The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass (4)

Part of The Dark Tower Series by Stephen King. Highly Recommended!!!!!!! Too bad I could not give 10 stars.

#1 The Gunslinger - Introduction to the last Gunslinger, Roland. This book was wonderful. It introduces you to some of the characters of the series and gives you the Gunslinger's quest. #2 - The Drawing of the Three - Roland pulls future Gunslingers, Jake, Eddie, and Suzannah from our world over to his. I really enjoyed how this was done. The characters are very likeable (especially OY) #3 - The Wastelands - The Gunslingers make continue on their way. Blaine really is a pain. #4 - Wizard and Glass - Roland tells them the story of Susan, The girl at the window. A very sad thing that happened to him in childhood. A beautiful story. #5 - Wolves of the Calla - The gunslingers help a town that is about to have their children taken. Jake makes a friend his own age. A character from another King book is met. This book was well put together. #6 - Song of Suzannah - This one tells of something that Suzannah is going through. #7 - The Dark Tower - The quest is finally over. The tower is reached. But who will make it there? Believe it or not this book made me cry. #* - The Wind Through the Keyhole - This story takes place between some of the other books. It is Roland and his gang taking refuge from a storm and Roland telling stories to pass the time. The stories are beautifully written.

All of the stories in this series are exceptional. I love how they flow together. It really does seem like one continuous book.

Review of Wizard and Glass

Wizard and Glass is the fourth volume in Stephen King's epic Dark Tower series. To fully appreciate this story, read The Gunslinger, The Drawing of the Three, and The Waste Lands before tackling Wizard and Glass. I am preaching to the choir here, since anyone who has read the first three books is already hooked, like one who stares too long into the Wizard's Glass. The Dark Tower is the story of Roland Deschain, the Gunslinger, a sort of knight whose quest is to find the tower that sits at the center of all the universes. Accompanying Roland on this phase of his journey are former heroin addict Eddy Dean; legless multiple personality Susannah/Odetta; Jake, a boy who died in the first book but who is brought back in the third; and Oy, a talking animal. The first part of Wizard and Glass concludes the riddle contest with Blaine (If you don't know who Blaine is, shame on you! That means you haven't read The Waste Lands.) The group then enters the Topeka, Kansas of an alternate universe, the dead world of another Stephen King novel, The Stand. In this world, Interstate 70 out of Topeka follows the "Path of the Beam" toward the Dark Tower. When the group camps for the night, Roland tells a story from his youth, which forms the main portion of the book. The tale involves the adventures of young Roland and his companions Alain and Cuthbert in a town called Hambry, in the Barony of Mejis. Hambry, like Roland's entire world, is a mixture of medieval, old-western, and post-apocalyptic elements. Palaces, cowboy saloons and long-abandoned oil refineries co-exist in this land. The town is filled with bizarre and menacing characters: Rhea, the wickedest witch in the west; lustful and corrupt Mayor Hartwell Thorin; Jonas and the Big Coffin Hunters, badmen who make Jessee James and his cronies look like boy scouts; and many others. While there is plenty of gunplay and intrigue, a key theme of Wizard and Glass is the romance between Roland and beautiful Susan Delgado. This romance reveals another side of Roland. In the other books of the series, he is mysterious and cold, willing to sacrifice anyone and anything to reach the Dark Tower. In Wizard and Glass, at least we glimpse the human being within the Gunslinger. The Glass of the title is a mystical pink crystal, one of thirteen that form Maerlyn's Rainbow, created ages ago by a malevolent being. Through it, Roland's companions witness the dramatic and tragic conclusion of his story. But beware! The glass is cursed, and can bring only sorrow to its user. The Wizard is Marten Broadcloak, archenemy of Roland, and the reason Stephen Deschain sends his son to Mejis. He has many other names. In the New York of our world, he is Jack Mort, the Pusher, who caused Jake's (first) death and the loss of Odetta's legs. In The Gunslinger he is Walter, the Man in Black. In the world of Hambry, he is John Farson, euphemistically called "The Good Man," who seeks to overthrow the Baronies. Near the end of Wizard and Glass he takes on another, rather fanciful identity, but I don't want to spoil the fun. I'll just hint that, when our heroes encounter him, they're not in Kansas anymore! Roland's tale is too long to be told in a single sitting in our world, but time does not flow smoothly in the worlds that have "moved on." In Roland's world it is feasible to tell a 27-hour story (the length of the audio-CD version of Wizard and Glass) in one evening. Apart from this plot device, the story in this book could not have been exactly the same as what Roland told his companions. The narrative is in the third person, and contains scenes Roland did not witness and could not have known in such detail. Wizard and Glass is one of Stephen King's best works. Any fan who finishes this fourth book of the Dark Tower series will approach the last three volumes with renewed gusto.

Ever since I watched The Stand miniseries, my favorite adaptation of any of King's works, I've had the voice and look of Jamey Sheridan in my head whenever I read or think of Randall Flagg. I think that will always be the case until the day that I die. That's not necessary for this, I just felt like sharing.

When I first got Wizard And Glass in 1998 or 99 I was very excited to read the fourth chapter in this story. Waste Lands had ended on a really annoying cliffhanger so long before, and in preparation for the fourth book I reread the previous three (along with The Stand and if memory serves Eyes Of The Dragon). I was ready and couldn't be happier to move forward with Roland, Eddie, Jake, Oy, and Susannah. And then I read those first hundred plus pages, and then I stopped. Spoiler, this is now my favorite of the series to date, but all those years ago when I first started to read it, it wasn't what I wanted. I wanted to move ever onward towards The Tower, not take an unnecessary detour backwards to see beginnings. I did not care what started Roland's quest, and I certainly did not care about his first, only, and lost love Susan. As such, I laid the book down and walked away.

Clearly I was dumb.

Had I made it another 20-50 pages or so I would have come to the showdown in the bar and I think I would have read to the end. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe I was too young to appreciate this tale for what it is. I don't know, but here I am in 2013 and I loved it. Easily, thus far in the series, this is my favorite part of the Dark Tower series. I fell in love with young Roland, Cuthbert, Alain, Sheemie, and Susan (And Rusher too a bit), and grew to hate Rhea, The Coffin Hunters, Rimer, Mayor Thorin, Avery, and especially Cordelia. When there was the interlude featuring Eddie, Jake, and Susannah again I angrily yelled at Eddie to shut up so I could learn the fate of Mejis and the past. And when the ending of that tale came I was saddened at who we lost and who we would likely never see again. And yet, for some reason, I hold out some sort of hope that one of those lost is maybe not gone from this tale. I hope Ka is kind in this regard.

Reading them as they came along, book by solitary book up to Wizard And Glass, I wanted the main tale to move faster, needing to get to the end of the search for The Tower. Reading now, at 41, with the goal in my mind of finishing all 8 books (next up is the newly released 4.5 before I move on to The Wolves Of Calla) I can enjoy this side trip into the past to learn more about Roland and how he started on this journey. I know the journey has already come to an end for so many before me, and I can relax and read the tale as Stephen King meant for me to.

I've made it through the first four books in the first four months of 2013, I have no doubt that I will not finish this magnum opus finally, almost thirty years after I started it, by the end of this year.

Bird and bear and hare and fish....

QUICK EDIT: I love The Wizard Of Oz bits and I don't know why so many seemed to hate it. It just feels right for this whole book.

Wow! That's all I can say right now. I was completely captivated and enamored by Roland's first and most tragic love story. I have read few better. King wrote this book so well, I can only liken it to how it must feel to go through "Inception", to use a very recent metaphor. To dream about Roland's world (the story proper) but go within that dream to another, which was Roland's past. What an odd feeling I had when the story ended and we were back with our "present day" Roland and his ka-tet. It was sad the tale he was telling them was over. I wanted to stay in Roland-of-the-past's time. I came to care so much for those characters in his tale I didn't much care to rejoin Eddie, Susannah, and Jake. Heh....I was captured by my own pink glass, I suppose. My appreciation for Roland's tragic position and all that a hero must sacrifice has grown tremendously. There were parts I didn't like, and as I alluded to, they were events in "present" time. I guess I'm more accustomed and prefer magical tales where the magic is bound by rules. The magic in this world does not appear to have any bounds. I get frustrated with this series sometimes when things just appear or members of the ka-tet just know something, or at least they think they do, which causes me confusion too. In this book, I just didn't understand the point of the Wizard of Oz setting. It felt out of place and some things that happened seemed to do so just for convenient writing. The book was long but it didn't feel dragged (drug?) out by any means. The Kindle edition was good; the pictures were a little difficult to see in a few places though. Alas, onward we follow the Path of the Beam!