Bram Stoker’s spinning in his grave…
It’s a funny thing with sequels – when you’ve read a book, you’ll probably be excited to learn that the story will be continued, especially if that story didn’t have a proper conclusion or left many questions unanswered. On the other hand, there’s always that shadow of doubt lingering behind you when you pick up a sequel to a book you love. When “Dracula – The Un-Dead” was released in 2009 (German edition), I stayed away from it and decided to wait for the cheaper paperback. Said paperback has been added to my collection recently and I can say one thing: It’s been a while since I’ve read a book with more than 500 pages within only a couple of days (3, actually). And yes, somehow it entertained me and somehow, it was fun. However, this doesn’t change the simple fact that the book is but one thing: incredibly bad. When reading, I had the impression that the authors – Dacre Stoker, a descendent of Bram Stoker, and self-proclaimd Dracula expert Ian Holt – collected numerous ideas they wanted to squeeze into the book – no matter how ridiculous, no matter whether those ideas were compatible. While I was reading this book, a picture started forming in my head – a picture of the authors brainstorming and thus producing one plotline after another. Actually, I think it might have been like this – before you read on, beware. There are massive SPOILERS ahead.
Stoker: Listen, dude, I’ve got an awesome idea – let’s put in Countess Bathory!
Holt (excited): Great! No one will be expecting that! And we could squeeze in some lesbian scenes – brilliant!
Stoker (agitated): And… and… and… oh yes, I know, I know, we’ll continue the love story as presented in Coppola’s movie and in the afterword, we’ll simply claim that the original book supports that love story. We’ll find some paragraph that we can cite, I’m pretty sure.
Holt: That’s brilliant! I’ve got an idea as well… but it would be a little risky…
Stoker: Come on, spit it out (jumps up and down on his seat)
Holt: What would you think of having your uncle Bram as a character, trying to bring “Dracula” to the big stage? Quincey could meet him and because he’s such a smart guy he’ll wonder why the main characters are named after his parents.
Stoker: Aaaaaaah, genius! (nearly falls from his seat but can prevent it – barely). You know what’d be cool, too?
Holt: Let’s see… we could produce a charismatic minor character, totally enigmatic and of Romanian origin, and…
Stoker: …. he’s actually Dracula!
Holt: Exactly! No one will be expecting this. That’s gonna be one cool surprise – imagine our readers finding out who Basarab really is, they won’t notice that beforehand, I’m sure. You know what would be even cooler? Quincey finding out that Dracula is his dad – kind of a Darth Vader-moment.
Stoker (now hyperventilating): I just had an inspiration!
Holt (tense): Let’s hear it!
Stoker (takes a deep breath): Well… we’ll set the story 25 years after the original book but we’ll move the beginning of uncle Bram’s story to the year 1888. That way, we could include Jack the Ripper plus an aging inspector who’s still angry that he didn’t catch the Ripper and who thinks Van Helsing is the Ripper…
Holt (doubtful): Van Helsing is Jack the Ripper?
Stoker: Let me finish, will you? Of course not – that’s just an idea our inspector has but of course, he’s totally wrong and the real Ripper is…
Holt (enlightened): … Countess Bathory!
Stoker: Bingo! And that gives us the premise to explain to our readers that Dracula is actually one of the good guys and that he’s been travelling to London in the original novel simply because he needed to stop the Countess.
Holt: You definitely inherited your uncle’s talent, boy – I’m a Dracula expert, I should know! Boy, this will be the greatest novel of all time! There might be one or two inconsistencies with the original novel but we’ll explain them away – we found Bram’s notes and wanted to satisfy both the book- and the film-lovers. People out there will buy any rubbish, they’ll buy this as well (has dollar signs in his eyes).
These absurd plotlines are completed by characters that are hardly recognizable. Ok – I’ll give Stoker/Holt this much: The changes in Jonathan and Mina Harker, in Jack Seward and in Arthur Holmwood are quite believable, given the trauma they’ve been through. But why the authors decided to change a figure of pure evil into a tragic anti-hero is beyond me. The lengthy afterword came across especially cheeky – various changes to the original story are justified with a nod to some notes the two guys read and/or with a different interpretation of a certain scene, like Dracula’s death. Because he’s not staked but stabbed in the heart, Stoker must have intended a sequel – that’s their explanation. Brilliant, isn’t it?
Equally brilliant: The real villain this time around is Countess Bathory who can fly and thus move from London to Paris and vice versa pretty quickly but who, when seeing the need to go to Whitby for the lame showdown, chooses a coach. Yes. A coach. With horses. And then she’s angry because it takes her so long. Give me a break.
I could go on and on and on about this book but I think I’ve put down the most important things. The only reason why this book has entertained me is my soft spot for trash. One thing before I finish: The German translation is in parts plain horrible – Van Helsing turns into Yoda, some phrases are used incorrectly etc. But with a book of this… uhm… quality, it really doesn’t matter.
Life sucks and then you die
I’m shaken. After we had booked the location for our wedding, I started to write e-mails to friends, telling them to save the date and that we’d love to have them as our guests at the wedding. Yesterday, e-mails from said friends kept popping up, basically stating that they’d love to come. But one e-mail was very, very depressing and very sad. One of my friends back from college wrote that she’d save the date – the disturbing thing was that she didn’t mention her husband. A couple of minutes later, she wrote another e-mail telling me that he had died in August. Bloody brain tumor. I knew he’d had two operations before and I knew that he had been in some kind of coma for a couple of weeks in spring. What I didn’t know was that he had lost the battle against that fucking tumor in August. It’s just not fair. When I was still living in Salzburg, I used to visit my friend and her husband frequently – they lived across the street, she and I had graduated together and been through the whole “OMG we need to finish our dissertation before time runs out”-thing. When I moved to Vienna, we didn’t talk much – occasionally, we’d see each other when my fiance and me were visiting Salzburg. In spring, she told me that her husband was very sick; he’d had a brain tumor before, it had been cut out. But the damn thing grew back. So they cut it out again. After that, things became nasty. He had seizures and went into some kind of coma for a couple of weeks. After that, it was hospital and rehab and care for him – he wasn’t with his family since March. And I didn’t know simply because I didn’t call her or write an e-mail. Yesterday, she wrote me an e-mail stating that she’d save the date, followed by another mail telling me that he had died. It’s just not fair. He was a kind, funny guy. He loved his wife and his son. He’ll be missed. Georg – wherever you are – here’s to you. I’m so sorry that I couldn’t be at your funeral – I simply didn’t know 
A (very slow) Dance with Dragons
Finally, I got to read “A Dance with Dragons”, the latest installment in George R. R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire”-series. Instead of buying the book, I borrowed it from a friend – the same friend, btw, who introduced me to the series and thus made me an addict – thanks a lot, Claudia *g* The main reason I didn’t buy the book straight away – though I really wanted to – was this: I own the previous volumes only in paperback, and I’m nerdy enough to think that a hardcover would just look stupid besides four paperbacks.
Anyway. I finished ADWD yesterday and what can I say – it’s in parts pretty disappointing. Not as disappointing as “Under Heaven”, mind you, but very close to it. Ok – among the disappoiniting books I read this year, it’s behind “Under Heaven” and “The Dark Tower”, but still… maybe my expectations were too high after having read the previous books and I must confess that I don’t know what I expected. A bit more story, not just stagnation and a very, very slow pace – this book is even slower than “A Feast for Crows” which I actually liked a lot (hey, it had lots of Jaime-POVs *g*). There are several reasons for this and I’ll try to explain them as best as I can. Before I do that, let me start on the positive aspects of this book. But beware, there are some SPOILERS so if you haven’t read the book yet you’d best stop reading. If you decide to continue – well, I warned you.
1. Tyrion is back. Yay! He’s by far my favourite character in the series; love his wit and cunning.
2. The POVs featuring Reek/Theon are awesome. I really hated the guy when he decided to betray the Starks in an earlier volume and I couldn’t wait to see him suffer. Alas – GRRM has managed to write his POVs in a way that I actually pitied the poor guy. Sure – he’s a turncloak and all, but no one should suffer what he endured at the hands of Ramsay Bolton – by far the most evil character I’ve encountered yet, at least as far as ASoIaF is concerned.
3. Jaime’s back for one chapter. Yay! I actually let out a whoop of joy when I turned a page and saw that the next chapter would be featuring Jaime. His POV could have been included in Feast, to be sure, or moved to the next volume, but it was nice to see how he was faring and that he’s obviously moving towards some kind of redemption after all the cruel things he has done in the past.
4. Cersei’s back. Yay! As with Jaime, her POVs could have been included in either Feast or the next installment but it was awesome to see how she basically got what she deserved. Yes, she’s evil and crazy but I like her a lot – and I pitied her when she had to walk through King’s Landing naked. Very humiliating. I think she’ll survive that, though. We’ll see how the trial goes.
5. Dany’s back. Yay!
6. The dragons mature and kill off one of the most annoying and boring characters in the book. Yay again!
7. There are some storylines that will be crucial for the next installment. Essentially, I think GRRM has all his characters where he wants them to be – not that I totally agree with his decisions, but as long as he doesn’t screw it up in the last two or three books, I’m fine with it.
8. Superb writing, as ever, but a bit too focused on detail for my taste. But that’s complaining on a very high level.
9. Arya’s back. Yay! Loved how she solved her first assignment as an assassin – that was just brilliant!
10. Bran’s storyline is awesome. I just wish there would have been more of it, and despite other people claiming the magic introduced in Bran’s storyline is weird and strange, I found it enthralling.
11. Melisandre’s POV. We get to know how the Red Priestess ticks – all of a sudden, she doesn’t seem that evil anymore.
Reading this list, you might think that I really liked the book, and that’s true – but only partially. There were chapters that dragged on forever and ever and ever… the dance proved to be a very slow one, and some severe editing would have helped a great deal because a lot of chapters were just plain boring. I’ll try to explain that.
1. Tyrion. As much as I love him, his POVs were exceedingly dull and boring as the book moved along. I am sick and tired of travelouges, i.e. characters travelling around without ever reaching their goal. GRRM did the same to Arya but in her case, there was a point – without her travelling and suffering, she wouldn’t be where she is now, i.e. training to become a faceless man. With Tyrion, I just don’t see the point. He’s travelling for at least 3 or 4 chapters or more, his goal being to reach Dany to team up with her to destroy his siblings. I would have LOVED to see Dany’s reaction to a Lannister marching into her palace/pyramid and proposing to destroy the remaining Lannisters. Alas, it doesn’t happen – not yet. Instead, we get endless POVs feat. Tyrion in which he muses on turtles (argh), becomes enslaved, befriends another dwarf and obsesses about his first wife, Tysha resp. keeps wondering where whores go. Give me a break. He’s a great character and he just doesn’t deserve THIS. Readers of ASoIaF know that he can wriggle out of every situation, complicated and dangerous as it might be so there’s simply no point having him enslaved and showing us how he escapes slavery. We KNEW he could do it, right?
2. Jon Snow. I never really liked the guy but at least his previous POVs showed some development. They were action-packed. In ADWD, we get Jon sitting upon the wall trying to be a good Lord Commander while Mormont’s raven keeps croaking “Crow” or “Snow”. Really – how can ANYBODY concentrate on the tasks ahead if that annoying raven keeps croaking in his ear? Jon’s storyline could have cut down by half, at least. There are events that matter, to be sure. But I don’t need 10 pages of describing how 3000+ wildlings are being transferred from one side of the Wall to the other. Boooooring. Also, he’s still whining way too much – “Oh no, I’m baseborn, I need to prove myself, I need to save my remaining siblings but I can’t because I’ve spoken the words”. The only thing I liked about Jon’s POVs: He decided to man the remaining castles along the Wall with wildlings because he knew he’d need them to defend the realm. And when Ramsay’s letter arrived, he made a decision that probably cost him his life.
3. Quentyn Martell. Give me a break. The most boring character ever and the most pointless character ever. He’s awarded four POVs and – SPOILER ALERT – is being toasted by one of Dany’s dragons in the end. Utterly pointless – unless his death provokes a reaction from Dorne that no one can foresee. My guess is that his father will be mad with grief and that he’ll blame Quentyn’s death on Dany, even though she wasn’t around when Quentyn figured he could a) steal and b) tame a dragon. Stupid boy.
4. Dany obsessing over Daario. Honestly. The guy is a slimeball. I can understand that GRRM wanted to show how Dany is still a teenage girl, falling in love again after Drogo, but it was way too much. Also, the badass Dany from Feast is gone. She’s trying to rule a city that can’t be ruled. She marries a man who promises to restore peace instead of forging a strong alliance with Dorne by marrying dull Quentyn Martell. Since Quentyn is dead, the blame will be on her, so there’ll be no chance to forge that alliance anymore. What really annoyed me, though, was the last Dany POV. She’s flown away with Drogon, one of her dragons, and tries to get back to Meereen but she ends up in the Dothraki sea, sick, hungry and basically where she started. I expected more progress there – mind you, she doesn’t have to invade Westeros with her dragons, but having her start from scratch isn’t very nice.
5. Too much detail. I really don’t care if Ser Barristan scrubs himself clean, dons his smallclothes, trousers, shirt and armour before confronting Hizdahr. And I don’t care about a characater’s breakfast. I don’t care about the turtles. Too much, really.
6. Annoying use of phrases and words. I hated Ygritte’s “You know nothing, Jon Snow” from the start – why, oh why did GRRM think it’d be a good idea to include it in bascially every thought Jon has? Also very popular with GRRM: “must needs” – I’m not sure if this is even proper English. Characters keep saying “Would that we had yadayadayada”. They are “leal”, there’s “suet”, and one of the most over-used phrases ever: “Dark wings, dark words”. Yeah, I get it.
Overall, ADWD was partially a disappointment. I know that there are people out there who have a different opinion and will rate this book very highly on Amazon. Fine. For me, there just wasn’t enough progress, storywise. It’s a very slow book, and it’s a very long book. It took me about a month to read, and at some point – I think around page 700+ – I really considered putting the book down because I was so bored. But maybe it’s just me. However, I have not given up on the series – I’ll definitely read the next installement (if it’s being released in my lifetime *g*) and keep hoping that by then GRRM will be back to his former brilliance.
Bride-to-be
I’m gonna get married! Yay! My boyfriend proposed to me in Carcassonne on August 31st, and the only reason I didn’t spill these news on this blog is that my parents didn’t know – and I didn’t want anything to leak. You know how treacherous the internet can be *g* Last weekend, my fiance formally asked my parents if I can be his wife and their reaction was just awesome – they were rather surprised (though we had talked about marriage before), then very moved, and instead of saying “Yes of course you can marry her”, my mom just embraced him and said “Welcome to the family”. Very moving and a very happy day for all of us 
Under Heaven
You know, I love the books by Guy Gavriel Kay – he’s my favourite author, and I have read all his novels. I skipped the poetry, though, simply because I don’t like poetry very much and because I think GGK is a lot better when writing prose. Every time a new novel is announced and finally published, it’s like a small feast. In fact, it’s like christmas and my birthday all wrapped up. With “Under Heaven”, his latest novel, published in 2010, things were different. Very different.
“Finally! A new GGK book!” was my jubilant thought when “Under Heaven” was published last year.
“Finally! It’s here!” I cried out when the novel was delivered to me.
“Finally. It’s over!” was my rather disappointed and, yes, a little depressed, annoyed and irritated conclusion when I closed the book last night.
It took me over a month to read those 560+ pages – very unusual even for a person who doesn’t have that much time on her hands to read.Maybe this will illustrate how unusual that period of time really is: “Tigana”, my first GGK novel ever, a volume of almost 700 pages, took me only 1,5 weeks, maybe 2 weeks. Definitely no longer than that. Simply because I couldn’t put the book down, I had to know what happened next. Same with “The Fionavar Tapestry”, consisting of three volumes; same with “Lions of Al-Rassan”, still my favourite GGK novel; same with the “Sarantine Mosaic”, consisting of two volumes; also the same with “A Song for Arbonne”, “Last Light of the Sun” and “Ysabel”, even though these three never made it to my personal top 5 list of greatest GGK novels ever. Still – I could not put them down. Not one of them. And except for “Last Light of the Sun” and “Ysabel”, I have re-read them all. And all of them – except for “Last Light of the Sun” and “Ysabel”, again – made me cry at some point. With “Lions”, for instance, it doesn’t matter how often I read the book – the last 20+ pages always blur before my eyes.
Why did it take me so long to finish “Under Heaven”, then? Why the disappointment? What the hell has happened?
It’s pretty simple: The book is boring as hell. GGK employed his technique of weaving a fictional tale into a historical setting, renaming people and places, inventing new characters, doing a lot of research, and writing the whole damn thing in his particular style. The writing is perfect. The structure is perfect. The research – perfect again. So you’d think this should be a pretty good book. Well, it is – if you’re interested in the Tang Dynasty that ruled China in the 9th century AD. If you love medieval Chinese culture – this is the book for you. From a neutral point of view, this is a good book. From my personal point of view, it is a boring, tedious book featuring the most boring character ever. Let’s see if I can get this straight.
The main character, Shen Tai, has spent two years at a remote place named Kuala Nor, burying the dead left there after a war that had raged between his country and another. He has done so because his father, a famous general, has died and he needs to spend at least two years in mourning. He has done so also because his father has fought at Kuala Nor. So he spends his days burying the dead and his nights listening to the ghosts of the dead wailing outside. When his two-year-mourning-period comes to an end, an old friend shows up with an important message but is killed before he can deliver the message. The assassin, too, is killed. Soldiers from the once-rivalling country bring not only food but also a note from their princess (who happens to be a daughter of Tai’s own ruler): For what Tai has done at Kuala Nor, he’ll be given 250 Sardian horses, the most precious and valuable horses ever. This, of course, means there will be more attempts on his life but he is clever enough to work out a plan so that no-one can kill him without losing the horses for the empire. As it turns out, Tai has to return to the capital and try to survive at a presumably glittering court.
Honestly: If I had read this plot summary and the book had been written by any other author – I would not have bought it. I only bought and read it because it’s by GGK, and that’s one of the few good things I can say about it. The story is boring, it drags on and, above all, it’s not even very inventive. The concept of sending a young man to court so he must prove himself there, making him valuable because he has done something important? Kay has done that before, and much, much better, in “Sailing to Sarantium” and “Lord of Emperors’”. While the Sarantine court is very lively, glittering, deceiving, coulourful, the Ta-Ming palace of Kitai is… lifeless. It’s introduced pretty late, I think about halfway through the book, with Tai showing up even later so that plotline – young man must prove himself yadayada – really goes nowhere. Plus we know – or can at least presume – that Tai will avoid all plots easily. Which, of course, he does. Not that there are many plots to avoid. Crispin in the “Sarantine Mosaic” had a much harder time at the Sarantine court than Tai did at the Ta-Ming.
The characters are busy hiding their feelings and intentions from each other while observing (and preserving) protocol. Oh, and they drink wine. A lot. Some of them write poetry because their culture makes them to, which gives Kay the opportunity to sprinkle in some verses. As I said above, I think his prose is a lot better. Plus I don’t like poetry. Plus it felt unnatural. Why would virtually every man write poetry in his spare time while virtually every woman engages in dancing and/or playing the “pipa”?
I know – culture. That’s probably what Tang China was like. But it wasn’t my cup of tea. And the characters? Oh please, don’t get me started. The only characters I really liked were the women – Tai’s sister Li Mei, Spring Rain (a concubine) and Wen Jian, consort to the emperor, all of them headstrong women – as well as some minor characters and, of course, the Banished Immortal, a poet who had been banished from the empire several times and who drank too much. These characters felt alive. I couldn’t bring myself to care enough for them, though, but at least there were some likeable characters in this book whose stories, as far as they have been told, I enjoyed.
But Tai, our main hero? He’s a bore. Granted, he’s very mature and he’s not as shaken or unstable as other GGK characters tend to be. Sure, he hasn’t found his place in the world yet but it seemed to me that, whatever he tried before Kuala Nor, he messed up. He wasn’t good enough to become a Kanlin (trained fighters, I guess their equivalent would be the Shaolin), he wasn’t really fit for the army, and before he could become a mandarin, he went off to Kuala Nor to bury dead bodies. My point is: This guy has achieved very little, yet he is given precious horses and becomes a very important figure simply because he has buried dead bodies. All the time he remains the same old bore – cool, distanced, anxious to hide his feelings and to observe protocol, reserved even when it comes to meeting his former beloved Spring Rain. I know – culture again. I seem to lack understanding for this kind of culture, for this kind of character and for this kind of story.
Maybe it’s my fault that I didn’t enjoy “Under Heaven”. I have no knowledge of Tang China and its culture but whereas other books by GGK made me want to go out and get as many books on the period covered as possible, this one just makes me want to forget about it and leave the book on the shelf where it can collect some dust. It’s a shame and I’d never have thought that I would write such a harsh review on one of GGK’s book. But as it seems, even he can fail.
The Dark Tower – Part VI
Before I start ranting about the end, let me list a few more things that bothered me about Volume VII.
- Randall Flagg. We know the guy is pure evil and can hardly be killed. We know he’s destroying worlds, we know he’s practically immortal. But when he encounters Mordred, he relies on some thinking cap (I know this has turned up in another King book but I haven’t read this one – say sorry), not realising that Mordred can still read his thoughts. And then, bam! Mordred uses his telepathic powers to make Flagg gouge out his own eyes and feed them to Morderd. He makes him try to tear out his tongue and then kills him. What kind of death is this for an arch-villain??? Flagg deserved better than that.
- Mordred’s telepathic powers. We see him use those on Flagg but along his pursuit of Roland and Susannah, he seems to lose them. It could have been so easy for him to ensnare and kill them, but what does he do? Sits in the dark, watches them and sulks until he finally decides to attack and is taken down by a billy-bumbler and a couple of bullets. Weak. Really, really weak.
- The Crimson King’s Castle. Roland and Susannah reach the castle only to confront three guys who look like Stephen King. Argh. This wasn’t necessary. As important as this scene is, it would have worked as well if the three guys had not looked like King. Another outburst of narcissism.
- The Crimson King himself. When reading the books, it became clear that the Crimson King was the ultimate enemy, he who sought to destroy the Beams that supported the Tower, thus destroying the Tower and all worlds. A very powerful being, it seemed. But what do we get? A guy looking a bit like Santa Claus entrapped on a balcony of the Tower, throwing sneetches and trying to destroy Roland. At that point, Roland already knew that Patrick, the guy he and Susannah saved from Dandelo, had the power to draw pictures and erase what he had drawn – not only in the picture, but in real life. The “battle” between Roland and the Crimson King rages on for a couple of pages, the King throwing sneetches which Roland shoots while trying to resist the call of the Tower. While reading this, I kept thinking “Come on, make Patrick draw a picture of the King and then erase it so that the King will be gone for good”. In the end, Roland has the same idea. Yay. No epic battle there. Just a simple eraser. Cheap. Very cheap.
- Susannah. I never cared much about her – I was indifferent towards her. But I started to dislike her when she and Roland finally reached the Tower. I understand why she wanted to leave; she obviously realised that there were more important things than the Tower. At the same time, she becomes all bitchy toward Roland – gets angry when he shows his relief that Oy and Patrick will stay with him. Also, I didn’t understand how she acted when Eddie died. At first, she was all teary. Then, when Eddie was moved to a room where he could die, she became all calm, and on the train to Fedic she briefly wonders why she can’t cry. And then she goes on. This isn’t how a loving and grieving woman should be portrayed. My guess is that King simply didn’t know how to show her grief. So he left it at that, not caring that Susannah turned into a cold human being. And when Susannah and Roland close in on the Tower, he decides to let her go – which is quite logical since Roland has started his quest on his own – at least when we first meet him -, and so he has to finish it on his own.
After having defeated both Mordred and the Crimson King, Roland is finally able to progress towards the Tower. The chapter ends with Roland calling out the names of all those he has lost – heartbreaking -, the door slams shut and Patrick is left all alone among a field of roses. At this point, I was angry once more – this couldn’t be the ending, could it? I wasn’t ready to accept that I had read about 4000 pages just to see Roland enter the Tower and then – nothing. However, we are provided with an epilogue – Susannah arrives in New York after Patrick has drawn a door for her, she finds Eddie (0r some version of Eddie) and Jake (or some version of Jake). This was beautiful. It reconciled me with Eddie and Jake’s death earlier on.
And now comes the Coda. King states that his readers should stop here, that the ending he will provide won’t satisfy his audience, that it won’t be a happy ending. I really wish I had stopped at this point. Sure – I was angry with the first ending that had Roland entering the Tower, with the door slamming shut. But it would have been a far better ending than what King presented in the Coda. I think he knew that his readers would read on and shun his advice. I couldn’t resist it for even a minute. So I read on. I read how Roland entered different rooms of the Tower, recounting his life, and I was eager to find out what would be in the last room at the top.
At the top, Roland finds a door with his name on it. He opens it. He sees the desert – the desert introduced in Volume I, The Gunslinger. And he realises that he has to do it all over again. He has sought and found the Tower before. We don’t know how many times he has had to do this, and we don’t get an explanation why he has to go through this all over again. Remember the quote I provided in my first post – the Man in Black/Walter telling Roland that he’d not remember, that what hurt him once would hurt him twice and that this was the beginning’s end. It all comes full circle, and I can see why King chose this ending for the series.
But I don’t like it. In fact, I hate it. It’s pointless. It’s cheap. We don’t get any explanation why Roland has to endure his quest over and over again. We can only guess. One guess would be that the fact that Roland let Jake drop to his death in The Gunslinger is crucial. He puts the Tower above everything else, even human life. He leaves the Horn of Eld on Jericho Hill even though his dreams tell him that he needs to put the Horn and both of his guns at the door of the Tower. Roland ends up in the desert again but this time he has the Horn of Eld with him so he must have done something right. At least, there’s some hope that this time, Roland will get it right. That there will be salvation.
The Dark Tower – Part V
I’m reaching the end of this series of entries. If you have born with me so far – thanks. If you haven’t – I can understand why you didn’t because it’s very difficult to both summarize and comment a series such as the Dark Tower. Those of you who have read the books will probably get my drift. If not – oh well, what the hell
When I started to read the finale volume, The Dark Tower, I was already kind of tired. Four months of more or less constant reading can be very tiring at times, and even though I enjoyed the books, I found that I was quite happy that, finally, I would be done with it. Volume VII has a great opening – it has action, it has drama, it closes Callahan’s story in the only way possible. The ka-tet might be split, but is not broken yet. There are lots of wonderful moments in this book, lots of revelations. But there are also a lot of downfalls.
Mia gives birth to Mordred who turns out to be a were-spider – oh God, a spider. Again. I hate the damn things. And I felt for Mia when she, still completely high from giving birth and wanting nothing more than to hold her baby, was eaten alive by the creature. It was disgusting, yet the only way that King could get rid of Mia. She had fulfilled her destiny. She was no longer necessary, wasn’t needed anymore. Susannah, however, was. Thus she killed of the taheen (the humans with the heads of animals) and managed to reunite with the ka-tet.
For most of it, I enjoyed the last volume but there were numerous chapters I just hated. At least three times, I slammed the book on a table nearby out of frustration and anger. So please, instead of recounting what’s good about the book, let me rant about the bad parts.
Let’s start with Eddie. I knew he would be dying because I had read an unmarked spoiler on the German King boards, in a thread that was quite innocently entitled “The most loathsome characters”. One user chose to name Pimli “because he shot Eddie” – and she didn’t use spoiler tags for this one. So I was prepared for Eddie’s death. What I was not prepared for was how long it took Eddie to actually die. He’s shot in the head, falls down and is carried off to a room where he can die. His death stretches over at least ten pages – TEN PAGES! For most of the time, I was crying, unable to see the words written, at the same time hating King for doing this to one of my favourite characters. After the chapter, I slammed the book on a table nearby and decided I needed a cigarette. At that point, I figured that probably the rest of the ka-tet (that was now broken) would die as well – I knew Oy would die (another spoiler I stumbled upon), and I figured that Jake would die as well. Hey, the kid has died twice before, why not let him die a third time?
And this is just what King did. He let Jake die in order to save himself. King chose to come to terms with the trauma he endured after the accident in 1999 by making Roland and Jake go to Maine (again) and save his life as a character. Jake throws himself between King and the car that is about to hit him. King lives, Jake dies. And this happened only one chapter after Eddie had died. This was the second time I slammed the book on a table – ok, not a table but that glove compartment of our car since I was reading this particular scene while driving to Salzburg with my boyfriend (do I have to stress that he was the one driving?). I was mad even though I had seen it coming. King sacrifices the boy so that he can live? Argh. I didn’t cry for Jake, mind you. But I felt deeply sorry for Roland and Oy. It broke my heart to read how they buried Jake, how Oy cried, how Roland broke down. And all this so that a writer could live and finish his tale.
I’ll give King this much: He hasn’t tried to picture himself as a likeable character. He’s an alcoholic, he smokes too much, he’s not very trustworthy. But why, oh why, did he choose the Dark Tower series to dwell upon his traumatic experience? Why didn’t he just write an autobiography like other people do? Why did he have to go ahead and ruin this series? I still think that even without the chapters focusing on King himself, the story wouldn’t have changed much. If the chapters had been erased, the damage would have been minor or maybe even not existing at all.
Yes, I hate the idea that Stephen King chose to introduce himself as a major character. I think it’s narcisstistic and vain. His readers know that he’s a talented writer but he doesn’t have to rub it into our faces, does he? The chapters focusing on him also reveal one of King’s big weaknesses: He is able to build up to a climax, he can create intriguing characters, but sometimes he loses it and ruins it all.
The last volume in the Dark Tower series was quite frustrating sometimes. Apart from the aforementioned chapters in which King himself appears, there are numerous chapters that had me go “Oh noooooooooo, how can you do THAT??” Take Mordred, for instance. We are told that Mordred is a very powerful creature and that he’s meant to kill Roland. He’s able of telepathy, and he grows at an extraordinary speed. I would have expected an epic final battle between Mordred and Roland, but what do we get? Mordred, greedy and hungry as he is, devours some rotten horse flesh which turns out to be poisoned. Thus he suffers from diarrhea and puking. He’s growing weak, slowly dying from food poisoning. And when he finally attacks Roland and Patrick, the artist, he’s too stupid to consider Oy who saves the day by biting Mordred so that Roland can kill him. Oy dies as well (another part I hated) but Mordred’s also dead. Yay. Killing a giant spider that suffers from diarrhea really is heroic, ain’t it? Totally, utterly meaningless. Where’s the epic battle between father and son I’ve been waiting for?
The Dark Tower – Part IV
Volume VI, Song of Susannah, basically focuses on the struggle between Susannah and Mia who turns out to be a demon inhabiting Susannah in order to give birth to “the chap”, as she is fond of calling the baby. Mia has been given a body by the Crimson King and his minions; the baby she carries is both Roland’s and the Crimson King’s. Don’t ask me how this works. Actually, Song of Susannah is quite confusing – a great read, but confusing. The story is this: When Roland had to distract the demon in The Gunslinger so it wouldn’t kill Jake, he planted his semen inside the demon. The demon turned out to be both male and female, that is to say, it could switch gender. When Susannah distracted the demon while Roland and Eddie tried to save Jake, the demon switched to its male part, thus giving Roland’s seed to Susannah. Hooray! Now Roland’s going to be a daddy! Also, some part of the Crimson King has mingled with Roland’s seed so that the child will have to fathers. Great, eh? Just think of the possibilities – the little boy playing both fathers, getting from one what the other has denied. Of course, it’s not that simple.
As it turns out, the child Mia carries will be Roland’s Nemesis, and since the child will be named Mordred, people who are familiar with the legend of King Arthur will know what this might lead up to. After all, Roland is from the line of Arthur Eld – King Arthur, in other words -, and he’s the last one. As we know, the legend of King Arthur has father and son battling each other to death. Is this what Roland has to expect? We’ll see.
Song of Susannah focuses on various plots. First, there’s Mia and Susannah, sharing a body and ready to give birth in New York, helped by the agents of the Crimson King – gruesome creatures with human bodies and animal heads as well as the lower men, giant rats disguised as human beings. Second, there’s Jake and Callahan’s journey to New York to rescue Susannah. Third, there are Roland and Eddie who go to Maine via the Unfound Door to seek out Stephen King. And this is where the book starts to deteriorate. The chapter entitled “The Writer” is just plain awful because it introduces Stephen King as a character – a vital character, as it turns out. Upon seeing Roland, he tries to flee. Furthermore, we are told that Roland and Stephen King look like father and son (or brothers). This made me cringe. From the very first page of The Gunslinger, I had depicted Roland as a worn-out, tall, lean guy – a bit like Clint Eastwood in his 40s. But never – NEVER – did it cross my mind that Roland might look like Stephen King. Awful. Just awful.
It gets even worse. King – the character – tells Roland and Eddie that he has made them up, thus relativising the whole story. Argh. Even though it turns out that King only listens to the Song of the Turtle (the Turtle being one of the Guardians of the Beams) and is more or less the annalist, it was awful. It felt so… cheap. So narcissistic. Even more so since King ascribed to himself a very powerful role – that of saving the Tower, eventually. Roland and Eddie urge him to finish the tale, to listen to the Song because otherwise the Tower might fall. I absolutely hated that part. I know there are readers out there who thought it was a great twist, and I guess they can argue why they think that is. Good for them if they liked this. For me, it was a downfall. A big one. It was like plunging into some deep dark hole. And it got even worse.
The Dark Tower – Part III
At the end of Wizard & Glass, the ka-tet has somehow escaped Randall Flagg and is ready to move on. Next stop: Calla Bryn Sturgis, a small village on the outskirts of Mid-World – probably closer to End-World, in fact. Here we meet another familiar character. Say hello to Father Callahan, he who has faltered when facing the vampire Kurt Barlow in “Salem’s Lot”. Wolves of the Calla, being the fifth volume in the series, tells the story of the Calla and the Wolves that terrorize the land every 23, 24 years to take the children – well, not all of the children. Only one of each twins. For, you see, in the Calla, only twins are born. And every once in a while, the Wolves will take away one of each pair of twins and carry them off to Thunderclap to feed the Breakers. Of course, the ka-tet steps in to prevent this from happening again. This is the main story. Another storyline focuses on Callahan and tells what happened to him after he has fled from Salem’s Lot. More flashbacks. Yay. But this time, King did it right. He dedicates one chapter at at time to Callahan’s story, with the next chapter focussing on the main plot. In short, it’s not one awfully long flashback we have to endure but several small ones. Some readers found this dull and didn’t care much for Callahan’s story. I liked it, in fact, even though it wasn’t essential to the main plot.
One thing I really liked about Volume V was Roland’s progress. He becomes even more human, attached to the other people in his ka-tet. And, as it turns out, the guy can also sing, dance, and stagedive. That was a bit strange, probably, but it also showed a different side of Roland that hadn’t been there before. Ever since Volume II, Roland has started to care more and more for the people who accompany him. Even more so: He has come to love them. This is a different Roland. He’s no longer the lonely wolf focused solely on his goal though he never lets go of the Tower. But he also realises that there are people who depend on him, who need his help and friendship. Very nicely executed, and I cannot understand how readers cannot like this book – but hey, I didn’t like Wizard & Glass and other readers did. De gustibus non est disputandum, right?
Wolves of the Calla features a battle – not epic, but a battle. We encounter Black Thirteen, the most powerful of the glass balls in the Wizard’s Rainbow, able to send people todash – which means, they enter a dream-like state of being, seeing things and getting an idea of what to do next – very simply put, I’ll give you that. We also encounter a new character – Mia, who seems to be yet another part of Susannah’s divided personality and who’s pregnant with “the chap”. Now there’s a surprise. Ever since Jake had been drawn to Mid-World, King had made allusions as to Susannah being pregnant. As it turns out, she is. And she develops strange cravings – or rather, Mia does. Roland is the first to notice which is yet another sign of him taking care of the people surrounding him (and of his sharp senses, of course). Wolves of the Calla, thus, is a good book – not the best in the series, mind you. After I have read all of it, The Waste Lands still is my favourite. Wolves of the Calla could have been equally great but King decided to ruin it. First, he introduced a peculiar language the Calla folken speak – and after a while, this became really, really annoying. “Say thankya” is ok, and I definitely can live with “Thankee-sai”. But “We say thankya big-big” was too much. Way too much. I appreciate King’s effort to develop a language of his own. I really do. But as I’ve said above, after a while this peculiar dialect became annoying.
Even more annoying was the twist King decided to put in at the end. After defeating the wolves (who turned out to be robots equipped with light-sabers – yes, those from Star Wars! – and sneetches King “borrowed” from Harry Potter), Susannah disappears through the Unfound Door – not of her own free will but because Mia takes over. Mia feels that her time is drawing near and that the baby will soon be delivered so she kidnaps Susannah and takes her off to – yes, that’s right: New York. In the cave that houses the Unfound Door, our heroes find some books (that have been pushed through the door by one Calvin Tower who owns a deserted piece of land in New York, the land housing a rose that is connected to the Tower and needs to be saved by our heroes). Tower was saved by Eddie from certain death in the other world but had insisted that Eddie saved his most precious books – which end up in the cave. And guess what Roland, Eddie, Jake, and Callahan find among these books? A copy of “Salem’s Lot” by one Stephen King. As I’ve said before, it’s quite amusing to have allusions to other books in the series. But this one set the path for a development that I still cannot stomach. Callahan goes all “Oh no, I’m a fictional character” while the others figure that Stephen King must somehow be crucial when it comes to saving the Tower. Because, you see, it has turned out that the Beams holding up the Tower are crumbling (this is where the Breakers come in). Only two Beams remain, and if one of them collapses, so will the Tower. In order to prevent that, the ka-tet figures that they must seek out Stephen King because he seems to be the counterpart of the rose. Yeah, right. When I read the final pages of Wolves of the Calla, I feared for the worst. And it turned out I was right.
