I think that was kinda the point. Any major payoff in SoS would detract from the payoffs in the final chapter. This has to be the most difficult book for SK to write in the series - you have to substantially advance the story, you can’t resolve too much for fear of ruining the ending, you have to keep the final secret of the Tower hidden, but it has to still be substantial (plot-wise).
For story-telling about a 36-hour period, I liked it. We got major character development from 2 major characters of the ka-tet (Eddie and Jake), 1 minor character (Mia), learned a massive amount of info regarding Walter/Flagg (who has been the subject of major debate regarding whether or not they’re the same person or not) and the Crimson King, learned a good deal about the nature of the Tower, and the final conflict has been roughed out (Roland v. Mordred).
I thought it was definitely enjoyable, but not as good as Wolves of the Calla, which I really liked. A big thumbs up to Stephen King-as-character.
Anyhow, does anyone know if
the really helpful stranger who Eddie and Roland meet at the gas station (he has a boat, but I can’t remember his name) is a character from a different SK book? From the context, I expected to recognize him, but then, I haven’t read all that much SK in general
D’oh… yep, yer right… the way I read it, I thought they stepped out and looked at the WTC from somewhere far uptown. :smack: Even though it does say that it’s under 110 storeys of concrete and steel.
Even better… it’ll be interesting to see what Roland does when he gets there on September 19, 2001. :eek:
John Cullum, I believe. Didn’t he mention having been a prison guard? It sounded like The Green Mile to me, but my books are all packed away so I can’t check. I do wonder about that “paranoid” feeling Eddie was getting, though.
No mention of anybody by that name in The Green Mile, at least not in the movie credits, and that would be the wrong part of the country anyway. I was thinking maybe Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption. The guy would be in the right part of the country, roughly, and about the right age to have dealt with Andy Dufresne and Red.
Good point CrazyCatLady - I kind of skimmed through The Green Mile, so my recollection is poor.
My impression of the Mia situation:Mia became corporeal in Fedic, but was still stuck there, since the bridge and trains are gone, and the CK’s men control the magic/machine portals. She also still can’t bear a child in the normal fashion. Walter fixed it so Mia could invade Susannah’s mind, long-distance, while the chap was transported, cell by cell perhaps, from Susannah’s womb to Mia’s. That way they control both mothers and have them in Fedic for the birth, which wouldn’t have been possible without Mia. I agree that it does sound rather like King wrote himself into a corner, and had to twist and turn quite a bit to get out.
Great summary, AerynSun. I’ve been trying to wrap my head around what happened, but things keep slipping through. That’s short and concise. But where, again, is Fedic? Is it in End-World where Mia and Susannah were talking (and walking around nude)? Or is somewhere near Castle D?
Fedic is the old west style town where Mia was doing her nude runway thing. It’s in End-World, very near the Crimson King’s domain. Castle Discordia lies at the end of Fedic’s main street. Susannah is startled to see it there - its Gothic style being totally out of place, to her mind and ours. My understanding is that Mia is really physically on that street, but can go todash to the castle, as well as bring Susannah todash to either place.
Oh and my thoughts on where Number Thirteen gets stashed:I got the feeling that King figured you can’t write about modern day NYC without addressing the bigass elephant sitting in the room, i.e., 9/11. I suspect he’ll leave it without further explanation - he knows we all know what happens, and it was a way of disposing of 13 in a fashion that is pretty much permanent.
I’ll have to go back and look, but I also got the impression that the only remaining Beam is Bear/Turtle. One snapped at the beginning of this book, and Roland recalls another breaking back when everything in Gilead went bad. But that leaves another three unaccounted for, so I’m not sure if it’s correct that only one remains.
Do we need spoilers on this page? Just to be safe:
[spoiler]I haven’t made up my mind yet about SK’s appearance in his own book. It seems so self-indulgent, and the run-on sentences with lots of explanation about where he got the ideas for lots of things that appeared in the books was just awkward. But kudos to him for killing himself off. It will be interesting to see how that pans out.
As for Eddie wondering about Roland tapping his throat before crossing open water, does the line death had slipped between them necessarily mean that one of those two dies? I don’t know that that’s the case.[/spoiler]
And about Susannah-Mio:
[spoiler]I understand everything that happened, I just don’t see why it was necessary. Why couldn’t it just be that Susannah got preggers from the demon that fucked her, and leave it at that? Could have even kept the explanation that it’s Roland’s sperm from when he screwed the “slut of the winds” way back when. I would have bought that.
As it is, though, not much of Mia really makes any sense. Her weird mix of knowledge and ignorance about existence is hard to swallow, her motivation for taking on mortality was specious, and damn it, I am TIRED of Susannah being split-personality woman. She’s much more interesting (not to mention less annoying) when she’s just Susannah, rather than Detta/Odetta/Susannah/Mia. It’s gotten tired and I was happy to see it go a few books ago. The return of Detta is entirely unwelcome and contradicts the existence of Susannah, who is a BLEND of Detta and Odetta. How is it that she can exist as a blend of the two, but somehow Detta is also around whilst Odetta is not? Stupid and bothersome. Arrgh.[/spoiler]
Overall, I really enjoyed the book and devoured in in less than 48 hours. I can’t wait for VII to come out!
I was thinking about this just last night. And I have a framework that works out pretty well, given what we know already.
Roland is constantly mentioning or thinking about the similarities between Eddie and Cuthbert, and Jake and Alain. Leaving out Oy, Susannah is left out to dry in those comparisons. Which really isn’t fair, because she’s been a huge part of the ka-tet.
But looking back, Susannah’s various personalities at some time or other take on qualities of all three of those characters. She’s exhibited slight prowess with the touch (but not nearly as strong as Jake/Alain). She has an excellent sense of spurious behavior/personality (but not nearly to the extent as Eddie/Cuthbert). She’s also a very sensible and deliberate person (but not nearly to the fault that Roland takes it).
So it may be deliberate - either as a plot device or as a literary balance. (Or not.)
Roland specifically says that two beams remain, after the snap at the beginning.
As to why they needed Mia–I wondered that myself. I think the main reason was that the baddies needed some way to control Susannah so that the child would be born under their control. They couldn’t do much with a kid born in the Calla, protected by four gunslingers, and far from the CK’s minions.
That’s an interesting thought, and one I hadn’t considered at all. I’ve been thinking of her as the quasi-equivalent of Susan (Roland notes the similarity in names), and as such, representing a female force among all these males. I guess my breakdown looks more like this:
Roland: Old West / knighthood / tradition
Eddie: New West / manhood / imagination
Jake: Childhood, and the end of innocence
Oy: Innocence / trust / animal cunning
Susannah: Womanhood / intuition / motherhood (in her role toward Jake)
I guess now that we’ve got four women in one, that balances out the male-to-female ratio, eh? Hee hee.
To be fair, I was almost totally critical in my last post, but I really did like the book a whole lot.
My speculation about the Helpful Stranger (John, wasn’t it?) is that he’s going to follow Roland and Eddie, and perhaps wind up in End-World with the others. I don’t think he’s bad, at any rate, but Eddie’s paranoia has always been well-founded, so something’s up. If Eddie thinks John’s story about where he’s going to go rings false, then I think John’s about to travel further than he expects. Just a guess.
I’m kinda hoping that we see some old friends in the final book, people who have connected in some way to the series in other books (Insomnia, The Talisman, Eye of the Dragon, etc. That would be very cool.
I think that’s a good point, and probably along the lines of what SK has planned.
Too bad I had a better idea! Just kidding. But still, here is how I had imagined this panning out:
Susannah has the baby somewhere along the journey. Baby is clearly, or perhaps not so clearly, of demon descent, but looks human. Susannah feels mother-love for the child, and is blind to the greater implications of having a demon baby. The ka-tet divides over whether or not to keep, abandon, kill or immobilize the child. Susannah (with possible ally) splits from the ka-tet, and either turns away from The White or is killed – but it’s when she splits from the others that the Low Men et. al. get access to her. Child goes on to dark destiny, to be met again at The The Dark Tower (assuming they get there) by whomever of the ka-tet survives that long (assuming anyone does). Shattering conclusion ensues.
He says straight out that you’ll see Ted Brautigan, the kid from the end of Insomnia (what was his name… Patrick?) and other characters from throughout his other books.
[spoiler]I remember a reference being made that the two remaining beams were being “held up” or protected by two physical things in the “real world” - one being the rose, the other being Stephen King. Now that King’s “dead,” I’m guessing the beam he supported has also snapped.
I’ll have to look up the reference - perhaps I’m misremembering.
If I do remember the reference correctly, I like how subtile that was. You don’t realize what a bomb has been dropped until you realize just how significant King’s death is.
[/spoiler]
I’m with the others, however: not sure what to think about King’s appearance. Seems goofy and forced, and ruins a little of the magic of the storytelling for me.
