I enjoyed Josef Hernandez's short review of The Gunslinger.
Hernandez rightly points out that the book has no "actual plot." YES! Plot will come, in the sweet bye and bye with the Dark Tower -- namely in book two. But the first book serves to set the tone.
He says about the revised version: "I found myself enjoying it more than I have in the past. That may be because King has gone back over it and smoothed out the edges a bit as well as added some things that would come up later in the series to make it flow better. Or it could just be that I have a better appreciation for the series now than I had in the past."
I know Dark Tower purist were not happy with the revisions -- I'm all for it! I haven't read the revised book, but I will when I reread the Dark Tower series. Why not issue the book the way King wants it to read? It makes sense after so many years of writing, to go back and rework the novel. More than that, the writing itself was reworked.
Hernandez also says that to him, King's obsession with The Dark Tower "has become too much." Certainly not!
He writes:
In its own right, “The gunslinger” is a good book, although not one of King’s best, but leaves the reader wanting for more. The revised edition is much better than the first edition that was published as it is easier to read and the story flows smoothly. If you are looking to enter into this world for the first time or to travel with Roland once again, “The gunslinger” will serve as the doorway into the mind of Stephen King as he chases his elusive dreams.The full review is at examiner.com
The statement that The Gunslinger "has no actual plot" is flat-out incorrect. Words mean something.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the fact that Hernandez consistently refers to the novel as "The gunslinger" rather than "The Gunslinger" is an odd choice for someone who, in his profile, claims to be a bibliophile who is knowledgeable about the art of writing.
Evidence indicates otherwise, sir.
So. . . Bryant, what was the plot of The Gunslinger?
ReplyDeleteI remember it being this:
They walk around a lot.
The gunslinger shoots up Tull
The kid dies
The gunslinger climbs a hill and has a chat.
engaging.
I so much prefer The Drawing Of The Three as the starting point for this series.
The plot is that Roland pursues the Man In Black through the desert, evades a trap left for him in the town of Tull, encounters another trap (in human form), sacrifices Jake (sort of), and then catches up with the Man In Black and learns a bit about his fate.
DeleteIt isn't a complicated plot, but it IS a plot. An "actual" one. The misuse of that word drives me almost as nuts as the rampant misuse of the word "literally."
If I had to defend the idea of leaving a text unaltered I would have to cite Shakespeare.
ReplyDeleteIf someone were to tamper with Hamlet's soliloquy. Something of immense value would be lost, even it it were Shakespeare who did the revision.
ChrisC
My thoughts on that
ReplyDelete1. No one tampered with it, the original is always there for you to read.
2. If Shakespeare were to change Hamlet, he would have every right.
I prefer the original version of "The Gunslinger" in some ways, and the revised version in others. Bottom line is, I've still got both copies, so I can -- and do -- read whichever one I feel like reading.
DeleteWell, as far as the idea of ownership of Art goes, the matter is not as simple as one might think.
ReplyDeleteThere was a time when the idea of ownership was unheard of, unthinkable. Geoffry Chaucer for instance would have laughed if anyone had called the Canterbury Tales "His" stories. He would have said they were the equivalent of a gift freely given, with little or no input from him, and therefore free of any claim he may make on it.
Another thing to bear in mind is the idea of poetics. Poetics is the best word to describe what happens in a real work of Art, or Inspiration. Inspiration, it seems, has the ability to elevate language to a higher stylistic plane so that instead of having to be content with "These are troubling times", you instead get, "These are times that try men's souls." The whole difference is the effect either sentence has. One produces no effect, while the other still sticks in the mind years after it's been written. Such is the difference between Inspiration and invention, and I maintain that the real Inspiration and the Poetics it produces is not an individual achievment, and therefore cannot be owned, but only given away like a gift.
The groaning sound you're hearing is probably Bryant with his head in his hands and thinking, "Don't encourage him, we'll be here all night."
ChrisC
Nah, not at all!
DeleteI see both sides of this. I fully support the artist's right to revise his or her own work. I also see the necessity for there to continue to be a way for people who have invested (emotionally, that is) in existing versions of that work to continue to be able to access the version they've become accustomed to.
The most notorious examples come via George Lucas and his unfortunate attempts to bury the original version of the Star Wars films. I think he ought to be able to make whatever changes he sees fit, but unless he gives me the option of watching the versions I grew up loving, I think he's being a royal jerk about the whole thing.
You could theoretically make the same argument about King with "The Stand" and "The Gunslinger," although used copies of the original versions of those books are SO prevalent that anyone who wants one can still get one VERY inexpensively. In the future, when copies become more scarce, there will be a need for the original versions to be preserved in some way, but we are nowhere near that point, and may not reach it within my lifetime.
That said, I take issue with the notion that art cannot be owned by its creator. Once it is out in the world, it becomes a joint-custody type thing between the artist and the public, but I think it is downright incorrect to suggest that the creator no longer has any right to do anything except gift it to people.
Artists might indeed be the recipients of some sort of inspiration, but they ARE also inventors, or at least laborers, the labor in this instance consisting of the work required to translate that inspiration for people like you and I to consume and enjoy. They deserve to have some compensation for that labor, and along with that comes a stake in owning/controlling it.
It's funny you should mention George Lucas. there's a book out by Michael Kaminski called "The Secret History of Star Wars" that details the entire ins and outs of the creative process involved in all six movies. When I say he goes into it all, I mean it. It's an invaluable look at the creative process, especially at what type of filmmaker Lucas really seems to be and how collaboration was the key word to why the first trilogy works in spite of the dreaded "E" word.
DeleteThat said, my take on ownership and stories is much more psychological. Labor is an important part of the process, and if there's not compensation then loss of interest in writing can result. All I question is when the process becomes muddled, like Lucas in his strange need to assert what I take to be an undue amount of control. For me there's legitimate control of story, and then there's unlegit. Somewhere along the way, Lucas crossed the border into unlegit.
And now for the obligatory Star Wars rant.
I figured out how Return could have been better. Here me out. What if instead of having your entire cast wandering around the Pacific Northwest you set those scenes on that big planet city from the prequels or something like that, only really grungy and gritty and more like a real war zone and base the battles more on real combat to the point where the action is like watching real soldiers at war? It would have made fora more mature film, I think.
Okay end of rant.
ChrisC
There are a LOT of ways "Return of the Jedi" could have been better, but I still think it is basically a good movie. The original plan was to have it be set on the Wookiee homeworld, which would have been a VASTLY superior direction.
DeleteI'm of the opinion that the entire "Star Wars" saga needs to be remade at some point, so that mistakes like the Ewoks can be done away with. I just hope that George Lucas is not involved with that process in any way.
Almost forgot, Mike Kaminski has a cool website for his book that can be found and pasted and logged on here:
ReplyDeletehttp://secrethistoryofstarwars.com/
ChrisC