Childe Mattman To the Dark Tower Came: Book 1 - The Gunslinger

I recently decided to re-read Stephen King's Dark Tower series, something I haven't done since I read the books as they came out.  Almost as soon as I decided to do this I thought it might be a cool idea to blog my way through it.  This is my first entry.  It consists of my thoughts on Book 1 of the series - 

A lot of people I've talked to say THE GUNSLINGER is the hardest of the 7 books to get through.  On one hand I can understand this.  The book consists of 5 longish short-stories, the first of which was written by King when he was still in college, and there is some very heavy English Major prose within it.  At some points the book reads like it was written by a very young writer who is very impressed with the cool sentences he's coming up with, and when you're a young Stephen King that's not only to be expected but completely understandable.  On the other hand I find it funny that people say this book is hard to get through because it's the shortest of the DARK TOWER books.  It clocks in at a very brisk 231 pages.  Trust me when I say for King that's a very short book, and once it really gets going it's hard to put down.  

But like I already said, it's not so much a novel as it is 5 interrelated short stories that detail the journey of a mysterious gunslinger named Roland as he walks through a vast desert wasteland, following the even more mysterious Man in Black. The loose narrative might be what initially puts people off, and it also doesn't help that our protagonist is not very likable in this book.  He does some very nasty, soul-damning things in the name of his mission to catch up with the Man in Black and in turn find the location of the Dark Tower.  And what exactly is the Dark Tower?  Well it remains somewhat ambiguous in Book 1 but fear not, it does get explained later on.  Just rest assured that the Dark Tower is very important, and it is in grave danger unless Roland can save it.


One of the things I love about this book is the way it gradually reveals the setting to the reader.  At first you think it's some kind of spaghetti western, until the random dude with a bird's head walks by and just as quickly flees, or a piano player in the doomed town of Tull plays 'Hey Jude' in a dusty bar full of singing patrons.  With this book in particular King is channeling his inner Louis L'Amour and J.R.R. Tolkien (with a healthy dash of King Arther mythos in the flashback sequences that detail Roland's youth).  And just when you're used to the strange other-worldly setting and its strange inhabitants, in walks a young boy named Jake who hails from a distant land called Manhattan and has no idea how he got to this strange desolate place.  In no time at all Jake becomes a surrogate son to Roland, which ultimately doesn't turn out too well for either of them.         

This is also the simplest book in the series to follow story-wise.  The Dark Tower books as a whole eventually become very dense and expansive but Book 1 is pretty straight forward and can be best described in the iconic opening sentence -- "The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed."  That is the gist if Book 1, and the simplicity of it is what makes it such a great read.

And now for some spoilers for those who have read the books.  Those of you who haven't read it might want to skip this part...

The edition that I just finished reading is the revised and expanded edition King put out in 2003.  It has modified language and narrative changes to make it sync up better with the later books.  For example: in the original edition that was published in 1982 there was no mention of Roland's doomed soul-mate Susan Delgado but in the expanded edition he is haunted by her memory numerous times.  There are also a number of changes made to the major flashback scenes detailing Roland's past as a young Gunslinger in training under the tutelage of the brutal yet fair teacher Cort.  This is primarily noticeable in the later flashback detailing Roland's discovery of his mother's illicit affair with his father's trusted adviser Marten Broadcloak.  A discovery that eventually leads him to take on Cort in battle and thus becoming the youngest Gunslinger to ever come to be.  King has also tried to clean up some of the clunky writing (probably the main reason so many people I know had a hard time getting through it when it was first published) which makes the narrative easier to digest.  Generally I'm not too happy when storytellers such as George Lucas of Steven Speilberg re-write themselves but in this case I think it helps things immensely.  There's also a pretty awesome introduction by the author where he explains the origins of his writing these books and the reasons for the changes in this newest edition.

One of the highlights of Book 1 is Roland's sacrifice of the young boy Jake.  It's one of those scenes you know is coming but it still manages to come as a complete shock.  Even after we've seen Roland slaughter an entire town of men women and children we still can't fathom that he would do something so callously selfish as allowing his young companion whom he has grown very fond of to be taken to a long torturous death at the hands of the slow mutants.  Of course, as future books show, this sacrifice was anything but selfish, and Roland eventually gets around to saving the young man in a very complicated way that nearly drives both of them irreversibly insane.

And speaking of Jake's death, one thing I noticed more in my re-reading of the book was the juxtaposition of it's placement with the flashback story where Roland sacrifices his beloved falcon David to beat Cort in battle, thus earning his guns.  It's a great indicator that although his doesn't know it at the time, at the core of his character, Roland understands that he has a very important mission.  A mission that might very well require the death of everyone he holds dear.  And so focused is he on this mission that he walks into it with nary a second thought.  

And now it's on to Book 2 -- THE DRAWING OF THE THREE.  Seeing as how Book 1 is only a little over 200 pages long, and seeing as how the future books get progressively longer I think I'll blog for every 200 pages or so that I read, this way I can keep my thoughts fresh.  Until then -- long days and pleasant nights, and may you never forget the face of your father...