The Gunslinger

I've been waffling about The Dark Tower for years now. I've wanted to read it. But I didn't know if I wanted it to be my first Stephen King. But his other books are all so long, and the first of these was, at least, very short. Then the movie came out and I bought The Gunslinger. Then everyone hated the movie, so I let it sit on my shelf for a while. Then I picked up the second book at a used book sale on a whim and decided that it was finally time to just sit down and read this.

I didn't entirely know what to expect, going in to it. I've heard that it's slow and boring, easily the worst book of the series. I've also heard that it's the best book of the series. Several people told me it was their favorite book, bar none. I had plenty of room to make up my own mind about this book.

What happened, which I did not expect, was that I fell somewhere in the middle. This book was fine. It was slow, but I didn't mind that. It had a really interesting structure, the Russian nesting doll stories-within-stories (or flashbacks-within-flashbacks in this case) that I've been in love with since I read Gaiman's Worlds' End. It was so full of symbolism that I'm sure I missed a ton. I was able to glimpse just enough to see all I was missing out on.

I ended up looking up Tor's in-depth re-read to help me with all the stuff I was missing. This is where I learned that King completely rewrote the novel in 2002. My edition was printed in the 80s, and Tor was reviewing the newer edition, so I was able to see some of the changes King made. The biggest one seemed to be streamlining the structure - reorganizing it so that it was a bit more linear. Since the structure was my favorite part of the book I found that to be a little disappointing. In my version, it seems like King is actually telling the story in reverse for the first 50 pages or so, which is a big part of what drew me in.

Overall this book was slow and plodding. It hints at a lot without giving away much. The female characters are treated horrifically, which was off-putting. At one point he fucks (possibly rapes? it was unclear) a woman with the barrel of his gun in order to force her to miscarry the demon she is apparently carrying instead of a child. The whole scene was uncomfortable, and I totally get why she decided to try and kill the gunslinger afterwards.

I'm not totally sold on this series yet, but it definitely has potential. It's reminding me strongly of The Chronicles of Amber, which has me both wary about it's future and glad I read those books last year. We'll see where it goes after this.

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