Book Review:
The Dark Tower Series -
The Gunslinger,
by Stephen King
Author: Christina PomoniThe inspiration came from Robert Browning's poem "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" during King’s college years. Over a period of twelve years, King published a series of early novels that established him as one of the greatest horror authors in the history of horror literature. Among those novels, “The Gunslinger” is the first of a series of seven books in Stephen King's “The Dark Tower” series.
Written in 1982, “The Gunslinger” is rather a tale of traditional fantasy than a horror tale. Mingling elements of magic, wizard and strange creatures, King introduces the gunslinger, Roland, whose mission is to discover the Dark Tower. In his pursuit, he encounters numerous different characters, which all fit in an emotionless and cold world that, however, resembles an idealized contemporary Wild West. Roland makes his expressionless way along the trail of a mysterious "man in black," and an even more obscure goal, the Dark Tower.
The gunslinger doesn’t know much about the Dark Tower, but his goal is to get there only to save himself and the world. He is determined to defeat even death if necessary and he knows that only death can stop him. He lives in a fantasy world, in a projection of our world in the future and he fights with his demons and the magic creatures that King instills in the plot.
While crossing the desert, the gunslinger meets Jake. Jake is a boy, who died in New York, pushed to the wheels of a Cadillac by the man in black. The gunslinger and the boy begin a horrifying journey, only to question Roland’s honor when forced to choose between Jake’s life and his pursuit towards the Dark Tower.
“The Gunslinger” does not resemble the recent King writings. Written on a black and white pattern, is a rather emotionally dry book, mainly due to its main character, who is not open-minded at all and even becomes uninteresting and sometimes boring out of being so predictable. Roland is such an odd person, that it should have been unfeasible for King to get across the feel of him. Yet he does, brilliantly. On the contrary, the character of Jake instills some freshness and passion in the novel, but overall the book leaves the reader with the taste of a colorless austere read.
The novel can be easily read, although the plot is rather complex and heavy on baffling references. For example, in the series of the seven Dark Tower books, King should provide details about Roland’s teacher Cort, other fellow gunslingers, his lover Susannah and mostly the circumstances that led Roland to his 20-year pursuit. Although “The Gunslinger” provides some background information, it leaves many subplots obscure. This is done almost on purpose as Roland's character is not fully developed in the book so that the reader is hooked and looks for the rest of the series.
About the Author:I work as a financial and investment advisor but my passion is writing, music and photography. Writing mostly about finance, business and music, being an amateur photographer and a professional dj, I am inspired from life.
Being a strong advocate of simplicity in life, I love my family, my partner and all the people that have stood by me with or without knowing. And I hope that someday, human nature will cease to be greedy and demanding realizing that the more we have the more we want and the more we satisfy our needs the more needs we create. And this is so needless after all.
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