Stephen King's The Dark Tower

Again, The Dark Tower series was tiedveryintimately with "reality." The reality of it is, most stories don't end in storybook fashion, they end at a truck stop in Duluth, or with an ignoble death in the mud of a ditch, or with an unexpected car crash- all those things that actually happen that you wish didn't. If King had put a storybook ending on Tower he would have betrayed the whole series. The best he could do was not end it at all- which is essentially what he did.

By acknowledging that the story never really ends, he leaves room for the future. As Jake said very early in the series to Roland, "Go then. There are other worlds than these."

The story does end. The poem is the true ending of the story. It's literally how the book ends. Get out your copy, open it up, flip to the end, and there's the poem. He gets to the tower, he blows the horn, the end.

Maester Chuk_sl said:

i bet i can name ten that you loved.

Click to expand...

Nope. "The Shining" is the only King book I would consider to be a classic. I enjoyed "Misery" as well, but most of his books are dime novel crap.

While going through all 7 back to back over a relatively short period of time, I got the idea that the series became some kind of metaphor for King's writing process or at least his relationship to it. If you read the forward (or "Argument" before the 3-5th? books) I think he hints at something like this, but the weirdness of the last book seemed to me like proof enough. And by weirdness, I am referring to the characters recognizing that their existence depends on King's survival, their recognition of them as characters in King's novels, etc.

Overall I liked the books and I don't have a problem with the ending because of what I think they mean. In other words, I am of the mind that King couldn't have written a storybook ending to the series even if he wanted to because, metaphorically speaking, I think people like King write because they have these ideas and theyhaveto write to get them out. So assuming this, the only feasible ending had to reflect the notion that King's writing process is more about the journey and the process of becoming than it is about knowing where he will end up when he is finished. So no matter how many books he writes the last line of the last book is, for all intents and purposes, the same as the first line in the next book.

But I overthink shit and am probably wrong. Just my 2 cents.

In both The Body and the film adaptation Stand by Me the character of Gordy LaChance tells his friends a revenge story with a fat kid that pukes on everyone at a pie eating contest. In both the book and the movie it's this great, surreal little detour. At the end of the story his friends all cheer and ask him what happened next.

"What do you mean what happens next? That's the end" replies Gordy. His friends all make suggestions as to what could have happened and all Gordy has is "maybe he went home and had a cheeseburger." His friends all bag on him. "That ending sucked."

It's thirty years later and he's still Gordy and we're still his friends telling him his endings suck sometimes.

I had a friend ruin the Tommyknockers forever when he pointed out that the super intelligent aliens couldn't convert AC to DC.

You've got not only the aliens but an entire town's worth of people that didn't have that basic information. The whole thing just falls apart.

Everything the townspeople "invented" were powered by batteries. They were sending people out to all the nearby cities to buy more batteries. Batteries are a big part of the narrative both literally and symbolically but you can convert AC to DC which is kind of a big problem.

The people still were mostly people for a long time. Not a single person in that town had that piece of general information. They instead drove across the countryside looking for batteries.

It's been a while since I've read it. Why do you keep saying the ship was alternating current?

For all you "constant readers" in this thread, what would you have thought if he ended it at "the warning" and just had him walk into the tower, fade to black? What about the general public? Rage or satisfaction?

That depends, is Journey playing?

I wish it was the same people that did the Mist, that movie was crazy as shit.

The guy was painting a Dark Tower book cover at the start of the movie.

Wuyley_sl said:

For all you "constant readers" in this thread, what would you have thought if he ended it at "the warning" and just had him walk into the tower, fade to black? What about the general public? Rage or satisfaction?

Click to expand...

I would be fine with it. General populace would probably go apeshit though.