“A long tale, like a tall Tower, must be built a stone at a time.”

“The road and the tale have both been long, would you not say so? The trip has been long and the cost has been high… but no great thing was ever attained easily. A long tale, like a tall Tower, must be built a stone at a time.”

And so I’ve finished my second visit with the Dark Tower series. I read the whole series for the first time in 2006, I think. The seventh book had just been released and my best friend insisted that I finally read the whole damn series (I had been waiting for fear that King would never finish it — I’d rather have read none of them than only six out of seven). I devoured the whole series — around 4,000 pages — over just a few weeks. I remember reading it between (and during) classes in college, totally enthralled.

My second visit to the Dark Tower took a bit longer. I’ve been listening to the audiobooks since February. Not only do they take a long time to get through (the seventh book, read aloud, consisted of almost 30 hours of material), but I’ve been alternating with Orson Scott Card’s Ender Series as well. But I keep returning to the Dark Tower, and I finally finished the seventh novel a couple of nights ago. Listening to the books forced me to slow down and really take it all in, rather than skimming over certain things in a desperate attempt to find out how it ends. And knowing going in how it would end made me appreciate every moment leading up to that ending even more.

I don’t feel like I can really discuss the plot of this one without spoiling the whole series, not to mention the fact that so much happens in this book. But it picks up where Song of Susannah ends — the Pere and Jake in the Dixie Pig, Susannah and Mia ready to deliver. We see each of our character’s stories play out — King doesn’t leave anything too vague, too uncertain. It made me cry, a couple of times, just like it did almost a decade ago. I couldn’t not get attached, even knowing what would happen. And while I know not everyone loves the ending that Roland meets, I personally love it. It fits perfectly with the theme of the entire series, and I can’t imagine any other way to leave that world.