Well, I failed at my goal of finishing this series before the movie came out on August 15th*. Perhaps Ashley of past years could have finished the remaining three books in the next thirteen days (as of actually finishing the book), but Present Ashley is certainly not capable of it.
*Will not now be seeing movie. Very upset at genius casting of Idris Elba entirely wasted. I was still going to give it a chance until I read they’d made Jake the protagonist and dumbed it down. STOP DUMBING THINGS DOWN THAT IS WHEN THEY SUCK. No thank you, I shall pass.
So I knew going in that this book was divisive. Some people HATE IT, and others LOVE IT. I’m not entirely sure of my feelings on it. I will confess that I expected to love it. I love things of a romantical nature, but something about the flashback nature of this one turned me off. Perhaps it’s because I already knew how it ended (you know going in because Roland tells you, that it won’t have a happy ending, and we’ve gotten enough hints to the fates of Susan in past books that we know it’ll end badly for her), or because none of it felt particularly relevant or revelatory towards the main storyline of the ka-tet and their quest for the Dark Tower, but whatever the reason, about twenty pages in to the flashback story, it lost all momentum for me. It became torture for me to pick up the book after that, despite not even really disliking what was going on in it. Parts of it were even very moving! I just didn’t care. I wanted to be back with present day Roland and Eddie and Susannah and Oy and Jake, in Kansas.
And the book started so well! I was riveted by the conclusion of the cliffhanger from The Waste Lands, and I thought the showdown with Blaine was executed very well. And the atmosphere of them finding the alternate Kansas was so creepy! I was so into it. And then King asked me to suspend all that excitement to tell me a story which it turns out I wasn’t in the mood to hear.
Ah, well.
Starting Wolves of the Calla tonight, and know almost nothing about it, so I hope to be pleasantly surprised.
[3.5 stars, rounded up because the beginning and end were great]
Way back, a zillion years ago, when I first read this one, I loved it. I loved it so hard. It was my favorite in the series and it just worked for me 100%.
Now?
I’ve been listening to the audiobook for what seems like a year. I just can’t get through it. I don’t care about a single thing happening in Mejis* and just want to get back to Roland and Oy and the rest and move on to Wolves, because that’s a good one.
* actually, there is one thing that I cared a great deal about and made sure to pay special attention to this time around. But I won’t tell you what it is until you finish the whole thing. Aren’t I helpful?
You have to remember to tell me!
(The only thing that seemed useful to me was the vision Roland had while touching the glass.)
Hey, what was the thing???
I’m laughing — so weird to get an email notification that just says “hey what was the thing” and I knew exactly what you were talking about.
The thing was this (OH BY THE WAY, SPOILERS FOR A BOOK THAT WAS WRITTEN IN 1997):
The vision Roland has in the “pink grapefruit” was incredibly detailed…reminding us of things that happened in earlier books and describing things that had yet to occur. It’s pretty gutsy to include a detailed vision of the future of your journey when you still have three books to write and then have to mostly adhere to that vision.
The bit that killed me was the vision of poor little Oy.
I thought that’s what it probably was. Poor Oy :(