i feel the same way. i started with book 3 (like you did, i think) and then i went back and read 1 and 2. had trouble with 1 but loved 2. i read the revised book 1 a few months ago and enjoyed it more. i just can't get into book 4. after book 7 was actually in print and i could go to the store to buy it, i went back and reread 1-3, read all the non flashbacks in book 4 and then went on to read 5-7. i think i enjoyed 5 a little more than 6. but man, book 7!!! wow. what a great book except where you get to the part where king actually tells you to keep reading at your own peril.
i really don't know what to say about the end. as i read the last few pages it crept into my mind that what happened was going to happen but i thought "what? that's crazy. that would be the stupidest thing king could do to this masterpiece." but yet he did it anyway. one of the greatest American writer's there has ever been comes up with a fantastic story with one of the greatest characters and spins a tale so massive it gets away from him. he writes himself into the story and then at the end he just has the main character get caught in some star trek-like causality loop where he ends up going from point a to b back to point a to start the cycle anew.
i just don't know what to think. in a way i do understand that no matter what the ending was, most people would have probably wanted something more. we have a massive story and want a massively good ending but king knew he couldn't deliver so he opted for the "mysterious and interpretive" ending that would insanely infuriate all his readers of the present, but maybe in 10 or 15 years he will be labeled a magnificent genious for such an ending. sadly that day is not today and i'm very angry. well, not as angry now as i was a few months ago, but still angry.
i guess i have 1 main question that is kind of a group of similar questions: did roland just not do it right? i mean there at the end there was a question in my mind of the horn of gilead that he was supposed to have with him at the tower. if he does it again and keeps the horn will that break the cycle. if so, that's just dumb. did he err by allowing the quest be the only thing that mattered? if that's the case then isn't all lost? i mean, roland is it. and if he doesn't try and save the tower then who will? or was king really sincere with his "it's the journey and not the destination" point? that's the only thing that really gives me comfort. i really did enjoy the journey.
Okay, I haven't read these books, but your discussion's fascinating me what exactly was wrong with the ending? Did Rowland just wake up or something?
Cause that would've been pretty lame?
Is it an ending you may not have looked into deeply enough? Like the end of Son of Rosemary, where on the surface she woke up from a dream, but in reading deeper you find it was her own personal hell (spooky) or a premonition (spooky too).
Dunno, go back and read the last three pages
"I'm for it so we can put Nuclear power plants up there, and then beam the power back to earth on a laser beam." ~ Whidden
okay gaboman, here's the deal. we got to the last few pages of book 7 and we're really into the story. can't wait to see what happens.
so roland spends his entire life (and with everything going wrong with the tower, time is askew and roland could have been wandering for a thousand years) with one goal: to reach the tower and try and restore/save it to bring order and balance back to the universe(s). so roland finally gets to the tower (don't misunderstand, the journey to the tower is one of the best told tales i've ever read). so roland gets to the tower. enters the tower. climbs the steps of the tower. ascends level by level to his level of the tower. along the way, each floor he sees a part of his journey (starting with where we started with him). in book 1 he meets and old recluse with a bird named zoltan. one of the first thing he sees in the tower is this bird. the last thing we see before he enters the tower is the red eyes of the crimson king, and this is the last thing roland sees before reaching his door of the tower. "He took the stairs one by one, walking with his back straight and his head held up. The other rooms had been open to his eye. The final one was closed off, his way blocked by a ghostwood door with a single word carved upon it. That word was "ROLAND."
he opens his door. and then BAM! roland is back in the desert ("the apotheosis of all deserts") at the point where we first meet him in book 1.
"i will reach it, he thought, squinting up at the pitiless sun. I swear on the name of my father that i will.
and perhaps this time if you get there it will be different, a voice whispered--surely the voice of desert delirium, for what other time had there ever been? He was what he was adn where he was, just that, no more than that, no more. He had no sense of humor and little imagination, but he was steadfast. He was a gunslinger. And in his heart, well-hidden, he still felt the bitter romance of the quest.
You're the one who never changes, Cort had told him once, and in his voice Roland could have sworn he heard fear...although why Cort should have been afraid of him--a boy--Roland couldn't tell. It'll be your damnation,boy. You'll wear out a hundred pairs of boots on your walk to hell.
And Vannay: Those who do not learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
And his mother: Roland, must you always be so serious? Can you never rest?
Yet the voice whispered it again (different this time mayhap different)
and Roland did seem to smell something other than alkali and devil-grass. He thought it might be flowers.
He thought it might be roses.
He shifted his gunna from one shoulder to the other, then touched the horn that rode on his belt behind the gun on his right hip. The ancient brass horn had once been blown by Arthur Eld himself, or so the story did say. Roland had given it to Cuthbert Allgood at Jericho Hill, and when Cuthbert fell, Roland had paused just long enough to pick it up again, knocking the deathdust of that place from its throat.
This is your sigul, whispered the fading voice that bore with it the dusk-sweet scent of roses, the scent of home on a summer evening--O lost!--a stone, a rose, an unfound door; a stone, a rose, a door.
This is your promise that things may be different, Roland--that there may yet be rest. Even salvation.
A pause, and then:
If you stand. If you are true." - The Dark Tower VII, pp. 828-829
It was like seeing a loved one get in a car crash.
It was just a horrifying ending.
Our hero, the baddest *** in all of book history, the most awesome character to ever exist, the last gunslinger who looks like Clint Eastwood and gives out more butt kickings via his Sandal wood gripped guns than the Man with no name,
well, he is damned.
Damned to repeat the last 1/2 year of his life for eternity.
Actually, even though he is damned, he has the horn now in the desert, so the next trip though, he will probably achieve "salvation".
So what King did was show us the Matrix trilogy, but showed us the 5th version of the matrix, instead of the 6th.
He was too cheap and scared to write the real ending, the ending where Roland entered the tower, which if God's body, or the instrument that mankind made to hold the magic of the universe together, whichever is true,
the ending where Roland reaches the top of the tower and ??????
King don't know, so he copped out.
With an ending that makes no sense. Why would Roland have to repeat the last 1/2 year of his life over and over and over and not remember it, till the last minute when he reaches the tower door?
Ok, I will calm down.
It was the best book I ever read (almost) and had the worst ending of any book ever.
There is a scene where Roland saves King, but Jake dies, and Roland thinks at that moment how much he hates King.
He saw King as a selfish lazy man, too lame to finish the series.
That's how I see King, or did, I am slowly forgiving him.
It was just such a huge letdown.
King knows he messed up, he knows what he did, he chastises the reader before the end, to not read on, that it's about the journey, and not the "orgasm at the end".
Poppycock!
Bull Butter!
Cheeser McDuff!!!
It is about the end.
Still, if I had it to do over, I would read the whole series again. It was a wild ride.
i actually DID type it all out. i'm pretty quick on the ole keyboard so i just put the tv remote on the book to hold it open and let her rip.
book 3 is the only one i've ever found online (and to this day don't know i found it free for download. i haven't been able to recreate the feat with any of the other books. i can't even find where i downloaded book 3 from. not that i need it, i saved the file. i'm just curious as to how the whole thing happened. i didn't even need to go into the nether regions of the net for a fishing expedition. it was basically out in the open in plain site.)
that's what i got out of the whole 19 thing. that this was the 19th trip through the loop. at least he's got the horn this time! there's hope!
but i've never compared it to the matrix before. that's interesting. we get to see one of the loops and are left with an open ending that really could go either way depending on how you want to see it. i have faith in roland. he will stand and be true. again.
my favorite part of book 7 has to be the assault on the breakers compound.
i can't believe how many main characters die in the story. i always thought roland would have been the one to die, though.
it will be a while before i can sit down and read it again. i'm sure that years from now i will reread them all from beginning to end and will be able to appreciate the ending. yeah, it's kind of poetic that flagg got brought down by roland's son.
03-18-2005 03:38 AM
what exactly was wrong with the ending? Did Rowland just wake up or something?
