Stephen King has made a world in "The Dark Tower" franchise where it seems like anything can happen. It's a fantasy-western story that crosses all times and references in a way that's dizzying and time consuming. It's the biggest appeal to the stories, which ended its third entry on a very odd cliffhanger. Roland and the gang was riding Blane the Mono towards the titular tower, but needed to come up with a riddle to escape its ride into the abyss. That's where "Wizard and Glass," the fourth book, begins. By the end, the story doesn't venture more than a few days later, but covers a grander story that's unlike most of what came before. It's a story about Roland's past, featuring a ka-tet that helped to shape the lone ranger that is at the center of this saga. In some ways, it's a detour that helps to shape character, but it also detours from the appealing central cast that has shaped the last two books' energy. It's a bit of a lag, but it's still pretty good.
The juxtaposition between the "present" story in Mid-World and Roland's back story has a certain staggering quality. In the wraparound sequence to the flashback, there is a discovery of where the characters are wandering through. It's Topeka, Kansas: a place rundown that also takes on a "Wizard of Oz" style of economy. The way that King writes details are as great as ever, creating a sense of decay that makes this world a fascinating waste land, making one wonder what lies beyond. It helps that the ka-tet, the chosen group of travellers, have plenty of chemistry. King's banter continues to be some of the strongest elements, capturing characters clearly now comfortable with each other even if they all come from different worlds. In the roughly 200 pages where the story focuses on them, the story is kinetic and captures something familiar in the best ways possible.
Then there is the story that consumes the other pages, where Roland tells a story over a campfire of his youth. While "The Dark Tower" series has some grounding in western themes (Roland has been described as Clint Eastwood-esque), this is the first in the series to feel like a straightforward western story with a town that is lived in. There's an organic sense of location, with Roland's relationship to his father and lover Susan Delgado. It's a story that meanders at times, but captures an empathetic core to Roland as he learns to love someone other than the whores at the whorehouse. He becomes a man throughout the story, and it's lacking in the sensationalism of the previous three books for the most part. It's an emotional component that makes the protagonist a far more interesting character in general, creating at times something harrowing and sad.
As the title suggests, there are wizards and glass (balls meant to look into the future). There's a lot of interference with the supernatural because this is "The Dark Tower," and their destination holds all of the answers to the connected universe. Beyond this story, King manages to sprinkle in components to the bigger series, such as thinnies and The Crimson King. He has a grasp of the world that causes even the quietest moments to feel somewhat disconcerting. For a story based in intimacy and internal struggle, he manages to give a sense of the world that couldn't have been told any sooner. This would be a droll opener to a series, but with an understanding of the universe it comes across as an accessible tale that has a lot of bigger concepts. With that said, it feels like it derails the momentum of the previous stories by accident. Anything would feel derailing after the whirlwind of the previous two books, which were violent whirlwinds of creativity and energy thrust together. By comparison, this is a break that only feels frustrating if read in real time, wanting desperately to have some conclusion to the franchise after 15 years. Knowing that the ending comes, it's less frustrating in hindsight.
"Wizard and Glass" may not always be the most engaging book in King's magnum opus, but it works for fans who want something grander than action. It may have a heavy dose of "Wizard of Oz" mixed in that is at times on the nose, but it also has the chance to understand Roland as more than a lonesome gunslinger. It gives him a sense of grounding in this world, and gives Mid-World a better sense of location and history. There's no way to keep it from derailing from the pace that came before, but it does feel like a crucial piece of the bigger story. Within the emotions are smaller details of world building, and likely ideas that will impact the remaining stories. It's not the most exciting to read, but it proves that even in a world where anything can happen, King can at least try to be more mature, complex, and capture characters with realistic grounding. That is an achievement unto itself.
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