The Drawing Of The Three Journal #2: Doors and Cards

photo credit christopherdemarti.com

I’ve been reading the second Dark Tower bok, The Drawing Of The Three.  This is great stuff!

As one person posted at goodreads.com,

"...There's going to be shooting.""There is?""Yes." The gunslinger looked serenely at Eddie. "Quite a lot of it, I think."
. . . And so begins the coolest, most intense gun fight I've ever read.

The second book is much easier to read.  The tone is more of what we expect of King – chatty, conversational and intensely character driven.  The first novel was surreal.  Also, this novel has a lot of “hooks” that keep the reader engaged.  King might be world building, but it is easier going in this novel..

In the first novel, it was me going “huh?”  I had no context or history with Roland’s world to help make things make sense.  What’s a “Ka”?  But in Drawing it is Roland who is in our world.  I know what a Big Mac is.  And, to make things even better, Eddie is often confused by Roland’s terms and is right there to ask him.  In fact, Eddie flat out tells Roland that he does not know what a “ka” is, except that kaka is something babies do in their diapers. Turns out, Roland explains, that Ka is destiny.  Or, a form of mid-world predestination.  So the reader is introduced to themes from Roland’s world without the total immersion required in The Gunslinger.

The Dark Tower itself moves closer to center stage in this book. Roland invites Eddie on his quest.  Of course, Eddie doesn’t really have a choice, but it was at least nice of Roland to invite. Eddie calls Roland a “tower Junkie.”  That’s great!

1. Doors: Roland encounters doors on a beach.  An earlier discussion about where the doors come from and what they symbolize lead to the general conclusion that fantasy doesn’t require a lot of answers.   Further, many of you insisted that symbolism doesn’t have to originate with the author.

Doors have a lot of Biblical symbolism – used much the same way they are used in The Drawing of the Three.

• Movement between realms.  In Revelation, John sees an open doors.  Stepping through the door ushers him into another world – the heavenly realm. (Revelation 4:1)  
• Spiritual receptivity.  Jesus most often used the symbol of a door to represent spiritual openness or closed heartedness toward the Gospel.  (Matthew 7:7-8 , Revelation 3:20) 
• Opportunity.  Jesus also used the symbol of a door as one of opportunity (Revelation 3:8) Paul used this same analogy.  (1 Cor. 16:9 , 2 Cor. 2:12, Col. 4:3)

Doors in The Drawing of the Three move the characters between worlds or realms.  Roland enters our world through the open doors. . . but there is a catch!  Roland enters our world through the body of another.  It’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers here!  Or, Richard Laymon’s “Body Rides.”

I found this article interesting on the symbolism of doors and windows in modern literature HERE.

By the way, there are more than just doors on a beach in this novel.  There are a lot of locked doors.  The door on the airplane.  The bathroom door at Balazar’s.

Throughout this novel both Eddie and Roland are sizing one another up.  Roland sees potential in Eddie if he can break free of his prison (drugs).  Interesting, since King when he wrote this was a prisoner to many substances. In fact, King displays more than a working knowledge of drugs and guns!

Back to doors.  Doors lead to “opportunity.”  For Eddie, Roland’s world is a way out of his prison.  The prison door is open for him to walk away – but it does not open on his world.  In order for him to be free, he must shut the door on his own world.  King was in much the same situation.  He would have to stop relying on things to keep him going.  What was his “door”?  His Roland was his wife – she drew the line and demanded change.  His door out was writing.

King narrates, “needed a fix.  More: He served a fix.”  This is exactly how a junkie thinks!  He needs, he deserves – thus anyone who denies him what he needs and deserves is the enemy, not the help.

King shares in On Writing that a lie artist tell themselves is that their art is better because of whatever substance abuse they are beholden to.  King reveals that this is a lie he told himself.  However, he also acknowledges that it is indeed a lie.  In order to escape out of a world of drugs,  he would have to walk away from the lie and into his craft with a sober mind.

photo credit: goodreads.com

2. Cards play an important role in this novel.
In the first book, the Gunslingers fortune was told with three cards.  Those cards now play out throughout The Drawing Of The Three.  Also, Balazar loves to play with cards, building complex houses and buildings out of the cards.  I love it when the gun battle begins and the cards go flying!  As Balazar’s cards fall down, so will his destiny.

King uses a midpoint devise with the cards titled “Shuffle.”  This describes Eddie’s nursing the Gunslinger and their conversations.  However, as the cards shuffle, time is lost.  The reader is left with a sense of disorientation.  How much time passes is not clear.  King uses this to move easily from one scene to the next without being required to fill us in on how they moved from point to point.  The narration takes an overview method that I actually like quite a bit.  King usually moves a story carefully – building scene by scene like a television show.  Sometimes it’s nice when he just fast forwards to the important parts.  That’s what he does in the “shuffle” sections.