User Profile

Close to finishing. Pausing again to capture a few thoughts. Roland is imminently about to rescue Jake from the Tick-Tock Man and Eddie and Susannah are in the cradle of Blaine the Mono.

1. Blaine is an interesting archetype in the age of LLMs and emerging AI technologies. It is an extrapolation of technology gone insane, how it becomes essentially the Demon of Lud, an intelligence that has surpassed its programming and descended into addiction. It continues the theme of duality resolved in the arcs of Susannah, Roland, and Jake. Here the presence of Little Blaine, the remnant docility of the original program.

2. I didn’t see it before, but it seems another theme is how each member of the New York ka-tet seems to be finding their purpose beyond the expectations set by their environments. Each characters drawing into Roland’s alien world represents the struggle of starting anew and seductive comfort of familiarity. Eddie is the best illustration of this as his former heroin addiction and fear pull him backwards into old thought patterns, but ultimately allow him to see those patterns where other members of the ka-tet can’t. In other words, his liability becomes an asset.

3. Roland, in contrast, is set in his purpose and guiding the others to suit it. The backstory to his motive is coming up in the next book, but I can already see how his experience in Mejis and the death of Susan Delgado informs his perception that the nexus of existence, the Dark Tower, is sick and crumbling.

Just about over halfway through, Jake has been drawn through the speaking ring and Roland and ka-tet are about to enter the city of Lud, and have stopped to palaver and share perspectives from their drawings before fully embarking on their quest.

I’m pausing for a minute to unpack the idea of ka-tet, those bound together by fate. I’m finding it a useful concept in human life outside of fantasy novels. The idea of a bond that forms at random as a result of the particular idiosyncrasies of individual personalities. We might also call this “fitting in” or “belonging.” Each individual in a ka-tet like a puzzle piece that forms a different picture when brought together. The idea of individuality no longer applies which, per the character development over the arc of the three novels, isn’t the most pleasant of experiences.

Have just finished Part III, the Pusher. Had forgotten this dimension of the story, Roland stepping forward into a serial killer, rather than Jake’s body. Detta/Odetta do not unify into a new individual but become part of a trinity.

Halfway through The Lady of the Shadows. Struck again by King’s ability to distill the human condition into his characters. In many ways, he seems to be developing contemporary archetypes with the introduction of the Three. Odetta/Detta an extreme example of the duality within, an iteration of Venus/Lilith, the composed socialite vs the feral temptress. Savoring the narrative, knowing that the Work in this chapter is to integrate the two into a new, unified self.

Second volume of re-read. Currently up through prologue, the prisoner, and the interim scene on the beach, Roland healing from his wounds and Eddie going through withdrawal. I’m struck by a few changes in perspective since reading 10 years ago: again, as with first volume, I relate to Roland’s worldview a bit better, world-weary but firm in purpose, seeing himself in the role as mentor toward Eddie, sensitive to his need to process his own demons through talk.

I’m also more intrigued by Kings imagery of consciousness, through the plot device of doorways into other worlds through others’ minds. Again, King doesn’t attempt to make sense of his imagery, which again I think is part of his appeal. Here there are psychological elements of the idea of an internal Other pulling a unified self into a new reality. Resonates with a lot of things I’ve been going through over the past 6-9 months.

I’ve been thinking about this quote all day in reference to the wider context in which it’s embedded. It punctuates a vision Roland receives from Randall Flagg, the “universe in a blade of grass,” beginning with a synthesis of the Genesis creation myth and the Jurassic period, then expanding outward across powers of ten, until it compresses back into quantum chaos and emerging as a fleeting glimpse of a leaf. In this vision, Roland sits on the precipice of ego-annihilation. He is given the choice to renounce his quest for the Tower and rest in the comfort of what he Knows, or to continue toward this Idea that threatens his individual existence. Somehow, I think he chooses the middle way, preserving himself while also moving forward with an awareness that the self/other boundary is fuzzy instead of finite.

In my 20s, I remember being moved by Roland’s inner will, his capacity to maintain his sense of self in the face of overwhelming temptation. Reading again, with the experience of ten years worth of meditation behind me, I’m unsure if this “return to himself” was the wise move. My only caveat to that doubt is that Flagg, Kings agent of “the Outer Dark” (from another book), presents a false proposition.

Equally, I’m struck by the depth of King’s themes and their correlation to both Christianity and Buddhism without intentionally making the connection. I think this is his broad appeal, his worlds are not tightly woven and allow the readers’ minds to fill in the gaps.