The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three (2)

This is Stephen King's second entry into his now legendary Dark Tower Series. The first book in this series, titled "The Gunslinger", was a highly imaginative story about the last gunslinger on earth, set sometime in the far future after the world has "moved on" (see King's "The Stand"). He is the last of his kind, and "The Dark Tower 1; The Gunslinger" chronicles his quest as he follows/chases a mysterious figure, known as "The Man in Black", across the desert with hopes that The Man in Black may have information that will lead Roland to "The Dark Tower". The gunslinger's name is Roland, and with the help of a few odd-ball characters that he encounters on his journey (most notably a young boy named Jake who is from a different "when" than Roland himself), the story ends with Roland finally catching up to The Man in Black (known also Walter O-Dim ~or~ Randall Flagg) and the two have a talk around a campfire. Walter gives The Gunslinger a tarot card reading & tells Roland a few secrets of life. The book ends with Roland waking up by the burned-out fire pit next to the remains of The Man in Black.

And there the story sat, for MANY years, until Stephen King finally picked up the story where it left off (King began writing Book 1 "The Gunslinger" when he was a senior in college - Book 2 wasn't released until 1987!). The second book "The Dark Tower 2; The Drawing of the Three" begins just a few short hours later in the story, and finds Roland stranded on a long stretch of beach. By the end of the 1st chapter, Roland has his trigger-fingers eaten off by some giant lobster-creatures that wash up onto the shore. He is in pain, sick from infection, and on a fast-track to dying when Roland encounters the first of three people (from other "whens") that he must bring (or DRAW, if you will) into his own world via three strange doors that he comes across as he makes his way down the beach (hence the name of the book, "The Drawing of the Three"). Roland enlists the help of these three characters to aid him on his quest to find The Dark Tower, which sits at the very center of the circle of life itself.

It should be noted that although the 1st book in this series is very good, it was written when King was very young. But, by the time the 2nd book was released King had been writing for years & had honed his craft. It is absolutely necessary to read the 1st book when approaching this series, but don't be put off if "The Gunslinger" doesn't have that famous Stephen King "flow" that we, "The Constant Readers" have grown to love. HANG IN THERE! The 1st book is a short read, and by the time you find yourself into the 2nd book, you will be glad that you stuck with this story. The Drawing of the Three (and ALL of the following books in this marvelous 7-book series) is an outstanding piece of fiction that ANY fan of "fantasy" stories will enjoy.

I have read (& loved) MANY fantasy stories over the years, from Tolkien's The Hobbit & LOTR trilogy, Herbert's Dune series,.... even Anne McCaffery's Dragonriders of Pern, and in my humble opinion, THE DARK TOWER series by Stephen King is the best fiction story/adventure that I've ever had the pleasure of reading. If you are looking for your standard Stephen King "horror" stories, look elsewhere. But if you want to take one of the most brilliant, inventive, & imaginative adventures that you're ever likely to take, then LOOK NO FURTHER! Join Roland, his friends, and millions of loyal readers on a quest that you will never likely forget. THE DARK TOWER SERIES is story-telling perfection.

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If you have read "The Gunslinger" and are seriously debating whether or not to continue, let your doubt end here. Book II of this series is very inventive, engaging, and entertaining. Using Whisper Sync, I listened to probably 70% of the book and was very impressed not only with the narrators superb voice acting of the individuals character but also with the pace and intensity with which he read (hard to describe but he really captures Kings furious dialogue). I was so impressed with the narration, that the remaining 30% that i read, I found myself trying to emulate the narrators voice and clip. I am new to Stephen Kings writings and have not finished this series (just finished this book). I read the Gunslinger on a recommendation and found it difficult to finish the book. I was neither engaged nor attached to the story or the characters though I was blown away by Kings writing style (his descriptions are amazing). Once I finished the book I felt little desire to read the second book in the series but obviously I did, and i loved it. Unlike the the Gunslinger, the Drawing of the Three is very linear and allows the reader to become better acquainted with Roland, the protagonist. (The Gunslinger seemed very confusing, for me there were so many references, symbols, and foreshadowing for things to come without really establishing a proper foundation. Throw in the non-linear story line and I found myself thinking "what the hell is going on?" I understood what I just read but didn't understand how it fit together. It was like looking at the different pieces of a jig-saw puzzle but not having a reference point of what the overall picture should even be.The Drawing of the Three begins piecing together things together in a way that will motivate you and excite you to continue with the series) Having now read this 2nd installment, I can appreciate The Gunslinger, both the original book as well as the character himself and am now invested in his story. Hopefully book three will build upon my newly found enthusiasm.

The Dark Tower book 2 has been reviewed a lot, so I’m probably not covering a lot of new ground here. What I wanted to look at with this book was specifically how invisible ink applies to the Dark Tower series. Obviously I could of started with book 1, but in the case of book 2 something interesting is happening which involved three short stories. In book two you have the drawing of the three which involves essentially three nearly standalone stories added to the main one. In some of my other reviews I’ve mentioned how I do not think sub plots are a good idea and a side story is the ultimate sub plot. Steven King is the master story teller, so I am going to focus on how does Steven King use or not use invisible ink to create his master pieces. As with all of my reviews I will explain as best I can what I’m talking about and why and comments are always welcomed.

Recently I was talking to a friend about Steven King books and how they do not seem to have much sub text. Often they seem to just be Steven King telling a great story. This was largely before I had a better idea on what to look for, so was my assessment wrong? I’ve read other Steven King books before this one and they’re all very good even if I do have some complaints, but I never really noticed the subtext. The thing about subtext and invisible ink though is that you won’t notice it unless you are looking for it, know what it is and how to find it. Good story telling doesn’t bang a moral over your head, it simply had a guiding principal keeping it on track. At that time my friend and I agreed Steven King had great stories, but not particularly deep ones. A book in a series is likely to fall into this pit more than a stand alone, since it is hard to keep a principal through multiple books, or to create new ones for each one. That makes book 2 particularly compelling to ask this question.

If you haven’t read The Dark Tower book 2 you probably should, but not until you’ve read book 1. You could possibly do book 2 without 1, but the fact is the series are absolutely meant to be read in order and there will be a lot of referring back to setting and characters from the first book. At least be prepared to use some sort of cliff notes or references if you insist on skipping the first. A lot of what makes Dark Tower so great is the settings and characters and book 2 is unique in that the setting is mostly the real world, though the past. Obviously, King can’t predict the future, so the furthest point in time the book will cover is the eighties. Still the setting is familiar, mostly, though I can’t say I honestly remember the eighties that well and I wasn’t around for the sixties. Anyway, the characters and settings often drives the story and while there is plot, in this book the plot is going to positively crawl since so much of it is devoted to side stories. Keeping a guiding principal through different settings isn’t impossible, but it certainly adds an interesting layer of complexity to it.

Despite having read the book a few months back, I’m fairly confident I can give a word to the principal the story clearly has. That is to say everything did fit together with a cohesion that I feel like I can name. I’m not sure if Dark Tower book 1 did too, it’s been a while, but for instance the Running Man, another King book I’ve read seemed to follow this particular “rule” as well. In Dark Tower book 2 it seems to be addiction or the things we need, or at least think we need. I might be wrong and I’d love to read some discussion on the topic, but just being able to come up with something like that off the top of my head says something. It says there is something there that isn’t told, that there is actual invisible ink. Maybe what my friend and I didn’t recognize during our conversation before was that his mastery of this makes the stories good and that probably there is subtext, there was always subtext. Certainly I’ll be keeping it in mind in the future.

What about the other rules? Well.. King does have a habit of playing a little hard and fast with them at times. I might even say that if you look at King’s writing as a whole he has themes he really seems to like. Mental battles, overcoming your own feelings, will power.. These things matter a lot to King. Unfortunately you can’t look at IT and compare it to Dark Tower, even though they’re supposed to exist in the same Multiverse. Using a concept introduced in a different book that is in a different series or stand alone and applying it in the third act is still a lie and in this case it’s one King tells bold faced. I don’t like to give away spoilers so all I will say is that by the end of the third side story King manages to paint himself into a peculiar corner and gets out with some serious hand waving and rando concepts that I honestly couldn’t describe to you here and now even if I wanted to. It was one of the most convoluted Dues Ex Machina’s I’ve ever read. For those familiar to the book I’ll just say it’s the part with the train at the end. Not really a spoiler, trust me.

There is no question that King is a master writer and that I am not. Using over simplified writing “rules” as a way of judging his work is a silly approach to take, though I do think there is some things worth taking away. Just because something is popular, doesn’t mean it is good. Dark Tower book 2 is very good, but the dues ex machina at the end is not. Maybe I’m just not understanding it, how he set up the end situation or what makes it good, but for me at least it felt like wand waving. Even if the book didn’t feel like it had a guiding principal, it really probably did. I would say anyone familiar with Dark Tower book 1 is probably going to read book 2 even though it is a very different experience.

I didn't like the racism, the sexually-pleasurable murder, the odd mention of a child discovering her own . . . self-pleasure at a young age, or the feeling of no plot, though I will say it connected very well. It did mostly away with the mythic, expansive, liminal, doomed feeling from the first book in favour of a focus on admittedly-excellent characterization and contained sub-stories to set up stuff, I assume, in later books. Just be warned of the above, which is the reason it's only 3 stars.