thus far: Oy, a doglike creature called a Billy Bumbler from Roland’s when. Oy becomes Jake's fiercely loyal companion. Billy Bumblers mimic human speech, but Oy demonstrates particular intelligence. His speech often conveys meaning beyond just mimicry.

 

I think a new gunslinger is joining the quest. The gunslingers encounter Father Callahan in Calla Bryn Sturgis. He is from 20th-century America but has taken up ministering to the folk of the Calla. This volume involves some traveling between different whens, and Callahan discovers a book of fiction by Stephen King from the 20th century. Callahan is disturbed to find that Salem’s Lot tells his story, causing him to question his own existence.

 

Thus far, I’ve rated each volume of the series individually and I will stick with that until the end, but I’m forming an opinion for the whole as well. This volume can probably stand on its own better than the others, though there is a maddening cliffhanger: what is to become of Susannah? But again, on its own, Wolves of the Calla is very exciting, very satisfying, and at the same time piquing my interest for more.

 

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

 

 

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Wizard and Glass: The Dark Tower series #4 by Stephen King (novel #238)

What you call ‘the bottom line,’ Eddie, is this: I get my friends killed. ~ The Gunslinger

Wizard and Glass is #4 in Stephen King's eight-volume The Dark Tower series. It is a dark fantasy set in Earth’s future, where physical and metaphysical laws are significantly altered. There is some collective memory of the old world, and characters describe the present state as a world that has “moved on.” There are portals between Roland’s world and the old world.

 

Roland Deschain is a Gunslinger, not so much a description as a title or profession: a knightly order trained in personal combat to be defenders of justice. Roland is the last of the gunslingers. He is on a quest to find the Dark Tower, and once finding it presumably to set something right that has somehow gone wrong in the world that moved on.

 

Thus far, the exact purpose of gaining the Dark Tower is not precisely clear, but it does begin to come into focus in volume #4.

 

In volume #1, The Gunslinger, Roland was alone. In volume #2, The Drawing of the Three, he picks up two companions from 20th-century America: Eddie, a former drug addict, and Susannah, a former schizophrenic and double-leg amputee. Eddie and Susanah become Roland’s companions and gunslingers in training. In volume #3, The Waste Lands, the three risk great peril to add one more to their group, a boy named Jake, also from the 20th century. It is unclear if Jake will become a gunslinger. Roland loves him like a son, but nothing…NOTHING…is more important than finding the Dark Tower.

 

Wizard and Glass is more of a flashback than anything else. Roland’s companions question him about his past, his family, how he became a Gunslinger, a lost love he occasionally refers to, and the origins of his quest for the Dark Tower. Most of this volume is the four sitting around the campfire as Roland recounts his past. I can imagine that during the original publication, readers were clamoring for Roland’s backstory. This is it.

 

I didn’t have to wait for the next volume to be published, but I was just as anxious about this missing segment. It is riveting and tragic – my favorite in the series thus far.

 

After Roland finishes his story, he releases his four companions from their part in his quest, even though he knows they are critical to success. The retelling of his tale sharply highlights his sacrifice, and Roland will no longer risk everything and everyone for the Dark Tower.

 

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

 

 

There is little humor in this story, but occasional comic relief. Roland is typically stoic and even severe. He espouses a mystic notion of ka: something like fate, but when his companions use ka in argument against him, Roland's only response is “kaka”.

 

…the three of them stared at him, mouths open.

Roland of Gilead had made a joke.

 

In the world that has moved on, there are vestiges of former things though sometimes a bit confused: some ancient songs are remembered, Hey Jude, for instance; Punch and Judy shows are played now as Pinch and Jilly; derelict vehicles and buildings bear meaningless words such as Chevrolet or Citgo; people remember Arthurian legend; and there are memories of the ancient religion and Jesus, relegated to legend himself.

 

On a personal note, I felt it was time to address this treatment of Christ. As a Christian, I considered abandoning this series for this near blasphemy, but after prayerful consideration, I don’t feel that is necessary. I am not inclined to defend that decision here. I only felt compelled to profess that Jesus Christ is not a legend and never will be, no matter how the world may move on.

 

Peace

 

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The Waste Lands: The Dark Tower series #3 by Stephen King (novel #237)

He thought he was at last beginning to fully understand what that innocuous phrase – the world has moved on – really meant. What a breadth of ignorance and evil it covered. ~ thoughts of Eddie Dean

The Waste Lands is the third in Stephen King's eight-volume The Dark Tower series. It is a dark fantasy set in Earth’s future, where physical and metaphysical laws are significantly altered. There is some collective memory of the old world, and characters describe the present state as a world that has “moved on.” There are portals between Roland’s world and the old world.

 

In volume I, the reader is introduced to the gunslinger Roland Deschain. Gunslinger is not so much a description as a title or profession: a knightly order trained in personal combat to be defenders of justice. Roland is the last of the gunslingers.

He had never been a man who understood himself deeply or cared to; the concept of self-consciousness (let alone self-analysis) was alien to him.

 

Like many things in this series, the reader gradually learns the full meaning and significance of “gunslinger.”

He was not broad-shouldered, as Marshal Dillon had been, nor anywhere near as tall, and his face seemed to her more that of a tired poet than a wild-west lawman, but she had still seen him as an existential version of that make-believe Kansas peace officer…  ~ Susannah’s perception of Roland Deschain

 

Roland is on a quest to find the Dark Tower, and once finding it presumably to set something right that has somehow gone wrong in the world that moved on. Through volume #3, the exact purpose of gaining the Dark Tower is not yet precisely clear.

 

In volume #1, Roland was alone. In volume #2, he picks up two companions from 20th-century America: Eddie, a former drug addict, and Susannah, a former schizophrenic and double-leg amputee. Eddie and Susanah become Roland’s companions and gunslingers in training. In The Waste Lands, the three risk great peril to add one more to their group, a boy named Jake, also from the 20th century. It is unclear if Jake will also become a gunslinger, only that Roland loves him like a son. But nothing…NOTHING…is more important than finding the Dark Tower.

 

I enjoyed this volume. It was exciting, like each volume thus far, but it might have been my least favorite. King has created a world of fantastic physical and meta-physical qualities that, in this volume, seemed a little incongruous and confusing. Perhaps my confusion made them seem incongruous. Nonetheless, hard to put it down. So far, each volume reaches a dangerous climax, a miraculous victory, and a brief return to normalcy, normal for Roland’s world, but no real closure. The action and desperation usually pick up quickly in the next volume, so I am off to begin volume #4.

 

My rating: 3 1/2 out of 5 stars

 

 

In the King multiverse, I understand that there is an interconnection of most, if not all, of Stephen King’s stories. The only other work I’ve read by King is The Stand (loved it), and I’m familiar with a few others due to film. So, I won’t detect most interconnections, but I did find one between The Stand and The Dark Tower. At one point, while traveling the wastelands, Roland and company find a 20th-century newspaper that refers to a worldwide pandemic that exterminated most of humanity. The article identifies the virus as Captain Trips: a direct reference to the pandemic in The Stand.

 

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