The Drawing Of The Three Journal #5: Concluding Thoughts

photo credit: deviantart.com

I think Drawing of the Three is one of King's most complex character novels.  Roland actually moves into the heads and bodies of other people, giving a most intimate look at the things we usually keep private.  It's worse  than being caught naked!

The last third of the novel was new material for me.  I don't know why -- I have read this book many times.  But it has been a long time, and I remembered nothing of the events surrounding Jack Mort.  Wonderful writing here!

I like the way Roland is able to access the thoughts of the person he is with (in).  King compares Roland's ability to search their minds and draw information as being like accessing an encyclopedia.  Today we would use "google."  He "googles" their mind.

Jack Mort is a look inside the mind of a serial killer.  Unlike Detta, who has two separate personalities, Mort has compartmentalized his thoughts and behavior.  He does terrible things, but is able  to set those aside emotionally and still function in the real world.  He is almost Detta's opposite.  While Detta is completely out of control, Mort is completely in control.

With recent events, I'm not that comfortable getting so close to a serial killer. But the Gunslinger gives the killer his due, thrusting him live in front of a train as he is held captive in his own body.  Sweet!

The Gunslingers healing of Odetta is great!  Could split personality really be healed that way?  No!  But who cares!  So long as I'm mentioning stuff that would never ever happen the way King plays it out -- the way the Gunslinger goes about getting bullets is amazingly crazy!

There was a scene that was quite strange and worth further investigation.  The two woman rise up and fight one another.  It's like a physical battle.  But how can this be?  They can't have two bodies.  I was unclear on that.

The novel takes us to New York in three different time periods.  This is pretty neat -- though I am left wondering: Why New York?  Who chose the time periods?

I want to note that I never realized that Odetta is supposed to be a beautiful woman until I read The Wastelands.  I think this is because  of the drawings in the original book, she didn't seem very striking to me.  Yet in Wastelands, the pictures of her were quite beautiful.

It was pretty cool to end The Drawing of the Three and drop the Wastelands into the CD player without pause.  I remember waiting years for it to come out.  The story flows nicely.

AND. . . I got a bunch of questions about the Dark Tower answered recently.  I am a happy person.  Guess who I got to interview. . . (not King)

Drawing Of The Three Journal #4 : Things I Forgot

My D3 CD's

It's been years  since I read The Drawing Of The Three.  I'm pretty sure I read it several times in High School and College.  What better way to escape midterms and finals than to read Stephen King -- right?  That might also explain my first semester Greek grade.

As I read the book afresh, there are details I'd forgotten!  Here are a few:

1. I'd forgotten just how nasty Detta can be!  Wow, King really drives the point home with this character.

2. I forgot how leery Eddie and Odetta are of Roland when they first  come into his world.  The tension is great!  In fact, the tension that runs throughout the series is part of what makes the story interesting.  Know one of the reasons the prequel Star Wars movies didn't feel right?  I think it has to do with tension between the main characters.  Han and Luke were always at each other.  But in the prequels, there is not that light hearted jabbing.  King does a nice job letting his main characters take exception to one another.

Eddie doesn't trust Roland one bit, because he has perceived that Roland is a "tower junkie."  He will do anything, even sacrifice friends, in order to reach the Dark Tower.

3. I forgot that Roland basically kidnapped his Ka'tet.  They didn't join him!  Now, Roland gives Eddie a very good speech about his  potential that  would please any football  coach, but the truth is Eddie does not have a choice in the matter.  Roland is not  going to let Eddie go back!

4. I forgot that King played with the name of the last door.  It has a double meaning.  For Eddie, "The Pusher" makes him think at once of drugs.  He is filled with emotion over the discovery of this door.  However, Pusher actually means . . . something else.  The card the man in black revealed to Roland was "death."  We would expect the third door to coincide with the third card, but they seem mismatched until the story plays out.  The Pusher is death, since he pushes people.

5. I forgot just how sharp Eddie is right from the get go. Somehow I remembered  him being more spaced out by the drugs than actually is.  The guy is sharp, catching on to what's happening around him much quicker than other characters.  He's able to quickly adapt to strange new situations without coming unhinged.

On another note, I find myself a little stunned at King's work.  The Stephen King who wrote Drawing was a young man, yet  incredibly perceptive to the world around him.  He describes  things in ways I would never think of, and picks up on things in people's behavior that is right on.  As a young man he was a good writer because he had the perceptions of an old man.

Drawing Of The Three Journal #3: The Shining

In Wizard and Glass, Stephen King makes some pretty clear connections to his other  works.  It becomes crystal clear that the Dark Tower is a door that opens directly into King's other books.  But direct references to Stephen King and his work began to appear in other places much earlier in the series.

Twice Eddie Dan makes mention of The Shining.  These are cultural references.  Interestingly, both times he is referencing the Kubrick film.  Here are two quotes about The Shining from The Drawing Of The Three:

1. While looking through the doorway into Oedtta's world:

Now the view through the doorway made one of those turns the gunslinger found so dizzying— but Eddie found this same abrupt swoop oddly comforting. Roland had never seen a movie. Eddie had seen thousands, and what he was looking at was like one of those moving point-of-view shots they did in ones like Halloween and The Shining. He even knew what they called the gadget they did it with. Steadicam. That was it.  (P.198)

2. Again, looking through Odetta's eyes:

He was staring into the doorway, hypnotized, as an aisle of Macy’s rushed forward— he was reminded again of The Shining, where you saw what the little boy was seeing as he rode his trike through the hallways of that haunted hotel. He remembered the little boy had seen this creepy pair of dead twins in one of those hallways. (P.223)

Someone has pointed out that Room 217 can equal 19 (2 + 17).  Deep.  And -- "Another instance of 19 occurs during the climax of the novel, when Jack is attempting to kill his wife, and the book mentions that there are 19 stairs from the lobby to the first floor of the hotel."  

The Drawing Of The Three Journal #2: Doors and Cards

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I’ve been reading the second Dark Tower bok, The Drawing Of The Three.  This is great stuff!

As one person posted at goodreads.com,

"...There's going to be shooting.""There is?""Yes." The gunslinger looked serenely at Eddie. "Quite a lot of it, I think."
. . . And so begins the coolest, most intense gun fight I've ever read.

The second book is much easier to read.  The tone is more of what we expect of King – chatty, conversational and intensely character driven.  The first novel was surreal.  Also, this novel has a lot of “hooks” that keep the reader engaged.  King might be world building, but it is easier going in this novel..

In the first novel, it was me going “huh?”  I had no context or history with Roland’s world to help make things make sense.  What’s a “Ka”?  But in Drawing it is Roland who is in our world.  I know what a Big Mac is.  And, to make things even better, Eddie is often confused by Roland’s terms and is right there to ask him.  In fact, Eddie flat out tells Roland that he does not know what a “ka” is, except that kaka is something babies do in their diapers. Turns out, Roland explains, that Ka is destiny.  Or, a form of mid-world predestination.  So the reader is introduced to themes from Roland’s world without the total immersion required in The Gunslinger.

The Dark Tower itself moves closer to center stage in this book. Roland invites Eddie on his quest.  Of course, Eddie doesn’t really have a choice, but it was at least nice of Roland to invite. Eddie calls Roland a “tower Junkie.”  That’s great!

1. Doors: Roland encounters doors on a beach.  An earlier discussion about where the doors come from and what they symbolize lead to the general conclusion that fantasy doesn’t require a lot of answers.   Further, many of you insisted that symbolism doesn’t have to originate with the author.

Doors have a lot of Biblical symbolism – used much the same way they are used in The Drawing of the Three.

• Movement between realms.  In Revelation, John sees an open doors.  Stepping through the door ushers him into another world – the heavenly realm. (Revelation 4:1)  
• Spiritual receptivity.  Jesus most often used the symbol of a door to represent spiritual openness or closed heartedness toward the Gospel.  (Matthew 7:7-8 , Revelation 3:20) 
• Opportunity.  Jesus also used the symbol of a door as one of opportunity (Revelation 3:8) Paul used this same analogy.  (1 Cor. 16:9 , 2 Cor. 2:12, Col. 4:3)

Doors in The Drawing of the Three move the characters between worlds or realms.  Roland enters our world through the open doors. . . but there is a catch!  Roland enters our world through the body of another.  It’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers here!  Or, Richard Laymon’s “Body Rides.”

I found this article interesting on the symbolism of doors and windows in modern literature HERE.

By the way, there are more than just doors on a beach in this novel.  There are a lot of locked doors.  The door on the airplane.  The bathroom door at Balazar’s.

Throughout this novel both Eddie and Roland are sizing one another up.  Roland sees potential in Eddie if he can break free of his prison (drugs).  Interesting, since King when he wrote this was a prisoner to many substances. In fact, King displays more than a working knowledge of drugs and guns!

Back to doors.  Doors lead to “opportunity.”  For Eddie, Roland’s world is a way out of his prison.  The prison door is open for him to walk away – but it does not open on his world.  In order for him to be free, he must shut the door on his own world.  King was in much the same situation.  He would have to stop relying on things to keep him going.  What was his “door”?  His Roland was his wife – she drew the line and demanded change.  His door out was writing.

King narrates, “needed a fix.  More: He served a fix.”  This is exactly how a junkie thinks!  He needs, he deserves – thus anyone who denies him what he needs and deserves is the enemy, not the help.

King shares in On Writing that a lie artist tell themselves is that their art is better because of whatever substance abuse they are beholden to.  King reveals that this is a lie he told himself.  However, he also acknowledges that it is indeed a lie.  In order to escape out of a world of drugs,  he would have to walk away from the lie and into his craft with a sober mind.

photo credit: goodreads.com

2. Cards play an important role in this novel.
In the first book, the Gunslingers fortune was told with three cards.  Those cards now play out throughout The Drawing Of The Three.  Also, Balazar loves to play with cards, building complex houses and buildings out of the cards.  I love it when the gun battle begins and the cards go flying!  As Balazar’s cards fall down, so will his destiny.

King uses a midpoint devise with the cards titled “Shuffle.”  This describes Eddie’s nursing the Gunslinger and their conversations.  However, as the cards shuffle, time is lost.  The reader is left with a sense of disorientation.  How much time passes is not clear.  King uses this to move easily from one scene to the next without being required to fill us in on how they moved from point to point.  The narration takes an overview method that I actually like quite a bit.  King usually moves a story carefully – building scene by scene like a television show.  Sometimes it’s nice when he just fast forwards to the important parts.  That’s what he does in the “shuffle” sections.

The Drawing Of The Three Journal #1

I like this book a lot.  I am drawn to it.  It is fast paced, has interesting characters, and even Roland – who I found so difficult in the first volume – is more engaging.

Wounded!

Want to write a good book?  I’m learning something as I read Stephen King – one element that seems pretty important is: Make your characters bleed!

King starts the novel by doing something rather daring – he severely cripples his primary character.  Does this seem like a good idea when the tower is so far away?  As a reader, I love it.  I would think that this would give King pause as a writer.  He is limiting himself to writing around Roland’s missing fingers for all remaining dark tower stories.

In the Gunslinger, Roland seemed mythic.  The monstrosities he encounters on the beach humanize the ole chap.  Roland will be allowed to continue his quest, but he will do it as a wounded man.  This reminds me of Jacob wrestling with God. God pulled his leg out of joint, forcing the father of the Hebrews to walk with a limp for the rest of his life.  This knocks the arrogant Jacob down more than a few pegs!  It also forces him to rely on God and be kinder to others.  King does this with his creation.  By wounding Roland, the self confident gunslinger must now rely on others.  He is not so self-sufficient after all.

More than crippling Roland with the loss of a few fingers, King also allows Roland to experience deep guilt over his betrayal of Jake.  Of course, to really get the full impact of that betrayal, I think you have to read the original version of the Gunslinger – as it seems more tempered in the new version.  The Drawing of the Three reveals that Roland is a man in desperate need of redemption.

The people Roland will draw to himself are likewise very broken.  If people seemed healthy in the Gunslinger, that well being is no where to be found in this novel!  Not only is the gunslinger now in a world of hurt, but he will join to himself a druggie and a cripple.  Some gang!  But this is exactly what makes King’s writing so powerful.

Wounding the characters, limiting them in some way, makes them more interesting.  What makes the story of David and Goliath so memorable?  That David was small and weak.  If Israel had just marched out their giant, and the Philistines had marched out there giant and the Hebrew giant killed the Philistine giant. . . there’s nothing to get excited about.  It is only when little David comes out to fight mighty Goliath that his victory seems all the more incredible.  In this case, it is this weak cast of characters coming against the Darkman and the Crimson King that make the story interesting.  The deck is stacked against them.

Door Jam:

One of my favorite parts of the novel is when Roland steps through the door and into Eddie Dean’s head!  It’s brilliant! The first thing Roland sees is the horizon.  He realizes that he is in a sky carriage.  He has the good luck of stepping into someone’s body who happens to be smuggling drugs.  Drugs are exactly what Roland needs!

New problems arise for me as I read through the Dark Tower again.  These are problems I struggled with the first time I read this story.  (Actually, I’ve read the first few books many many times).

Here’s my problem: Where did the doors come from?  I don’t remember ever being told.

I once wrote a story – a very good story, in my 15 year old opinion of work – about a society cut off from the rest of the world.  The discovered a cave full of books.  The cave was lit by candles.  (It was actually a bomb shelter)  You see the problem. . . right?  My sister immediately asked the most annoying question in the world: “Hey, who lights the candles?”  I dunno!  Maybe an old man with a dog named Harry.  Beats me!  Who lights the candles was not important to my story.

I fear that in much the same way – the origin of the doors is not important to King’s story.  The doors simply move the story forward.

My wife says that the “how” is not important to the fantasy genre.  Maybe that’s why I have trouble with this.  At least in Science Fiction there has to be a bit of science. . . in fantasy, things just appear!

picture credit by PAV
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