Coming Clean - A Book I Just Can't Read

I have to come clean.

The Gunslinger is not for me. Certainly not in the readalong way I've been trying to read it.

I've been finding it a complete chore, trying to complete the posts for each Friday. I've been dreading picking up this so very slight novel and finding reasons to put it off. Look - it's Friday again today and I haven't even looked at The Gunslinger for two weeks. In that period I've read four chapters of Deadhouse Gates and written posts for the Tor Malazan Re-read, and completed four novels of varying lengths. I've done everything bar pick up The Gunslinger.

I don't like it. I find it tedious, dry. I struggle to gain any meaning or excitement from it. I can totally see why other folk warned me off the book.

So, this is me deciding to stop doing something that feels like a *job*. The Dark Tower Readalong officially ends here. I apologise to all those lovely people who encouraged me and left comments. I hate giving up on something, but would rather end it officially than have you keep coming by trying to find a post that isn't going to happen.

Now, I am stubborn - and I have a feeling I will finish reading The Gunslinger at some point, just for completism, but I really don't understand why this series has gained such popularity.

I invite you to tell me why YOU like the series...

Also, which inordinately popular books/series have you never managed to complete?

Dark Tower Readalong: The Gunslinger, Part 5

After a brief break for Christmas Eve (on which I delivered presents and saw friends) and, acknowledging that New Year's Eve probably isn't the best day for a post (*grins*), here is Part 5 of the Dark Tower readalong.

I am planning to pop a new page on my blog which will link to each of the pages in the readalong as we go, so that you don't have to keep searching for them - that will happen either today or over the weekend. Hmm, sounds like just the mindless job I require with the monumental hangover I'm expecting from New Year's Eve!

So, here we go with this segment, which goes from chaplet 7 of The Waystation through to the end of the section (next time we'll kick off from the start of The Oracle and the Mountains.

First of all, I will provide a brief summary on how I see the events in each chaplet (there will be spoilers!) and then I will write out a commentary - my thoughts on what is happening, and, mainly, how confused I am *grin*

SCENE 7

The gunslinger and Jake reach the foothills of the mountains on the trail of the man in black, who seems closer. The gunslinger feels a strange reluctance to catch up with the man in black, believing the appearance of Jake to be a trap and wondering if the man in black is slowing deliberately. He has thoughts of people from his past, and mentions them to Jake.

SCENE 8

We have a flashback to Roland's past when he was a boy, friends with Cuthbert and instructed by Cort. We see Cuthbert's hatred for Cort and watch as Roland disregards the instructor.

SCENE 9

Still flashing back to Roland's past: we see one of the events that starts shaping him into the gunslinger. He and Cuthbert both start following the way of the gun as they hear a treasonous conversation.

SCENE 10

Another slightly disturbing flashback as Roland talks to his father. We have more hints about Roland's character, and the events that have led him to the situation he finds himself in chasing the man in black.

SCENE 11

Roland and Cuthbert are allowed to watch the hanging of the cook from the kitchen, after they told on him regarding his treasonous actions. Roland finds it hard to see any sort of honour. He takes a splinter from the gallows to remind him of this lesson.

SCENE 12

This is the last of the flashback scenes, where the hanging actually takes place. Roland realises he is destined to be a gunslinger.

SCENE 13

Jake points out the man in black to Roland - he is now in sight, flitting up the mountains ahead of them. Roland says they will catch up with him on the other side.

MY COMMENTARY:

Thanks to King building the very bleak picture of the desert landscape, it is very noticeable when the gunslinger and Jake finally see green, living plants as they reach the foothills.

I love the imagery that King shows us of the landscape - stark and vivid: "At night, Jake would sit fascinated for the few minutes before he fell into sleep, watching the brilliant swordplay of the far-off lightning, white and purple, startling in the clarity of the night air."

The gunslinger is worried about the fact that Jake is able to take the trail at a decent pace with no complaints. I think this is because the man in black has *changed* Jake somehow to make him more attractive and fit to be loved by Roland, thereby weakening him.

They are catching up faster to the man in black: "This did not please him as much as he once might have believed. One of Cort's sayings occurred to him: 'Ware the man he fakes a limp.'" So he suspects the man in black of slowing deliberately?

Jake has proper hero worship for Roland, doesn't he? Forcing himself past endurance to keep up with the gunslinger, copying words and phrases from him.

Ack, I'm about to quote extensively because this whole section confuses me thoroughly:

"When I was your age, I lived in a walled city, did I tell you that?"
The boy shook his head sleepily.
"Sure. And there was an evil man-"
"The priest?"
"Well, sometimes I wonder about that, tell you true," the gunslinger said. "If they were two, I think now they must have been brothers. Maybe even twins. But did I ever see 'em together? No, I never did. This bad man...this Marten...he was a wizard. Like Merlin. Do they ken Merlin where you come from?"

And then Jake talks about Arthur and the Round Table, and the gunslinger says Arthur Eld instead. Is the priest the man in black? So he was called Marten? Or is there actually two of them?

I love the whole sequence of flashbacks - it's good to finally get a slightly clearer picture of Roland's upbringing. Having said that, for every question that is answered, we definitely have more questions posed! The two boys - Cuthbert and Roland - are watched by Cort as they exercise the hawk David (named after David and Goliath, it appears, so the bible stories are known). Bert and Roland talk in the low speech, and it seems as though at the moment their paths in life could progress to EITHER gunslingers OR various other roles, such as courtiers or pages.

The training Cort appears to provide is of the tough love variety! "Cort swung again, and Cuthbert fell over again. The blood flowed more swiftly now. 'Speak the High Speech,' he said softly. His voice was flat, with a slight, drunken rasp. 'Speak your Act of Contrition in the speech of civilization for which better men than you will ever be have died, maggot.'"



There are a couple of mentions in the flashback section that Roland isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer - and this doesn't fit all that well with the man we've seen up til now. Roland thinks it about himself, that he doesn't understand the message Cort is trying to pass to him, and then his father observes that he is not the fastest boy in training. Up until now, I've believed that Roland was sharp and intelligent.

We actually, I think, see the death of Roland's childhood here: "What he felt might have been a sort of death - something as brutal and final as the death of the dove in the white sky over the games field."

This passage shows the sort of upbringing Roland has had: "That's crude, Roland, but not unworthy. Not moral, either, but it is not your place to be moral. In fact..." He peered at his son. "Morals may always be beyond you. You are not quick, like Cuthbert or Vanny's boy. That's all right, though. It will make you formidable."

Ugh, the back end of chaplet 10 makes me feel awfully odd. Roland thinks about his parents "fucking" - later in his life he hears the story of Oedipus, and thinks "of the odd and bloody triangle formed by his father, his mother, and by Marten - known in some quarters as Farson, the good man. Or perhaps it was a quadrangle, if one wished to add himself." *shudders* This feels me with foreboding, as does the end of the flashback section where matricide is mentioned.

We have a name for the walled city: Gilead.

Several times we hear a ritual saying to do with fathers - this seems a strongly patriarchal society: "I have not forgotten my father's face; it has been with me through all."

In the last section, back in the present, Roland wonders if there will ever be any road that doesn't lead to the killing ground - will the Tower be different?

Okay, a slightly shorted analysis, I fear - people to see, drinks to drink, that sort of thing! Did you spot anything I might have missed?

Also, I know I have been very lax at commenting on people's replies to my Dark Tower posts - in the New Year, starting from this post, I shall make much more of an effort, I promise. Would love to hear all your thoughts and start a dialogue about the books.

Dark Tower Readalong: The Gunslinger, Part 4

We've reached Part 4 of my Dark Tower Readalong, and this time we will be tackling the first seven chaplets of "The Way Station." Here is Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. Please do consider joining in this read through The Gunslinger, add comments and feel free to link to this post elsewhere so that we can try and build a nice little Dark Tower community, as we follow the path of Roland. 

First of all, I will provide a brief summary on how I see the events in each chaplet (there will be spoilers!) and then I will write out a commentary - my thoughts on what is happening, and, mainly, how confused I am *grin*

SCENE 1

Roland walks throught the desert, with a song his mother used to sing to him in the cradle running through his mind. He has run out of water and is beginning to lose track of events. He arrives at some ramshackle buildings and sees a figure there - a figure he believes to be the man in black. However, it proves to be a young blond-haired boy. Roland is able to ascertain this immediately before he collapses.

SCENE 2

The boy tends him while he is unconscious. He tells the gunslinger, when he wakes, that his name is John Chambers, but Roland may call him Jake. The boy tells the gunslinger that the man in black has been through - not long ago. Roland wants to know where Jake has come from, but the boy doesn't know, so Roland offers to make him sleep so that he could remember.

SCENE 3

We learn what happened to Jake when he encountered the man in black. He lived in the present, in the real time, and he died - was he killed by the man in black?

SCENE 4

While the boy is still hypnotised, Roland asks him if he wants to keep the memories when he wakes, but Jake demurs. Roland is confused by what he has learnt from Jake. When the boy sleeps, the gunslinger explores and finds an old pump that pulls water from the desert. Memories from his past overwhelm him.

SCENE 5

As Roland and Jake talk in the evening, beside a little fire on the porch, we find out a little more about why the gunslinger has been pursuing the man in black. Roland decides to take Jake with him.

SCENE 6

In the morning Roland goes down into the cellar to try and find some food. He manages to take some cans to the surface. When he goes back down - surrounded by mutant spiders - he hears a rumbling through the sandstone wall. He speaks to it - a demon, he believes - in High Speech and it replies with the voice of Allie, warning Roland that the boy is a trap. When he returns to the surface Jake is so relieved to see him that he rushes to hug Roland - and the gunslinger realises he has started to love the boy. They leave the buildings, heading again for the mountains.

MY COMMENTARY:

Okay, first up, apologies for the delay on the readalong - sometimes real life really does take over, and I was laid up with a nasty little infection last Friday. Back to fighting fit this week and ready to read on through The Gunslinger!

We begin the section entitled 'The Way Station'.

Another little tidbit is handed to us concerning the world in which Roland lives - the little rhyme that goes around his head at the start of the first chaplet mentions 'planes' and he has no idea what these might be. He lived in a castle when he was a child, and was forced to face each night and the dark alone. This seems a distinctly odd upbringing, especially when he remembers his mother showing her love with songs and grace.

He was also "born to the High Speech" - rather than it be something he merely learnt.

Born to the High Speech and a gunslinger: "A gunslinger knows pride, that invisible bone that keeps the neck stiff."

Now and then King will write a sentence that makes my soul sing - often they will be incredibly simply, like this: "The mountains dreamed against the far horizon." Rather than belabouring the description to the point that it is dull and over-imagined, King allows the reader freedom with wonderfully elegant writing.

I wonder how much the following sentence will have resonance in the future: "The blood was not thirsty. The blood was being served. The blood was being made sacrifice unto. Blood sacrifice. All the blood needed to do was run...and run...and run."

How scary must it be to know you're almost dying of thirst, hallucinating, and yet you're also aware that it is happening, and that you need to carry on regardless? The gunslinger is a tough guy!

Another little supernatural hint here as well, as the gunslinger realises he has reached the two buildings: "The wood seemed old, fragile to the point of elvishness..."

Oh, the heartbreak and the hallucination! Roland believes he has found the man in black, and manages to summon the energy to run towards him with his gun. But "the delusion" is a strong one - a young boy. So painful and confusing for the gunslinger: "The gunslinger stared at him blankly and then shook his head in negation. But the boy survived his refusal to believe; he was a strong delusion."

When I read this: "A blade of pain slipped smoothly into his head, cutting from temple to temple..." I genuinely thought that maybe the boy was the man in black, hidden by illusions. I guess the language used is also to convey the extreme confusion and disorientation of Roland.

The boy! Jake! How sweet he is, and how very out of place. Roland's questions lead the reader to start understanding that the boy is not in his own time. Or is he? We don't know where the gunslinger exists - but the boy comes from a place with movies and Zorro and Times Square, all things that exist in "our world".

I'm amused (probably childishly so) that Jake measures time passing by the number of poops he has had...

"What's a channel?" A wild idea occurred to him. "Is it like a beam?"
"No - it's TV."
"What's teevee."

King makes a very specific distinction here for the reader, so that we can see the gunslinger has absolutely no comprehension of what this might be. I wonder how this effect is achieved in the audio book (if one exists)?

Roland is so very pragmatic and a rather unsympathetic character! When faced with poor Jake's tears, he merely says: "Don't feel so sorry for yourself. Make do." Does this give an insight into Roland's upbringing?

How wonderful to see the weird and zany parts of our world from the point of view of someone who sort of remembers: "Windows to look in and more statues wearing clothes. The statues sold the clothes." I'm assuming mannequins are meant here - if not, then maybe Jake comes from some strange futuristic time?

I think this is my biggest point of conflict with the novel so far. If I could just put my finger on WHERE they are and WHY they are, then I would be reading easier. As it is, I spend a great deal of time dwelling on it...

Does Roland use the shell as a type of hypnotism device? Or does he have a magic of his own when it comes to the guns?

The gunslinger has a real sense of self-loathing: "Not for the first time the gunslinger tasted the smooth, loden taste of soul-sickness. The shell in his fingers, manipulated with such unknown grace, was suddenly horrific, the spoor of a monster. He dropped it into his palm, made a fist, and squeezed it with a painful force. Had it exploded, in that moment he would have rejoiced at the destruction of his talented hand, for its only true talent was murder."

And here mention of the Dark Tower, in a mysterious fashion: "There was murder, there was rape, there were unspeakable practices, and all of them were for the good, the bloody good, the bloody myth, for the grail, for the Tower."

The flashback into how Jake appeared in the land of the gunslinger is what I consider to be typical King, in that it aims to shock and horrify: "It breaks Jake's back, mushes his guts to gravy, and sends blood from his mouth in a high-pressure jet [...] Blood runs from Jake's nose, ears, eyes, rectum. His genitals have been squashed."

And yet the gunslinger's land has electricity of some form, because we see him switch on the pump as Jake sleeps. But it sounds as though it is from a previous time: "...a thing as alien to this place and time as true love, and yet as concrete as a Judgement, a silent reminder of the time when the world had not yet moved on."

I'm a tiny bit uncomfortable about how often the gunslinger observes that Jake is a good looking lad. This is nothing to do with the same sex aspect, but the age of Jake.

We finally gain a hint of exactly why the gunslinger is chasing the man in black:

"Are you going to kill him?"
"I don't know. I have to make him tell me something. I may have to make him take me someplace."
"Where?"
"To find a tower."

Ugh, now I don't like spiders - but imagine mutants spiders with eyes on stalks or sixteen legs! *shudders*

Hmm, not sure what is going on with the "Demon" in the cellar, the one that Roland talks to in High Speech. Not sure what it is talking about when it references the "Drawers". I'm guessing it's a nice little bit of foreshadowing, so I will try to remember it.

This is sweet, but a little uncomfortable again: "He could feel the rapid patter of the boy's heart. It occurred to him later that this was when he began to love the boy - which was, of course, what the man in black must have planned all along. Was there ever a trap to match the trap of love?"

Any comments very welcome - did you see anything I missed?

Dark Tower Readalong: The Gunslinger Part 3

Welcome to Part 3 of The Gunslinger Readalong - you can catch up with Part 1 and Part 2 by clicking the links. Remember, spoilers abound!

This is going to be a slightly shorter segment, dealing with chaplets 15 through 20, which brings us neatly to the end of the first part, ready to kick off with The Way Station next Friday. So, just thirteen pages or so - gives those people who haven't yet caught up the chance to do so!

SCENE 15

The gunslinger visits the preacher-woman; he knows she has been screwed by the man in black. She thinks she now carries his child - a king - and the gunslinger uses this to threaten her into revealing what lies beyond the desert.

SCENE 16

The gunslinger goes to remove his mule from Kennerly so that he can leave Tull, and realises in the nick of time that Kennerly and his daughter are going to try and kill him. He leaves them looking at each other.

SCENE 17

The people of Tull are exhorted to violence; Allie has said 'Nineteen' to Nort; the gunslinger kills everyone in Tull.

SCENE 18

We return to the dwelling where the gunslinger is telling his tale to Brown. He realises he likes Brown but doesn't know who or what he is.

SCENE 19

We finally hear the name Roland - a name Allie had called the gunslinger - as the gunslinger heads away into the desert.

SCENE 20

And we come full circle at the end of this section, seeing Roland at the fire in the desert as he follows the man in black.

MY COMMENTARY:

Stephen King is still giving us an eerie, tired land with sections like: "A queer, flat light hung over everything" and "There was a large wooden cross nailed to the door of the place, which was leaning and tired." There is not much of hope or lightness or an ability to see a good future. I do find the novel quite difficult to read due to this - it is grim and resigned, and leaves me wondering a little: "What's the point?" But I guess that is exactly what the inhabitants of this strange land are also feeling on a day to day basis?

The whole exchange between the preacher-woman and the gunslinger is incomprehensible to me - except the fact that she sees the man in black as God and the gunslinder as the Antichrist. She also seems to believe that she is carrying the son of God, but the gunslinger says that this is just a demon. I'm curious that Sylvia knew about the High Speech, which seems to be something only particular people would know.

Sylvia Pittston gives me the creeps - she is a zealot, and you don't know whether the people of Tull are responding so strongly to her words because of her nature or because of the man in black giving her this new ability. It seems as though the gunslinger is drawn to her in a carnal fashion and he believes this is because of the man in black.

Her face had become a caricature of terror, and she stabbed the sign of the Eye at him with pronged fingers.

Now this is interesting! The sign of the Eye? Not something I am familiar about in terms of religion - sounds far more pagan, which seems strange for a preacher woman of Christ. What do you think about this? Am I missing something religious about this?

Two more things from chaplet 15 - the first is this quote:

"He stops ... on the other side ... s-s-sweet Jesus! ... to m-make his strength. Med-m-meditation, do you understand?"

I don't understand *grin* She's talking about the land beyond the desert - "he stops" - is this the man in black> Have to confess - I kept reading meditation as medication, which entirely changes the nature of that sentence!

Then Sylvia says: "You've killed the child of the Crimson King. But you will be repaid. I se my watch and warrant on it." The Crimson King? Another reference to the man in black? The fact that Sylvia says 'watch and warrant' sounds like it has a meaning - any ideas?

With the menace that the gunslinger seems to exude and his previous encounter with Kennerly, I would have thought the ostler would not be foolish enough to tackle the gunslinger. Also, using his rather vapid daughter to help tackle the gunslinger - both stupid and genius. Up to this point, I would have thought the gunslinger would avoid hurting women or children.

Up to this point, because, of course, in chaplet 17 we see the massacre of Tull. This really surprised me - I sort of imagined that the gunslinger had a code of honour, for some reason? Maybe because he most reminds me of Jon Shannow (from the David Gemmell post-apocalyptic novels) and that gentleman managed to retain a sense of honour and decency in a hard land. Or does the gunslinger have such a code, and knew that it would be the decent thing to kill the people of Tull, rather than have them under the influence of the man in black? What do you think?

I also want to pull this quote as holding some meaning: "The man in black had played God in Tull. He had spoken of a King's child, a red prince. Was it only a sense of the cosmic comic, or a matter od desperation? It was a question of some importance."

There are moments of ridiculous, dark comedy when the gunslinger takes on the people of Tull: "The gunslinger shot him dead and the man thumped into the street. His false teeth shot out as his chin struck and grinned, spit-shiny, in the dirt."

I'm also going to take out this extensive quote, both because of the second mention of the Eye, and because of hints about the gunslinger's past:

The guns were empty and they boiled at him, transmogrified into an Eye and a Hand, and he stood, screaming and reloading, his mind far away and absent, letting his hands do their reloading trick. Could he hold up a hand, tell them he had spent a thousand years learning this trick and others, tell them of the guns and the blood that had blessed them? Not with his mouth. But his hands could speak their own tale.

He is called the child-killing interloper - there is an argument to be made as to whether he was this to begin with, or whether their taunts and attacks made him into such.

I like the fact King puts about the bodies: "None of them seemed to be sleeping." In so many novels we encounter deaths where the body merely appears to be sleeping - I like the emphasis that these were violent deaths and therefore could not possibly look like people asleep.

I'm disturbed by the fact that the gunslinger goes inside the tavern and drinks beers and eats hamburger after killing the entirely population of the town. This is pragmatism a step too far!

And finally the tortuous method of going back and forth in time is brought to a close as we return to Roland - now named - as he sits by the fire in the desert. There is a great strength and power to giving him a name after almost one hundred pages and over a thousand years of story and back history. We've now met Roland.

See you next week!

Dark Tower Readalong: The Gunslinger Part 2

Wow, that week sped past, didn't it? Seems five minutes ago that I was writing the first post in this readalong series! You can catch up with said first post here.

Today we'll be looking at chaplets six through fourteen (about 30 pages).

Remember, spoilers will be encountered from here in on - you have been warned! I just wanted to make an additional comment regarding spoilers. Please don't be afraid of listing spoilers in your comments - just mark them out as spoilers and I shall either skip or read as I see fit. I have never minded having a book spoiled before I read it (I even knew who would die in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince before I cracked open the first page). For me, it's not so much what is happening as how the author gets you there and how they write about it. So don't fear spoiling my reading experience! With that out the way, let's get down to it...

SCENE 6

The woman tells the gunslinger about Nort, the man who approached him in the bar asking for gold. He died in front of her bar, and the man in black had something to do with his revival. The gunslinger asks her - Allie - about the man in black.

SCENE 7

The man in black arrived the same day that Nort died. Allie has an odd discussion with him during which he drinks good whiskey. It culminates in him bringing Nort back to life. Allie wonders whether Nort knows anything of what has happened to him in the afterlife. The man in black leaves a note for Allie telling her that if she says the word 'Nineteen' to Nort, he will give her the answers she is desperate for.

SCENE 8

The gunslinger asks if this is all, and advises Allie to pretend the number nineteen no longer exists. She asks if he is leaving in the morning - she wants him to stay a little longer.

SCENE 9

In the morning the gunslinger asks Allie what lies to the southeast - she is scared, and says that she only knows about the desert. The gunslinger thinks he knows why the man in black is heading that way.

SCENE 10

The gunslinger goes to talk to the hostler about what lies beyond the desert, but doesn't get any clear answer. He knows the hostler hates him for being an outsider.

SCENE 11

Sheb, the piano player, bursts in on Allie and the gunslinger while they are in bed and tries to kill the gunslinger. He has his wrists broken for his troubles. The gunslinger recognises Sheb from his past. Allie realises that the gunslinger was once in love, but he refuses to talk to her about it.

SCENE 12

The gunslinger attends a church service and watches the preacher declaiming The Interloper, also called High Lord Satan. He suspects that the preacher has been infected by some dark magic of the man in black.

SCENE 13

The gunslinger seduces information about the preacher out of Allie.

SCENE 14

Allie and the gunslinger both realise their time together is coming to an end, as she serves him breakfast on the fifth day.

MY COMMENTARY:

Overall, I just can't get over the quiet sense of desperation and loneliness within this book. Life on the frontier, dangerous and bitter. King evokes the sense of this with wise choice of words, such as yellow, grit, rusty. The only real difference to this slow unwinding of details is when we finally see the man in black - this passage glitters dangerously in comparison.

He realised he was afraid of the desert ahead.

This might be why the gunslinger dwells in Tull for a few days, rather than the draw of Allie. When we first meet the gunslinger, he has been within the desert for a while and, looking back on it now, in that first instance the gunslinger has a different "feel". He suffers from dizziness, and muses on the nature of reality - whereas in Tull he seems more focused and dangerous. Maybe there is something in the nature of the desert that will send a man to madness?

I actually want to wrap King's prose around me in a hug! It is so perfectly chosen at times:

He looked like wire clothes hangers all wrapped and twirled together. You could see all the lights of hell in his eyes, but he was grinning, just like the grins the children carve into their sharproots and pumpkins, come Reap.

That passage gives us another hint about the culture of the land - seems they do celebrate a version of Halloween but call it Reap instead. Reap gives it an otherworldly feel - makes it sound more dangerous.

Finally a hint of the horror that King is known for in the following passage!

Then he puked, and it was black and full of blood. It went right through that grin like sewer water through a grate. The stink was enough to make you want to run mad. He raised up his arms and just threw over. That was all. He died in his own vomit with that grin on his face.

Allie is terrified of telling the gunslinger about the man in black - her reluctance is understandable given what she sees and how he treats her.

I just want to pull out various sentences that give rise to a curiosity about the desert and what lies beyond it - we are being driven to wonder about this. Sentences include: "...the clouds flew across it, as if they had seen something horrifying in the desert wastes where they had so lately been" and "The clouds all go that way. It's like something sucks them-" and "The smell of the desert was clear in the air. Almost time to move on."

Tull really is a place of sinners! Not only do we have NortKennerly: "...lying by the window with a bottle in one hand and the loose, hot flesh of his second-eldest daughter's left breast in the other..." Maybe this is why the preacher has come to Tull?

In fact, there is a feel of death about Tull. This is linked through from Allie's fears of menopause and old age - "a condition which in Tull was usually as short and bitter as a winter sunset" - to the fact that the townspeople celebrate frantically at Nort's wake. As the man in black says:

"It excites them. He's dead. They're not."

The man in black is weird and creepy, from his wide grin to the words he says. Mention of the world next door indicates again that there is more than one world or dimension in this story. The 'magic' that he performs on Nort is eerie, with the lunging and the howling, "pouring over Nort's body like water poured from one glass to another and then back again."

The letter that the man in black leaves for Allie is just as strange - but also horrific:

You want to know about Death. I left him a word. That word is NINETEEN. If you say it to him his mind will be opened. He will tell you what lies beyond. He will tell you what he saw. The word is NINETEEN. Knowing will drive you mad. But sooner or later you will ask. You won't be able to help yourself. Have a nice day!

*shudders* That is some unimaginable temptation. Is the man in black the devil, the interloper, the Lord High Satan?

There is another hint in the scene between the gunslinger and Kennerly that we're dealing here with some post-apocalyptic world. Kennerly talks about "mutie oxen" which seems to be short for mutant oxen. Either mutated by some terrible disaster or through gene technology - or maybe simply magic? Not sure what we're dealing with in this world!

I'm finding some of the descriptions rather distasteful albeit realistic - am I just being a sensitive soul?

"That Allie's pretty nice when she wants to be, ain't she?" The hostler made a loose circle with his left fist and began poking his right finger rapidly in and out of it.

Another reminder of just how dangerous the gunslinger is:

He brought the knife down with both hands, and the gunslinger caught his wrists and turned them. The knife went flying. Sheb made a high screeching noise, like a rusty screen door. His hands fluttered in marionette movements, both wrists broken.

And then another little reminder of the sheer history that we have yet to find out - King definitely isn't in the mood to baby his readers along and go all exposition-heavy! The gunslinger has met Sheb before, when the gunslinger was just a boy, in a place called Mejis. Who is Susan? I suspect she is going to become pivotal - the girl that the gunslinger loved.

The next scene concerning the church service and the preacher-woman is heavy with symbolism and foreshadowing, it feels to me. The preacher-woman has come from the southeast, out of the desert, and seems to have an enchantment of the man in black within her - something to trap the gunslinger in Tull. She mentions LeMerk or LeMark, which resonates with the gunslinger - he has filed it away for the future, so we shall as well, since I reckon it could prove to be important.

And we finish this section with another of those loaded sentences that King does so well:

He only saw her once more alive.

Doesn't that give you a sense of dread?

Right, over to you guys - I've talked for way long enough! What have you picked out from this week's section? What interested you? What didn't you like? Any thoughts very welcome!

Dark Tower Readalong: The Gunslinger Part 1

Welcome one and all! Roll up to the Dark Tower Readalong - all welcome. Every Friday I will be posting my detailed thoughts and commentary on a section of the Dark Tower, starting with The Gunslinger. Now, some idiot (not me, definitely not me) declared proudly that it would be one chapter per week - and then I actually checked the book this morning and found it involved what I shall now refer to as chaplets - the smallest chapters in the world. So, in the revised edition, I am going to be tackling the first five chaplets - which comes out at approx 30 pages. Be warned, I shall be quoting from the book and shall not hold back on spoilers - please don't read on any further if you don't want your reading experience completely spoiled!

With each section I shall first summarise the key events and, following this, will provide my commentary.

Without further ado, let's kick off the first part of the Dark Tower Readalong...

SCENE 1

The gunslinger pursues the man in black across the desert, reaching the point where his quarry had camped and musing on the fact the remains of the campfire are still cold. He knows he is closer to the man in black.

SCENE 2

The gunslinger suspects that he has reached the last dwelling, but he comes to another hut where he discovers a blue eyed man weeding a stand of corn. The blue eyed man asks the gunslinger if he is alive or dead. He also says that he thought the gunslinger's "kind" were gone. It is revealed that the man in black is a sorcerer and passed through sometime between two weeks and two months ago. He is exhausted and falls asleep as the man, Brown, cooks for him.

SCENE 3

Brown wakes the gunslinger and tells him his mule has passed on.

SCENE 4

The two men sit after dinner has been consumed and talk about the fate of a town that the gunslinger travelled through. The gunslinger wonders if Brown is but an illusion, a trick of the man in black. He debates killing Brown, but ends up telling him about Tull.

SCENE 5

We flash back to Tull and the gunslinger's arrival in the town. He is treated with suspicion. When he asks some kids to direct him to a local cafe, only one is brave enough to talk to him. When he enters the bar, he orders rich food and is able to cow one of the bar thugs with no more than a few words. While he is eating, the gunslinger is disturbed by a man who speaks to him in the High Speech - he asks the gunslinger for some gold and receives it. While this is occurring the bar empties of trade. The heavily scarred female bar owner accuses the gunslinger of driving away her customers - when the gunslinger asks for knowledge about the man in black, the bar owner names her price as him "scratching her itch".

MY COMMENTARY:

"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed."

As opening lines go, it's pretty damn powerful. If someone just gave you that line, you (if you're anything like me) would have a multitude of questions. Who is the man in black? Who is the gunslinger? Why is one pursuing the other? Why is he fleeing into the desert?

Unlike other authors, King doesn't immediately move to describe the gunslinger. At the end of the section I've completed here, we still don't know the name of the gunslinger. We still don't really know why he is chasing the man in black. We only have hints about who the man in black is.

Instead, King shows us the land these strange men - hunter and hunted - are racing through. The desert is presented as barren, with only the deadly devil-grass (a drug of sorts, that can be smoked or chewed) changing the nature of the featureless plain. We learn a little about the situation in this land - there used to more people travelling roads through the desert; there are Manni holy men and followers of the Man Jesus, so at least two religions; the gunslinger's title and clothing gives an extremely strong Western flavour to the book.

"His hat was gone. So was the horn he had once carried; gone for years, that horn, spilled from the hand of a dying friend, and he missed them both."

Mystery atop mystery. What horn? What friend? Clearly the back story here is extensive.

Although I find myself mystified by what is going on, I am being irresistibly drawn into the tale thanks to King's language which evokes an old and tired land that God has deserted and doesn't divulge anything about the main protagonists.

The gunslinger is a remote and resigned character - feels like the Man With No Name. In fact, he is the archetypal nameless man from Western films. "There would be water if God willed it, even in the desert."

In these first few pages, as well as hearing about the gunslinger's horn and dead friend (and his father's guns) we also learn about a momentary lapse, a dizziness that makes him feel adrift from the world. Not sure if this will prove to be important going forward, but probably worth pulling it out.

"It spoke of a man who might straighten bad pictures in strange hotel rooms."

This line is a little jarring. Up until this point, we have only a very nebulous idea of the world in which the gunslinger lives. It seems either a time in history or possibly post-apocalyptic, but here we have mention of hotel rooms! It throws out all of my preconceived notions. Also, how autobiographical is this statement!

I like the harsh humour that jumps out: "The huddles had degenerated into single dwellings, most inhabited by lepers or madmen. He found the madmen better company."

This mention of a taheen is quite chilling - a man with a raven's head. While I dwell on the taheen, let's address the fact that King is using quite a number of words that feel authentic, but aren't real. I like the flavour that they add, but my copy of the novel doesn't have a glossary so in most cases you have to guess what is meant. Don't get me wrong, it is usually quite easy to tell from the context of the sentence, but a glossary might have proved helpful.

This might come across as a little dumb, but I did not realise that chaplet two actually took us back in time to before the gunslinger started out into the desert. Chaplet three and four continue on directly from two - but then five takes us back in time again to before the gunslinger reaches Tull. This structure is a little bewildering to begin with, but then feels very natural as you begin to be immersed in the tale.

The taheen claims to be looking for a place called Algul Siento, or Blue Haven, or Heaven - you'll have to excuse me pulling out this very random line! I'm used to over-analysing every last sentence of Steven Erikson, so it has become second nature to take out lines that might end up being important at a later stage!

I love the raven Zoltan who belongs to Brown, with phrases like: "Screw you. Screw you and the horse you rode in on."

This is an interesting exchange between the gunslinger and Brown:

"You're a gunslinger. That right?"
"Yes." [...]
"Thought your kind was gone."
"Then you see different, don't you?"
"Did'ee come from In-World?"
"Long ago," the gunslinger agreed.
"Anything left there?"

Just a couple of things to mention from the above - the first is that by calling the gunslinger 'your kind' it sounds as though he isn't quite human. The second is the use of In-World - this could be a country. It could be another planet. It could be another dimension. It could be many things, in fact, and I'm guessing it's something we'll find out as we get to know the gunslinger.

Almost immediately afterwards we find out that the man in black is a sorcerer - "among other things". Doesn't this make you even more intrigued about who he is and why the gunslinger is chasing him?

The gunslinger is suspicious and always on edge. He trusts Brown but knows he is vulnerable to the dweller. He wonders whether the man in black has cast an illusion and set him a trap. "It wasn't beyond possibility that Brown was the man in black."

One thing that springs out from the gunslinger's encounters with Brown and the people of Tull is that he is an enormously dangerous man:

"I don't want nothing from you, gunslinger, except to still be here when you move on. I won't beg for my life, but that don't mean I don't want it yet awhile longer."

In chaplet five (the last part of this readalong today), we go with the gunslinger to Tull. The first aspect of this chaplet that jumps out at me is the fact the gunslinger can hear a honky-tonk piano playing 'Hey Jude' by The Beatles! This just gives me more confusion about the fantasy world we're travelling through...

In the town of Tull, the inhabitants treat the gunslinger with both fear and disdain. We have the cliche of the gunslinger stepping into the bar and having all go quiet - this is such a key moment in many western films, and King wrote it well - up to and including the gunslinger's quiet ordering of food and his intimidation of a bar thug.

From this typical western environment, we then slide sideways into the fantasy aspect of it by meeting Nort - the devil weed abuser who has been brought back to life by the man in black. The mysterious Nort speaks to the gunslinger in the High Speech of Gilead:

"The High Speech. For a moment his mind refused to track it. It had been years - God! - centuries, millenniums; there was no more High Speech; he was the last, the last gunslinger. The others were all..."

With that rather intriguing little addition to the chaplet, I think we'll draw this to a close. My over-riding impressions so far are a maddeningly slow drip of information; mysterious and impressive back story; and an extremely harsh but realistic world.

Now over to you! What did you think of these first five sections? Can you answer any of the questions I've posed? Did you get more from the passages than I did? Have I missed anything glaring? I would love some feedback on the structure of this post as well, being the first - want it done differently?

Happy reading, and look forward to you joining me in the comment section!

A Different Sort of Review - Night of Knives by Ian Esslemont

Once again, having finished a book on the Tor Malazan Re-read, I bring you my overall thoughts of the novel. Here are my feelings about Night of Knives by Ian Esslemont:

This first encounter with Esslemont’s side of the Malazan world has sure been a bumpy ride. For every Temper there was a Kiska, basically *grins*. I don’t think I need to re-emphasise my dislike of the young naive character. She was an effective tool in Esslemont’s hands to help any info-dumping go smoothly and feel realistic, but, by all the Gods, she got annoying damn quickly.


My over-riding impression of the novel is that is was basically a novella to start with, and got padded out to fit a novel length. There isn’t a great deal of real action here, in terms of moving along the story, and the biggest scene by far is the ascension of Kellanved and Dancer, but I found myself rather confused about it rather than thrilled.


At times the prose was weak when it should have been exciting, with clumsy exposition and characterisation.


With that said, I did enjoy a lot of what was on show here. I loved the horror aspect of the novel - something that we haven’t seen from Erikson in the same way. Anything involving Temper, especially the flashbacks with Dassem and the final showdown between him and Jhenna, was just brilliant. I also enjoyed seeing an entirely different perspective of Tayschrenn compared to Gardens of the Moon - I join other people now in finding him entirely intriguing. Definitely more to come.


My favourite character from Night of Knives was definitely Temper - from his grizzled resignation to his flash of pride to the potential of what is yet to come. How about you? And why?


In summary, this will never be my favourite part of the Malazan series, but I have not been deterred from Esslemont’s future works. I think this was a slightly simplistic read in comparison to Gardens of the Moon - however, I do firmly believe that Esslemont can only improve going forwards, and I’m looking forward to Return of the Crimson Guard when we hit that as part of the re-read.


So, onto Deadhouse Gates.... I am apprehensive, pleased, excited, and already confused :-p

The Dark Tower readalong

I have been dearly loving the Malazan re-read that I do for Tor. Looking at the books chapter by chapter, and discussing all the mysteries, foibles and quality writing with knowledgeable others is one of the highlights of my week.

So I have decided to do a readalong on my own blog. I am hoping that you will come over and comment, that you might read along with me?

My choice is The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. It is complete, dense and quirky (from what I can tell). Some love it. Some hate it. Whatever happens, I'm sure it will offer up plenty of discussion.

I don't want to burden myself with too much each week, so I am planning one chapter/commentary to be posted each Friday - the first coming this Friday.

Looking forward to your comments and your support!