"The seventh and final installment of Stephen King's The Dark Tower saga is perhaps the most anticipated book in the author's long career. King began this epic tale about the last gunslinger in the world more than 20 years ago; now he draws its suspenseful story to a close, snapping together the last pieces of his action puzzle and drawing Roland Deschain ever closer to his ultimate goal."
The part we're waiting for. The part we all read seven big books for.
I realized at least two or three books ago that there would be no way he could end it that would please everybody. And as I read on, I had no idea how he'd end it and decided to have no preconceived notions or hopes.
I can cover what truly bothered me pretty quickly; King's importance in the plot and Flagg's death. Not that I need a 150 page battle between Roland and Flagg, but to be so easily dispatched by a child who would later prove to be absolutely no threat to Roland seems wrong. Was this really the best that Roland's lifelong enemy could do? I don't know, it just doesn't add up. As for King, I didn't like his part in the plot during Song of Susannah (narcissistic) and was hoping it would not dominate the final volume, which it doesn't. I will admit that it didn't turn out as bad as I feared (I half expected Stephen King to be in the top room of the Tower), and I do appreciate that it ties the story to reality through something other than the fictional Tet Corporation in NY. While this is nice, I could have done without King ever having been in the story.
Others were bothered by the quick deaths of Mordred and the Crimson King. I wasn't. Mordred may have been powerful, but he was still a child; and a sick, dying child at that. He had to make an ill-advised move out of desperation, and I think it was wonderful that Oy was able to die defending Roland. As for the Crimson King, while the battle may have been brief, it was still exciting and not without great word play between Roland and the CK.
But boy, I sure didn't expect that!
I have to say, that upon reading the intro to the final chapter from the Storyteller himself, the warning to not read on and leave the story as it is, I was tempted to do so. I know many wouldn't agree with me, but I think Roland entering the Dark Tower and the doors shutting behind him wouldn't be a bad way to end the book. It would leave it to your imagination, what he would find there. I really almost put it down to sleep on it. But then I thought no, I have to go on. I've come this far!
Yes, in a way, the ending is tragic, sad, and extremely unfair. We have read now thousands of pages worth of Roland Deschain's torments and struggles he's gone through to get this far, and then only to have been blasted back to the beginning? It's horrible. It makes you angry. Or at least shocked. A knee jerk reaction might be to say that it was a cop out, that King didn't know how to end the book at went this route at the last minute.
I don't really believe that.
In a way, yes, I find the ending bittering. My heart really is broken for Roland. I don't think I've ever read a book with an ending that has left me so effected. I even reread the very end of it again this morning over breakfast. Yes, the ending is bittering, and yet, I love it in a lot of ways too. Not love it as in this is the way I think it should have ended, but love it because it knocked me on my backside, love it in the way that you can love a bad thing at times. In a way, to me at least, the ending just might make a little sense.
It you really think about it ... what did you expect to happen to Roland once he reached the top of the Tower? Would he pass into a sort of Heaven, rejoined with his love Susan and his former Ka mates? That is probably the ending some people wanted. And if that's what happened, I would have been fine with that too. Would he have confronted God himself? And if so, what would Roland have done before such a God? Roland, one of the things that makes him so wonderful, is kind of a jerk. After all that trouble, all that sacrifice, if said God said something Roland didn't like, I think, much like Conan, he'd tell his Maker to take a flying leap, maybe even draw his gun on him and get blasted into nothingness.
But why this? Why the torture? I think the answer is in Roland himself. I think it's a sort of punishment for Roland's arrogance and pride. I think Roland's destiny was to save the Beam, save the Dark Tower. He did that. But he insisted on moving on. He insisted on going to the top of the Dark Tower, something that is perhaps forbidden by Gan or the Powers That Be. He saved the Dark Tower, saved the Beam, and yet it was not enough. As always (and as echoed by the voices he hears at the end of the book) he has to have it His way. And for that, I think, like something out of Greek myth, he has to pay a price.
And as King himself says in the Afterword, there is a bit of hope. In the next incarnation, he has the Horn of Eld. Something he didn't have in the previous. Perhaps, just perhaps, with some more trial and error, once the Beam and the Tower saved (perhaps stilling getting all the way, so as to kill the Crimson King), Roland may just turn around and go back to the Callas, and live out the rest of his days quiet and peacefully, maybe as a sort of Sheriff, then going to the Clearing at the End of the Path, and THEN be united with Susan, Cuthbert, Alain, and the rest.
Maybe I'm just grateful that King didn't end it the way I feared. The more I read on, and the more sai King appeared, I was terrified and more and more certain that once Roland met face to face with the Crimson King, that it would be Stephen King himself. I even started to fear that the name, the Crimson KING was a clue. Thankfully, I was wrong. And then, I feared even worse, that once he got to the top of the tower, that there he'd find Stephen King, sitting in a pseudo office of sorts, surrounded by old books and manuscripts, as mad as the Hatter, banging away at an old typewriter and tossing the crumpled up pages over his shoulder making a big pile. That's what I feared, and compared to that, I like this ending just fine.
Thank you Stephen King for giving me a great read and a series to add to my collection.
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