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Dark Tower 7: Fiction and Metafiction by User

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The Dark Tower (The Dark Tower, Book 7)
Stephen King et al.

Dark Tower 7 is a superb work of metafiction, that is to say it’s a story about the writing of stories. I think that it’s an understandable conceit from Stephen King to write this sort of story, and it touches on a lot of themes explored earlier in the series. There are several narrative threads in this book, and some of them (Susannah’s thread) are relatively straight action writing that King does well, and some of them (Roland’s thread) are mostly metafiction. I found them fascinating, but perhaps less well done than the full-ahead writing of the other books.

One interesting point about the structure, was that there are links between Stephen King (as portrayed in the books) lives, and the issues faced by characters in the books. Particularly in the sequence in the town at the end, Stephen King’s cowardice is mirrored by the cowardice of the breakers. I think this is conscious, but it is also mirrors the theme of a thousand novels and movies — the town that takes the easy choice rather than facing up to the consequences of their easy choice until confronted by the (tragic) hero.

Should you read this book? Yes, if you’ve read the six previous. If you like metafiction as much as I do, it might be worth reading the previous six books just to read this one. Otherwise, I think that reading Italo Calvino’s Castle of Crossed Destinies would probably be a better bet. The Castle of Crossed Destinies has many of the same lovely features of the Dark Tower series, but it much briefer. It isn’t really metafiction, though, but is a story about stories.

As for the ending of the book? Some people profess disappointment with it, but I figured that it would end exactly this way a while ago. A lot of the things in the book, including Roland’s problems with memory, and the way time starts for him again after palavering with the Man in Black, suggested an ending of this sort. It is mentioned many times in the book that there is only one Dark Tower. The corollary to this is that there is only one Roland, and he is travelling forever as a troubleshooter for the tower, if Roland is in the end any different than an avatar of the tower. To my mind, this explains a lot of the inconsistencies in the book — they aren’t actually inconsistencies, just reflections of slightly different realities that Roland has travelled in the past. (And similarly for Flagg’s appearances in the book.)

Is there a precedent for this in SK’s work? Yes, in Talisman, (travelling) Jack/Jason is single-natured within the book, but in the conclusion of the book you see a glimpse of the fact that the same events are repeating themselves in all (or most (or many)) universes. I’m thinking particularly of the crow’s nest on the pirate ship (and other similar) visions that appear as Jack finishes his quest for the Talisman. Jack’s quest is a highly dualist version of the quest in the Dark Tower — he travels from the White Hotel to the Black Hotel on the other coast. He saves his mother and the Queen (and probably an infinite number of other women that gave birth to various aspects of himself) through the Talisman. Roland is the unification of this theme, where it is lived in serial rather than in parallel.

So, yeah. Good book. Interesting end to the series. Possibly not everyone’s cup of tea, but I highly recommend it.

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