Reviews and Comments

Time has turned forward again. Roland has finished his tale and confrontation with his past.

I find myself more interested in the evolution of Susan and Roland’s relationship this go round than the historical, world-building context development of the Dark Tower universe. How they evolve from mutual attraction and descend into idealism and addiction, covering their inability to control their lust with romantic fantasies, ultimately finding themselves unable to read the antagonistic reality organizing itself around them. In the end, I found myself grateful for having weathered similar situations, coming to my own adult understanding of balancing powerful feelings with bounded reason.

Susan’s experience as the story comes to a close illustrates a feminine trinity that complements that of Roland’s ka-tet, a corruption of the tripartite woman as maiden/mother/crone. As Susan loses her maidenhood and becomes a mother herself, her aunt Cordelia, her mother-figure yet spinster, descends into jealousy, contorting the role while egged on by the equally corrupted crone archetype of Rhea the witch. There’s a theme here on the classically understood social lives of women that I’m not really qualified to comment on, but seems to center around sources of envy within women’s circles and the behavior it engenders. In Susan’s case, it exemplifies how the stewards of life become destroyers of it.

Lastly, King makes an allusion that I never picked up on in earlier reads, and not sure if he develops it later in the series. The Dark Tower is the nexus of existence. We might think of it as a physical manifestation of metaphysics itself. The center of Being. It’s a powerful image that can be applied through a number of Eastern models of metaphysics. As Roland comes to understand his quest to enter and repair the sickness within the Dark Tower, he recognizes an opposing force, the Bright Tower of love, perhaps the energy that issues from and animates existence itself. The thing that Moves and Organizes beyond individual will. Between these two sits ka, a complex term encountered throughout the series. As with most of his symbolism, King leaves this idea open-ended, allowing the reader to make his own interpretations.

Susan and Roland are now deep into their affair as the tension of the adjacent political arc builds. Roland’s companions express dismay at their friend’s loss of objectivity in fulfilling the obligations of their purpose in Mejis.

Where initially I related to Roland and Susan’s dynamic as their attraction budded into a relationship, I’m now seeing where they depart from my own story. Both characters seem drawn to each other due to their loss of innocence; believing the world to be a certain way and coming to learn it is more complex. Each beginning to come into their own agency as a result, but lacking any real experience. Roland’s injury is learning of his mother’s indiscretions, her weakness (as he sees it), and inability withstand temptation despite her devotion to her son and family. Susan’s injury is the loss of her father and ensuing circumstances that lead her to agree to become a concubine, then to learn that her fathers death and those circumstances were engineered by darker forces of politics and greed. In a way, their union is reclaiming that loss of innocence. Forming a youthful alliance against the machinations of the world of adults. But for both, the core wound occurs as a threshold into adolescence. Each received love and attention from their parents then lost it.

For some, including myself, the core wound is deeper and goes much further back. The loss of innocence occurs before memory can form, the experience named, and the remedy identified. It becomes a formative psychic event that is only available to us as hearsay. Our process of reclamation and healing is not as simple.

Roland and Susan remain in their early courtship, both attending to their own duties while being drawn toward one another, yet resisting the attraction.

I’m noticing more empathy for Susan this go round. She is immersed in her own life and community when suddenly a stranger appears with a new perspective, and after she’s made hard but practical decisions to support her family and future. Forced into her decision by circumstance and accepting it when an alternative appears. Roland brings forth her inner will, and she sets it against him to preserve the status quo, while longing for him all the same.

Meanwhile, Roland and his ka-tet are illustrating a developing theme I might call the tripartite man, to borrow from feminine images of the Hera/Aphrodite/Artemis triplicate. Cuthbert as the Fool/Trickster, Alain as the Squire, Roland as the Knight. Incomplete in their adulthood and forming a whole man together. Eventually Susan will join the ka-tet to form a quaternity, reflecting the group of characters that form the saga’s arc, but the idea of masculine trinity is compelling. These are youthful roles that will ultimately be integrated into the man Roland will become.

Time has turned backwards and Roland and his first ka-tet have arrived in Mejis. Roland and Susan Delgado have encountered each other on the road and entered into a secret friendship.

I relate very much to young Roland in his experience of becoming enraptured by a beautiful woman on account of both her pleasing appearance and her warmth of personality. I also see his folly, as he begins to set aside all his obligations to pursue his heart’s desire. And I know this situation doesn’t end well for Susan. Their passion burns through all social convention and restraint.

I had a similar experience recently as an adult. Overwhelmed by the beauty I saw in another and setting aside my obligations to myself in order to be available to her. I exercised some measure of restraint and we both remain intact although our relationship is not.

I continue to appreciate King’s grasp of the complexity of the human heart, how love destroys as much as it heals, how situations create darkness in people, and how good stories and rewarding relationships are never free of conflict or crisis.

Ugh…still reading despite my inner protests. The proofreading, if any, is terrible. But there are enough interesting ways of seeing other topics I’m exploring independently to keep me engaged.

Most salient, he notices this idea of “thought clouds” (my term) as a phenomenon of organizational psychology. It’s basically the image of how a belief system/plausibility structure of an institution or social group seems to influence an individual’s ability to think independently. When we move through a group we pick up on these thought clouds through environmental affordances and behavioral cues and adjust our thinking and role to fit in. You do it. I do it. It’s just something we do.

The image is consistent with the theory of the conscious electromagnetic information field; consciousness arises through the combined wave interference of independently firing neural synapses. It’s proven that music will synchronize individual brainwaves in an audience, so the idea that thoughts might synchronize in a similar way isn’t out of left field. Exhibit A: human civilizations.

I think the challenge for individuals is discovering how to develop a personal belief system/plausibility structure (through solitude?) and then find others with resonant fields.

This is of course just me mumbo-jumbling on a book server that very few people read.