by Charlene Teglia | Nov 19, 2004 | Uncategorized
Long ago and far away, I opened up a book and read, “The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed after.” So I met Roland of Gilead, the last gunslinger, in pursuit of a man I’d met in another story much earlier where he went by the name of Randall Flagg.
Roland’s world has moved on, and Roland knows the key to the breakdown of the worlds is the Dark Tower that stands at the end of End World. His quest to the Tower takes him along the path of the Beams that hold the worlds. Along the way he draws three companions; Eddie, Jake, and Susannah*, all from New York but different times and different versions. On their travels a billy-bumbler named Oy befriends Jake and joins Roland’s ka-tet.
Roland is the last of the line of Arthur Eld, and the guns he carries descend from Excaliber. He trains his companions to be gunslingers. Through many worlds and many adventures they fight against the forces of destruction that seek to topple the Tower and end all existence. In this final installment, the story concludes with the Dark Tower attained at last.
One of the things I enjoyed most about this story is the way it interweaves with every other story. In Wolves of the Calla we meet Father Callahan again, far from ‘Salem’s Lot. That Callahan had lost his faith, and fell to the vampire who took his cross away and broke it. In The Dark Tower, Callahan’s regained faith is demonstrated when he takes his final stand against the vampires with his cross. Because he believes, it has power. Callahan is outnumbered, but his death is a sort of victory, redemption for past failure, and it serves a purpose.
Callahan isn’t the first to fall on the way to the Tower, and he isn’t the last. But his and the final death of Randall Flagg are the only ones that I appreciated. For fans of The Stand who thought he got off light, he comes to a sufficiently bad end in The Dark Tower to satisfy even the grimmest sense of justice.
The ending of the saga is a fitting one. I’ll put in a mini-spoiler here and say that when Jake dies (AGAIN!), I put the book away for a week. But as he told Roland when he died the first time, “There are other worlds than this.” Keep reading and you’ll see how it turns out.
I liked the way King puts himself in the story, because it’s the story of all stories and he fits in it. I also empathize with his explanation that he doesn’t get to choose who dies, the story does. It really is true. Nobody is less in charge of what happens than the writer. Song of Susannah and The Dark Tower both show that.
The Dark Tower also has two endings, a happy ending, and another ending. After the happy ending, the reader has a choice; stop here and feel good, or read on and risk losing the good feeling. I chose to stop for now, but I’ll read the rest soon. I hated seeing Jake die the first time, I hated it more the second time, and I want to picture him as I saw him last.
All in all, this is truly an epic adventure worth taking. The battle between good and evil plays out in a fascinating and unpredictable way, against an amazing landscape dotted by literary characters. This is a story lovers’ story with more than existence at stake. The Tower and the beams don’t just represent the life of all the worlds, they stand for light, for good, for love, for order, for beauty. Roland’s victory is the final victory, the last fight battle, and the good guys win. You have to love a story like that.
I sincerely hope Stephen King doesn’t stop really publishing, although I can’t blame him if he’s exhausted. Seeing how this story touches all stories, though, I think he could put something else out that ties in. Here’s hoping.
*Susannah has other names, but for simplicity’s sake I stuck with the one she went by for most of the series.
by Charlene Teglia | Nov 18, 2004 | Uncategorized
I slowed way down on the final Dark Tower book because sometimes it’s just hard to read anything gory when you’re queasy. And for obvious personal reasons I find Mordred really disturbing right now. But it’s still an excellent book, the end is in sight, and when I finish I’ll write up a nice review with as few spoilers as I can manage.
And now, back to writing. In case anybody wonders how the coping with SASS technique works, if I just kept up that level of production I’d finish a book every 3 months. Little bits do add up. It’s my personal preference to work in bigger blocks, but the writing does not care if you do a lot or a little at a time. It reads exactly the same. You can’t tell the difference between 20 pages written in a single sitting, or written 2 pages at a time. It’s just really irritating to the writer to have to keep pulling out of the story.
by Charlene Teglia | Nov 16, 2004 | Uncategorized
Wonder Daughter hit a milestone today; she can climb onto the couch by herself! She practised climbing up and down several times. We told her what a big girl she is while she grinned and clapped.
I know some writers work outside the home and some who work at home have actual offices with actual doors. My office is the dining room, directly off the entry and pretty central to the house, so real life is happening around me all the time. Sometimes this is impossibly distracting, but other times it’s pretty neat, like when a toddler wants to give me a hug or show off her latest accomplishment.
It’d be nice to have walls and a door some day, but I don’t ever want to work in isolation or do nothing but work. Without a life, I’d have nothing to write about pretty quickly. I’d also be very burned out. Lawrence Block calls it burning your raft, Julia Cameron calls it draining your well, but whatever you call it, it’s your life that fuels your art and you can’t ever cut yourself off from the fuel source. And really, who’d want to?
by Charlene Teglia | Nov 15, 2004 | Uncategorized
I’m feeling SASSy today. Yep, it’s true. I’m suffering from Short Attention Span Syndrome. It’s not my fault. Biology currently dictates that I get up and take a trip from my desk to the end of the hall about every 10 minutes, seemingly. Maybe it’s not quite that often, it just seems like it. But efficiency studies show that every interruption takes about 15 minutes to recover from and Mother Nature’s constant interruptions are making my efficiency pretty darn low. I also haven’t quite found the right music to get me going, although I keep playing Social Distortion’s cover of Ring of Fire.
Laurell K. Hamilton listens to Christmas music when things aren’t going well. I know if I put on Harry Connick Jr.’s Christmas CD, I will want to do nothing but hang Christmas lights. Nice for the house, but it doesn’t get my book finished.
So it’s time to revert to the method for working with tiny blocks of time. If I can only sit still for five minutes, then I use the timer and during that five minutes I write like my fingers are on fire. Small chunks of time result in small chunks of work, but enough of them by the end of the day really add up. How do you get a book written? Sometimes it’s one sentence at a time. Sort of like how you eat an elephant. The key is to keep at it until it’s done.
by Charlene Teglia | Nov 14, 2004 | Uncategorized
It’s that time of night set aside to write
And all is in readiness here;
I shut off the phone and I think I’m alone
But I’m not, it becomes slowly clear;
It is evident when I sit down with my pen
That I’m with Doubt and Worry and Fear.
It’s Doubt, you see, who whispers to me
That my reach has exceeded my grasp;
And Worry shrieks that I haven’t for weeks
Written anything solid to clasp;
That I’m on the wrong track, I’m a sham and a hack
Is the sound of Fear’s noisy last gasp.
Their presence is clear, Doubt, Worry and Fear
And they tempt me to do something else;
To dust, or to scrub the ring out of the tub,
Something USEFUL, like straighten a shelf;
They tell me to quit, but I can’t tell I’ve writ
“The End”: then I’ll start something else!
Like Lawrence Block says, I haven’t committed a poem in some time. But I have so many laying around that I will probably post one to the blog once in a while. This one is always good for the anxiety-ridden writer at work.
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