My favorite is. . . two.
First, I think The Drawing Of The Three is brilliant! It probably saved the series, too. Let's face it, the first Dark Tower is okay, but it doesn't make you want to reading another 4,000 pages, right? But after Drawing of the Three, you think: Yeah, I can do a few thousand pages with these people!
In Drawing Of The Three, Roland becomes likable. No, I do not think he was a joy to live with in the first novel. He was stoic and focused -- but he also dropped the kid. The Drawing of the Three shows Roland helping Eddie change his life. It's great!
Also, in Drawing of the Three, King moves between our world and Roland's. Ahhh, we realize at last, so our world does exist! This isn't alternate reality, it's something else going on. I like how Roland brings needed supplies through the doorway, and in particular how they smuggle the drugs through the airport.
The use of a woman with duel personality was also incredible. Detta is a great character, as is Eddie Dean. The characters here are deep, complex and very real. If the Gunslinger gave us characters that were shadowy and a little stiff, Drawing offers characters as real as any you'll meet in real life.
If only the movie starred. . .
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| image credit: HERE |
Second, The Wolves of the Calla feels like raw fun. I don't know how to explain what I find so joyful about this book, except that it is a return to the western feel. The plates are great. It feels like a story within a story, as the main plot of the series is slowed a bit.
Song of Susanna should rank high in any list simply because it is the novel where King meets Roland. While I find the story itself hard to track with -- plot outline, please! -- the scene where the gunslinger meets his maker is one sweet bit of writing. I also like that the entire thing takes place in 24 hours.
Okay, your turn. What is the best Dark Tower novel?
My favorite is "The Gunslinger" (original version preferred, but either version okay).
ReplyDelete#2 -- Wizard and Glass
#3 -- The Waste Lands
#4 -- The Drawing of the Three
#5 -- The Dark Tower
#6 -- Wolves of the Calla
#7 -- Song of Susannah
#8 -- The Wind Through the Keyhole
I love 'em all!
I'll admit, when listening to King read Drawing of the Three, the story did seem to flow along more smoothly.
ReplyDeleteIn particular King's voice helps bring out the rhythm and natural wit of the story in his voicing of Eddie and Henry, along with the interactions of the characters from Balazar, Andolini and the Airline Personnel and Customs.
I also admit to kind of liking the original unedited version of the Gunslinger, and I think I know why. I heard King read the unedited version first, and the vibe I got from it...For me it came from the Sixties, it came from the implication that King was writing basically a late Sixties acid head western along the lines of like an American International Acid flick and was just channeling all the surrealism and existential stoner weirdness of the types of low rent grade z art house films that were around at the time.
In contrast, the more updated version, while still good, almost has a cookie cutter feel that stunts the story, at least for me.
What he gains in brevity, he loses in depth, and while I don't mind at all mentions of later elements that come into the story, I think they could have been inserted with more skill and thought without breaking the rhythm and pacing of the original.
However, that's just me.
ChrisC
What is that picture from? Who is the walking woman?
ReplyDeleteDT2 is close (and really my favorite Roland, angry and still a bad*ss) but The Wastelands is my favorite, I love the house part and how both Jake and Roland are crazy. So many great parts up until "My dearieeee" guy. Even though my love for this book is very front heavy I love Blaine the Pain and the history of the Greys and the smart people outsmarted themselves, ect.
-mike
I don't know where the picture is from, as the website wouldn't load. . . only got the picture. I like it, though.
ReplyDeleteI still put The Waste Lands first and I really, really love Wizard and Glass. I keep wondering if there wasn't some way to do a Dark Tower movie series and a Gunslinger Born TV series simultaneously and have them interact with each other. The flashback of Wizard and Glass is my favorite part of the book, and the first time I felt that Roland's world really did have a history, or at least a history that didn't just revolve around Roland himself.
ReplyDeleteIn order, I would rank them as follows:
1: The Waste Lands
2: Wizard and Glass
3: The Drawing of the Three
4: The Gunslinger (both versions)
5: Song of Susannah
6: Wolves of the Calla
7: The Dark Tower
And I have yet to read The Wind Through the Keyhole.