‘The Gunslinger’ – Stephen King (Hodder)

 

Page Count: 238 Pages

It has been an absolute age since I last read the ‘Dark Tower’ books (I was at least a couple of years away from my eldest daughter being born) so, seeing as none of the other books in the TBR pile were working for me, I figured it was about time I did something about that. I’m not setting myself any ‘reading goals’ or anything like that; I’m struggling with work deadlines (as it is) and I want this to be fun, not a chore. I’m just going to read along until Roland makes it to the top of the Dark Tower, even though I know what he finds once he gets there. Considering I picked up ‘The Gunslinger’ on Saturday and finished it the same day, well… It might not take that long to polish off the rest of the series. We shall see.

Anyway…

Roland of Gilead, the Last Gunslinger, is a haunting figure. A loner, on a spellbinding journey into good and evil, in a desolate world which frighteningly mirrors our own.

In his first step towards the powerful and mysterious Dark Tower, Roland encounters an alluring woman names Alice, begins a friendship with Jake, a kid from New York, and faces an agonising choice between damnation and salvation as he pursues the Man in Black.

Coming back to this series, for a re-read, is going to be a little strange as like I said, I know exactly what is coming for Roland; I was cool with it last time round, I wonder if I’ll feel the same this time round. Some things have stayed the same though, one of those is a nagging feeling that although I’d never skip ‘The Gunslinger’, it’s not the best way to open a series. I mean yeah, it’s not like I could do any better but even so, ‘The Gunslinger’ is worth sticking with, just a really tough nut to crack in these initial opening stages. It boils down to two things for me…

From where I’m sat, ‘The Gunslinger’ reads at a slightly haphazard pace, jumping back in time to fill in backstory but breaking up the flow of the main narrative as a result. A quick look at Wikipedia confirms something that I’d vaguely remembered reading years ago; ‘The Gunslinger’ was originally five short stories that were grouped together and reworked to form the novel itself. It has since been revised as well. I’m not saying that the approach didn’t work, because I think it did, I’m just wondering if some of the places where I stumbled were ‘the joins’ (so to speak). Maybe…?

The other thing I was left wondering is that perhaps King did his job a little too well… Pardon my paraphrasing but in his introduction, King talks about wanting to write a novel that ‘contained Tolkien’s sense of quest and magic but set against Sergio Leone’s almost absurdly majestic Western backdrop (via ‘The Good. The Bad And The Ugly)’. He then goes on to talk about the desert settings appearing to ‘stretch out at least as far as the orbit of the planet Neptune’, you get the picture ;o)

The thing is, King absolutely nails these kind of vistas when detailing Roland’s journey. If you’ve read the book then you’ll know what I mean; If you haven’t, just take my word for it. Whenever I’ve seen a fantasy author described as ‘the American Tolkien’, I’ve always found it slightly unfair that this title wasn’t applied to Stephen King and his ‘Dark Tower’ series. And as far as the world building side of things go, King gives his reader a sense of not only the sheer size of the world but also just how much of its history has been forgotten and is almost myth now.

The only problem is that like I said, King is a little too clever for his own good here. Roland’s story (basically one man crossing a desert and having mini-adventures along the way) rattles about in the vast distances of the backdrop and as a result, is shown for what it is, an introduction to a longer tale but perhaps not quite enough to carry this book by itself. That’s just me though, your mileage and all that ;o)

Things do pick up though and reading ‘The Gunslinger’ ultimately has me keen to keep going, I’m just waiting for a new copy of ‘The Drawing of the Three’ to turn up.

King pulls a really neat trick of showing us just how awesome Roland is but then, almost immediately, turning it all upside down and having us wondering whether Roland’s dogged determination, and skill as a Gunslinger, will ultimately play against him at the end. Or is the Man in Black just messing with him? We get to see Roland display a little humanity, when travelling with Jake, but straight away, we’re left wondering if that humanity will hamstring him or even if he has enough humanity in him at all. And we can see that when Roland is on his own territory, he is more than capable of holding his own against otherworldly threats; it’s made clear though that his determination highlights a lack of imagination that will hurt him when he moves beyond the world that he knows.

There is an intriguing mix of questions here, all punctuated with gunfire when the need arises. Plenty to ponder and plenty to see then; in that sense ‘The Gunslinger’ is a thoughtful read that’s a lot of fun as well.

Like I said, ‘The Gunslinger’ is a tough nut to crack but when you do, it swiftly becomes a read that not only had me hooked but also had me, and my kids, hunting for a copy of ‘The Drawing of the Three’. Know what you’re getting into then but also know that ‘The Gunslinger’ will pay you back for your efforts.