Despite being one of the most prolific authors in modern history, sometimes averaging three books a year, there has been nothing that has meant as much to Stephen King as his work on "The Dark Tower" series. To general audiences, it's hard to see why given how deep it dives into complex fantasy, mixing genres and styles with a lexicon all its own. The central figure is a gunslinger named Roland, but his partners come from different "when's" and the journey features diversions to different "where's." Considering that the first book started as a compilation of short stories, it would be difficult to get new audiences on board without some forward. Still, what it presents is one of the ultimate visions of King as an author: passionate about everything in literature and pop culture, and yes... this does include himself.
So to get to the end of the saga isn't easy, in part because of a notorious car crash that plays heavily into the book's plot. There weren't any guarantees that King would be alive to make this novel possibly. By that measure, this is the ultimate miracle in fantasy literature. However, the love that this novel will get is based on how much King's best and worst literary tendencies annoy you. Following a muddled book in "The Song of Susannah," "The Dark Tower" starts with the feeling like the world is going to end, and it only builds to the harrowing conclusion. However, where the other novels took years and decades to appear, there's a rushed sense, even at a thousand pages, that comes with a finale. Much like everything else, endings aren't one of King's strong suits. Still, the road there is just as exciting as it is befuddling.
The plot of "The Dark Tower" series has been simple: Roland the gunslinger must follow The Path of the Beam so that he can stop The Crimson King from destroying the world. In the books leading up to this, King has reveled in building a world where every last fantasy element has been displayed. He pulls heavily from classic fiction as well as old westerns. It's a world where you could see wolves fight cowboys, which is quite an impressive rarity. All the while, King has made this delusional world feel grounded in a sense of purpose as a nuclear family has taken shape of Roland, a boy named Jake, a black woman named Susan, and a rotating cast of supporting characters. It's the perfect set-up of underdogs coming together to fight for justice, and it's served as the emotional crux of this impressive journey.
So, what goes wrong in the final book in the series? Maybe it's the car that hit King in the real world. While the author claims that it's not a perfect depiction of the real story, it's easy to see what drew him to include himself. A coma-inducing car crash would cause anyone to question their own mortality, and it's here that we see King grapple with his creation. "The Dark Tower" has been his baby, and the feeling that it would never be complete seemed tragic. It's why he spends dozens of pages trapped in that coma, talking to his characters and trying to join the world of fiction to his. This is his "Don Quixote": an impossible dream that exists outside of metafiction, allowing him to comment on his own career and even writing the last few books in the series.
It's a gimmick that eats up a lot of time, and at a glance feels like a self-indulgent ode to the author. Suddenly he is the key to what the world's survival needs. He's just a writer from Maine, and he comes off as a dork here. His desire to play with color schemes and numerology are nice, but the book spends so much time playing around with techniques that come across as wacko conspiracy theories meant to enhance the brilliance of the novel, but more suggest that King, like us, doesn't want to let the world go. He wants us to see too much in this story so that it could last forever. Even if there is an ending, he still has written more on the subject since ("The Wind Through the Keyhole"), proving how precious the whole experience is. It's exhausting and only appealing to those with enough time to reread every novel in King's library to connect the red lines.
It also features passages that feel deranges, as in keeping with his style following his late-90's output. There are pages written in italics to represent dreams and interior monologues that sometimes seem like much. He's very repetitive in how he uses his personal lexicon as if this is the last time anyone will ever read the words "say thankya." He also goes into some grotesque details, such as the birth of Susan's baby that ends up becoming a demon. An awful lot of time is spent discussing the birthing process and the baby's features. King's love of minute details is charming at times, but his ability to love reveling in some details show a struggle to find an editor willing to tell him straight what needs to get cut. It's all a brilliant, insane vision, but it's muddled by a variety of impulses, including the demonic baby and the aforementioned coma sequence. The one relief is that in spite of everything, he manages to make the final pages matter.
Unlike his own writing (and himself), King thankfully isn't too precious towards his central characters, known as a ka-tet. Every character gets to have an emotional moment where King essentially eulogizes their existence in his stories. At times it's beautiful, reflecting what these characters have come to mean in the bigger narrative. Even in the main story of Roland, the sense of loss and lone hero status works in this weird fantasy-western story. It was always his journey, even if it's full of tough obstacles. In the end, King delivers Roland a finale that allows him to be the hero that we knew he could be against one of the biggest foes in his literature. Crimson King is a foe that has popped up randomly through King's work over the decades, and here he gets to show off what makes him an unfathomable foe, even allowing him to dive into the psyche of the villain. Sometimes it's borderline ridiculous (The Crimson King farts at one point), but it helps to build this black-and-white version of good-and-evil that King clearly believes in.
As a story, King has created a massive and impressive tribute to the creative mind. Even when he reaches the end of Roland's journey, there are 30 more pages where King gives more. Unlike the other things he's precious about, his choice to be cautious about the reader's journey forward is effective. For those wanting a happy ending, it's best to end early. What follows is still satisfying, but is not a happy ending. It's also a commentary on how fiction can be cyclical, especially as King fully admits that he hates endings because they're goodbyes. As mentioned, he's never exactly ready to say goodbye to the ka-tet. He wants to keep them around, even if he believes he came to the only ending that could exist. He isn't wrong, even if the road there was profoundly uneven. Still, the final 200 pages create Mid-World into this fascinating landscape of wonder and colorful characters. Even in a book that crams too much in, he makes the small moments work.
It's impossible to know now what it felt like to wait over 30 years between the start and finish of "The Dark Tower" series, and if the car crash impacted the reader. Still, this is as much about the characters as it is about King. He's fascinated by his own mortality here, wanting to keep writing and explore what gives him inspiration. In that way, it's a satisfying choice to include him in the fiction. However, it's something that only appears late into the narrative. One has to wonder what would've happened if the car crash never happened. Would he even feel motivated to write the final chapters? Would he even include himself in that draft? As much as the book's flaws are easy to nitpick, it's more fascinating to question the alternate reality where things were different. There are so many paths that could've kept the story from coming to fruition, and it adds depth to King's boldest writing decision. It's a divisive one at best, though it's not nearly as egregious as the pages dedicated to discussing how beloved Stephen King is as an author to scholars and bestseller lists.
"The Dark Tower" is one of a kind saga that proves every last tendency King had from his youth to his old age. To read it as one work is to notice a creator who was as much admired by himself as everything else. He was willing to include things he loved in his fiction while creating his own world (literally). Everything connected in a way that reflected his passion. Even if he never got to the finish line, the books spent with the ka-tet grew to be an affecting, edgier version of journeys like J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" or L. Frank Baum's "The Wizard of Oz." He believed that he could make the ultimate story of good triumphing over evil while sticking everything in the pages. Somehow, he got away with it.
Is the series perfect? Not even close. The first few books will always be the strongest, if just because of how they introduce the world. Everything after "Wizards and Glass" has more of an urgency to them and find an author urgent to reach the finale. It still was close to 2,000 pages to get there, but those pages feel like a journey through an author's mind. Every last macabre display is there, and it's hard not to want to stop and admire the oddity. The literary quirks and crassness are all here to authenticate King's vision of 20th-century literature, and they are just as bad as they are in his best work. By this point, only the fans have stuck around to give their two cents on what happened. It's how it should be. By this point, only fans have the audacity to read books with such grand moments and emotional peaks alongside confusing messes. It's all about investment, and in that way, King proves that he was his own biggest fan. How could he not be? He created such a great world that is sad to leave. It's partially why this book's middling pace can be forgivable, even if it doesn't make sense to those on the outside.
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