The end of Roland Deschain's Journey – The Dark Tower

I’ve reviewed the last few books with just general babble in my opinion… Not talking details at all about The Dark Tower books except for those who know the Dark Tower. I’ve tried to keep my reviews spoiler free so that other people can enjoy what happens to Roland and hsi ka-tet as they approach the apex of existence: The Dark Tower.

Stephen King spins his final tale – another work of Metafiction with himself involved in the novel – in the thirty-plus year saga of the Gunslinger and his quest. It closes the door on the series but it also opens the door to the reader – the Constant Reader that Stephen likes to reffer to…. How so? ON discord perhaps? Discontent? On frustrations? On heartbreak?

It’s just a book to so many who have enjoyed them over the years, it’s a pilgrimage to the center of a fiction writers imagination.

From here on in, I want to give a constant spoiler warning… I will not be holding back on my comments… I’ll say the book kept me interested and it was a page turner… Now if you do not want to know what happens in the book — READ NO FURTHER!

—

You still here? OK… Well, lets get down to basics: Roland does indeed reach the Dark Tower and breach it…

The bad news is that King decided to get rid of some people along the way. We have a few people form past King Novels show up — including Shimmie Ruiz who happesn to be a breaker of all things — but that doesn’t really make up for the breaking of the Ka-tet. It doesn’t make up for the bitter end between Roland and Susannah (nor her choice — more on that later). Nor does it make up for the ultimate hook that closes the book out with (which I nearly skipped after reading Roland reciting names of those he has met on his journey).

For those who have read the Dark Tower novels and who have read soem of King’s other work, there has always been a indirect tie to the Tower books from his other stories. In Insomnia was a painting with two men… Patrick Danville was supposed to save the lives of those two figures and one of those men MUST NOT DIE….

Patrick was one of those two men, so it seems… As he and Roland of Gilead are the ones that are left to approach the Tower. I kid you not.

Eddie Dean hath fallen. O Discordia.

John “Jake” Chambers hath fallen. O Discordia.

Susannah Dean ventures back into one fo the many Americas in existence… This all but a day before Roland reaches the Dark Tower.

Those are the killer blows of The Dark Tower. Eddie being the most lovable character of the saga, Jake being part of the story from the very start…. It just broke my heart when I read about Eddie dying…. jake dying was shocking to me. It was shocking to Stephen King as well who explains in the book himself that, in his notes, all four of them were supposed to live to see the tower.

And Oy? Unfortunately, Wizard and Glass told you the outcome of Oy’s journey to End World….

Eddie’s death was the real problem I had with The Dark Tower – that’s just someone I couldn’t see dying and yet who’s death seemed the most likely. His death is ont he heels fo the Beam of Shardik / Manturin being saved, which adds to the bitterness of it happening.

And Jake? He saves Stephen King in the year of ’99….

Susannah and Roland venture together through a good bit of the book but dreams start telling her she must leave Roland. And leave she does…. For Eddie Cantor….Toren?

I don’t know where else to go with this discription of the book… It had most everything you have seen in the Dark Tower stories except a lengthy flashback. Chills, spills, gunslinging…. Roland never ahd the “dry twist” of arthritis… That is explained. Ted Brauntigan and Dinky Evanshaw are park of the group that saves the beams from the Breakers (say thank ya)….

And what happens when Roland reaches the Dark Tower? What happens when he reaches the top? I’ll leave you with a few words and hear them very well, I beg… I’ll leave you to read the novel itself and enjoy the novel as I did… But one line summarizes the begining and the end of this Magnum Opus of Stephen King:

The man in black fled across the desert and the Gunslinger followed.