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ATTENTION: Contains spoilers if you haven't read
The Gunslinger and
The Drawing of the Three (summary
of The Drawing in the first paragraph).
The third volume of Stephen King's epic, The Dark Tower, takes
up some months after Roland's drawing is complete. Roland, according
to the man in black's predictions, has drawn two, or rather three,
persons who will help him in his quest for the dark tower. He has
entered their minds by three different doors that stood in the
desert, doors to New York at different times, through which he has
brought them back to his world. The first person, Eddie Dean, was a
heroin-addict in the eighties. In a world where heroin does not
exist, he has finally managed to overcome his addiction and his
desire to take his frustration on Roland. Roland also brought back antibiotics to cure
his threatening fever, consequence of an attack of lobster-like
creatures. The second person drawn by Roland is a black woman from
the sixties, or rather two women. The first, Odetta
Holmes, is an activist for black people's rights, a civilized
and educated person. The second, the one who was hidden in Odetta's
mind and sometimes took control, is Detta Walker, a dangerous soul
full of hate and cunning. Fortunately, when Roland killed Jack Mort,
a murderer whose specialty was to push people, and who crossed
Odetta's life twice with terrible consequences for her life, Detta
and Odetta were driven to acknowledge each other. The reunion of
Odetta and Detta results in the birth of a third person: Susannah,
whose surname is Dean, since she and Eddie love each other and have
linked their fates.
When The Waste Lands begins, Susannah
is learning how to shoot and how to become a real gunslinger, while
Eddie starts to carve objects in the wood, feeling that this skill
could come in handy. Roland, who has gotten rid of his fever, is
struck by a disease as serious as a lethal fever: he is losing his
mind bits by bits... The cause? Jake, the boy he let die when he had
to chose between talking to the man in black and therefore getting
closer to the tower or saving Jake and therefore losing the man in
black and renouncing the tower. Jake had been pushed under a car in
our world and sent to Roland by the man in black to distract him
from his quest (See The Gunslinger). But Jake is dead, or
rather he should be... When Roland entered the mind of Jack Mort and
subsequently killed him, he prevented him to kill Jake, and
therefore, Jake could never have met Roland. In Roland's mind, two
sets of memories fight, one with Jake and one without Jake, driving
him insane. As if that were not enough struggle, a giant bear is
about to attack the small fellowship...
The Waste Lands is made of two main
parts. The first, Jake, tells the fight against the bear, the
finding of an important beam and how Roland will get his
sanity back... The second part, Lud, tells about the desolate town
of Lud and the search for an unusual train, which might or might not take the
companions through the Waste Lands, a little closer to the Dark
Tower...
The first part, Jake, is a real
rollercoaster ride, full of suspense, space-and-time travel, and
even a haunted house. Up to this point, the book is hard to put down,
and the first part alone would have earned it a five stars in my
opinion. Unfortunately, the second part is another step entirely in
the search for the dark tower, and after the thrills of the first
part, the books drags on a little.
Towards the end, the pace picks up again, and the novel
ends in such a way that the reader wants to pick up the next
volume...
With The Waste Lands, King becomes more
and more comfortable with Roland's world, and we, readers, gather
more and more of its background. With the next volume, Wizard and
Glass, which apparently deals with Roland's past, the picture
should be more or less complete. With King's evident ease comes the
fun, and the numerous crossovers between our world and Roland's,
which will culminate with volume V, The Dark Tower, where
King has announced that he himself appears as a character!
King's sources of inspiration for The Dark
Tower, namely The Lord of the Rings, T. S. Eliot's The
Waste Land, The Wizard of Oz and Browning's Childe Roland to the Dark Tower
Came, are alluded to and quoted, either by the author who
inserts bits of poetry in his writing, or by the characters
who remember them in connection with their experiences.
This third volume confirms that The Dark
Tower is really a winner, a masterpiece of Fantasy, and every
person who has the slightest attraction to this genre should read
it...
Rating: 
© Discussing Books, 09/04/2003 |
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