In his first step towards the powerful and mysterious Dark Tower, Roland Encounters an alluring woman names Alice, begins a friendship with Jake, a kid from New York, and faces an agonizing choice between damnation and salvation as he pursues the Man in Black.
When I saw Alaisdair doing the re-read of one of his favourite series, Narnia, I asked Lee if I could do a The Dark Tower re-read, and Lee said it was, “as if you could read my mind…” and we decided to do the re-read together with one book a month. The Dark Tower actually holds a great value for me since it was by this series that I took the first journey into the fantasy genre. I first read this series when I was still in high school, and have since then recommended it to many of my friends that this is for me easily one of the best fantasy series out there. I’ve only read the books twice, so I am looking forward with more than great pleasure to once re-live this great experience. And what is great about a re-read is that I do already know the series but in re-reading the events I hope to encounter things that I might have missed first time around.
Looking back over all the books that I have read so far, The Gunslinger does start of with one of the best opening sentences: “The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed”. No doubt about this, but I will probably come back to this sentence in later re-reads. There are so many things that directly spring to my mind when I first read this sentence: Who is this man in black, why is he fleeing, who is the gunslinger? and why is he chasing the man in black? Already from the first pages of the gunslinger you are thrown in a weird world, I still cannot decide if it is the past or the present. The universe that King has created around The Dark Tower is quite alluring and magnificent to say the least. Looking at the characters, the setting and language used one might say this is a past time, set in a western world where gunslingers still reign, but looking at several objects placed within in this rich environment from nuclear slug, canned foodstuff and batteries, one might say it is nearing the future. Added on top of this is the heavy and provoking reference that, “the world has moved on”. I’m still wracking my brain which it will be but I will probably lay it to the side and fully enjoy this magnificent universe to the fullest.
In the Gunslinger you follow The Last Gunslinger, Roland Deschain of Gilead. His character is just marvellous, though when you encounter him first, the descriptions of his character are all throughout a third person narration, but once Roland started to converse in the world I immediately liked his character. For me his strong personality is drawn from a few points in the series. Too start off, the narration that King uses to describe him is just spot on, the third person narration is very strong and in the dialogues this totally comes to its rights creating a very engaging and addictive way of storytelling. Another point where Roland get’s a strong point from is his characters personality, he has a single quest to fulfil, finding the ever elusive Dark Tower but even in this quest he is haunted by many demons of his past. Some of the tales of these demons are being told through flashbacks in the storyline, like his story in Tull, which is macabre to say the least but also his coming of age, the relationship with his father and mother and his friends in Gilead and In-World. All in all, Roland’s character is for me just great, he is complex, straight to the point, compassionate and driven to reach his goals.
In this first installment, Roland goes through a lot of events, some more grim than others but they all never the less create a unique feeling to the storyline. I particularly liked to re-read about how Roland met up with Jake in the way station and their journey together through the mountain on the pushcart. Similarly to this was the events that occurred in the town of Tull, it is funny too see that many things do fall into place now after re-reading it again. Lastly there was one part of the books that I now just fully have come to appreciate and that is the part of when Roland is in palaver with the man in black, it is with the explanations of several things that this really is an eye-opener.
As a first summary: I’m so pleased about having started this re-read that I just want to devour every other book in the series straight away! But I will rein myself in and try to extend this feeling over a year. The Gunslinger is a unique reading experience that introduces you to a great and complex main protagonist, a rich and magnificent world that will enlarge itself at least a thousand fold as the series continues. All I can say, if you have not read this series, you are definitely missing out.