The Dark Tower II

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

The next step of Roland's quest has begun.

After his conversation with the Man in Black, Roland faces the long road to the Dark Tower.  He's starved, dehydrated... Roland Deschain, the last gunslinger of Gilead, is dying. The first door looms near and behind it, what possibilities may arise?

Behind the first, the Prisoner. Behind the second, The Lady of Shadows.  Behind the third, Death (but not for you, gunslinger).

Meet the rest of the cast.

The Drawing of the Three is typical Stephen King style where you get a lot of exposition and character introductions before the story really gets going. Fortunate ly for King, he's a master at this sort of approach and you are immediately invested in the new characters.  We first meet Eddie Dean - a junkie from 1980s New York and one of two of my favorite characters in the series.  Behind the second door is Odetta/Detta and behind the third?  Certainly not what Roland expects.

The characters in this story continue to be raw and flawed and horrible in so many ways that they are likable. It is another strength of King's to create characters you probably wouldn't want to meet in real life, but you do want to read about.  While this book is a bit thick to have very little forward movement, the background of these two characters provides so much context to the choices they make later in the series and I believe it is worthwhile.

Adults only, please.

If I haven't mentioned it before about this series, now seems like a good time to say this book probably isn't appropriate below a high school level.  None of the series is, and some parents may flinch at letting their high schoolers read it.  In The Drawing of the Three alone we've got two men plowing down a building until every is dead inside, and one of them is naked.  We read about Detta's public masturbation and her insulting male gentalia.  These are things I've really come to expect from King - he apologizes for nothing and hides nothing in his writing - but it's a shock if you're not expecting it.

That said, I believe The Drawing of the Three has the greatest variety of "inappropriate moments" and after this book, with the exception of a couple not-steamy sex conversations, the series clears up nicely to only include the gore to be expected when the main character is a gunslinger.

Eddie Dean really makes this series for me.

As much as I enjoy Roland, it's really Eddie Dean that brings this all together for me - makes it light enough so I'm not bored and keeps it going.  Eddie is the kind of character with a constant internal monologue.  He's likable, for all his faults.  The Drawing of the Three is an interesting character study - but I like Eddie's story the best.

The pacing slips off a bit once we meet Odetta/Detta, whose story is told back-and-forth in several time jumps between personalities and different parts in her life.  You really have to pay attention to keep up with it.  Overall I'd say this isn't the strongest book in the series (one of the slowest, actually), but it's a necessary stepping stone to the story ahead.  Bear with it, and you will be rewarded.

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2015 Review: Second Read
The one thing that must be understood going into reading any Stephen King novel - whether it's science fiction, horror, or biographical - is that he is going to present the world without a censor, without silver lining. Stephen King's characters are always the worst versions of themselves, and even though I found myself being uncomfortable the first time we run into Detta Walker (oh my goodness) I also like that rawness about his characters. They are so incredibly flawed and they don't give a shit what you think and they are real. But if you are expecting butterflies and rainbows, they are incredibly jarring.

Stephen King does not do butterflies and rainbows.

The Drawing of the Three is what it sounds like - it is a playground for character development as Ronald Deschain - the Gunslinger - collects his companions for the arduous journey ahead to the Dark Tower. This story does not move the plot forward except in the same way buying groceries helps you advance in making dinner; he is collecting the tools he needs for his quest. In that way, it can feel a bit monotonous. I find that The Drawing of the Three is more like two short stories and a bit of mindless babble (the final door) thrown together with a weaving of an endless beach and murderous crabs (dadda-chik, dadda-chum). As the story makes further and significant progress in the last three books, the importance of the first three becomes more apparent. But you must let the story teller weave his tale.....

One thing King does flawlessly is pull the reader so entirely into the world that even if you hate his jagged characters, you are intrigued by their struggles, and that is his greatest spell as a writer.