the dark tower goes to the clearing at the end of the path ~

[lookingland]

Comments

[seraphimsigrist]

I do feel at home in fantasy literature(not harry potter
as an exception) but
my own reaction was that only the first book , Gunslinger,
was a success... and he really had nowhere to go and nothing
to say about the human condition and the universe and for
that matter the dark tower after that...I did not read every
word of every volume especially after the first three but
I read enough of each to follow what he was dong.

so I guess my reaction joins yours as to recommending Gunslinger
but not as to necessarily going any further. to me everything
he had to offer was in that, with Roland at the end at the
edge of a sea...

[lookingland]

i agree ~ it's a very compelling prologue ~ and maybe just imagining what could follow is sufficient, rather than following what the writer imagined.

: D

[seraphimsigrist]

BUT someone may enjoy the journay, you did
to a point...well I followed it for a while
so I dont mean to put off someone else
but I guess,to prospective readers,
dont look for the answer to the
mystery of life or something... :)

[lookingland]

i am pretty sure i read on out of the same compulsion and dogged hope that characterizes Roland's unanswerable quest ~ maybe that's why i identify with him ~ ha!

[seraphimsigrist]

another thing I didnt like was that in
the absence of any further vision really,
there was a piling on of various atrocities
and bad deaths of people who perhaps need
not have fictionally existed etc
as I recall the back story of roland's life
as it unfolds rather than being left mysterious
also accumulates horrors.

[lookingland]

kings revels in the lurid, no doubt. like you, i would have preferred more mystery, which i think the first book excels at ~ the books do seem to get increasingly explanatory or gratuitous without actually adding much depth, unfortunately.