The Dark Tower. Stephen King. Some Generalisations.

Because King creates such suspense, I was mainly interested in events
when reading and didn't really think too much about allegories or
Browning's poem and probably missed many religious and cultural
references. Irritably distracted by brand names, political and pop
culture references I probably missed many literary references as well
though I would normally expect that as I read fiction mainly for
entertainment and escapism. But, as well as the aspects of books that
annoyed me, I have been thinking about the series in more general terms
since completing it.
Because the Dark Tower series is written from Roland's point of view,
that of a knight devoted to a holy mission with the pure motive to save
all worlds by stopping them from deteriorating any further, I accepted
that, in this Lord of the Rings battle of absolute good versus absolute
evil, the not-so-bright but incredibly determined Roland, was the good
guy.(But perhaps he is an arrogant conservative with no real concern for
the inhabitants of the multiple worlds but a fear of change and a vested interest in preserving the status quo where Gunslingers are royalty and
Gilead is the righteous centre of all worlds, most of which appear to
Roland to be in an advanced state of decay.)
He is so noble that he sacrifices his son whose initials are JC not once
but twice and his first commandment is to "Remember (the face or name
of) your father".(But his actions are those of the God of the Old
Testament, Gilead is in Israel and if Roland had a religion other than
being a Gunslinger and the belief in Ka, it would appear to be an eye
for an eye or I'll have your eye now because I believe you want mine
rather than forgive and forget.)
In his post, "Wizard and Glass: The Nested Narration", Francis Miniter
queried Roland's integrity writing "....even narrators within a story
have a point of view and an agenda to discharge with their own
narration." but when I read Wizard and Glass, I had accepted Roland's
word without question and initially didn't understand what Francis' post
was implying. The motives and behaviour of those who oppose him are
always despicably horrifying. But not long after we meet Roland in book
one, he tells a story of his brief stay in the town of Tull where he
sleeps with the pub landlady and breaks both wrists of her rejected
partner, the pub piano player who is a gelded weakling but attacks
Roland anyway. A few days later, in self defence, Roland kills everyone
in the town including women and children.
In the original French "Song of Roland", Roland is responsible for the
death of tens of thousands of his own troops when through hope of glory
or a confused sense of honour, he ignores a junior officer's plea to
blow his horn for help.
Browning's Roland's quest for the tower involved personal hardship and difficult tasks though most problems were due to his own imagination. In
regard to Browning's poem, Judith Weissman wrote, "A rigid code of
honour and glory destroys the inner life of the would be hero by making
us see a world hellishly distorted through Roland's eyes."
King often reminds the reader that his Roland is a plodder who
interprets most things literally and has no imagination.
I was annoyed when King introduced himself as a character but accepted
his explanation in the afterword but have since read Margaret Attwood's interpretation of Browning's poem. Substituting King for Browning in
Attwood's analysis gives "Childe Roland is King himself, his quest is to
write the series, the Dark Tower contains that which King/Roland fears
the most: King in his book-writing aspect." In his introduction to
"Night Shift", King claims his writing is an obsession and that he does
not chose to write horror but that is what comes out.
I was confused by the last section in The Gunslinger. Although the book
begins with "The man in black fled....... and the gunslinger followed.", perhaps the man in black was leading the gunslinger. Already I am
forgetting the detail but he claimed to be the catalyst for Roland's
quest and had the upper hand in their palaver telling Roland that Roland
could not kill him. He foretold Roland's future with the cards and
showed him the creation of worlds/universes with the declaration of "Let
there be Light". He talked of the vastness of multiple worlds, the empty
spaces within the atom and Roland's insignificance with all these worlds contained within a blade of grass. He offered Roland the choice of
continuing his quest or not and when Roland chose to continue, another declaration of "Let there be Light" and a vision of cosmic infinity sent
Roland to sleep. Perhaps the man in black is Lucifer, the Lightbringer
or an agent or perhaps he is God or an agent of God gifting Roland free
will.
I will write a little more about the ending later.

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