The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed.
Fantasy has always been something of an oddity, as far as discussions of genre are concerned. Unlike a murder mystery (which tends to follow a set of basic checkpoints: murder, suspects, motives, vital-clues-revealed-at-random-points) or even historical novels (which tend to be themed around exotic times and places whose differences from our own time and place are highlighted), there is no tangible way of actually describing what fantasy is. You could mutter something about dwarves and elves and ogres, but that would just be you describing the mark left on the literary landscape by Tolkien and his ilk. Fantasy is Quidditch, or a dragon’s egg discovered by a farmhand, or a sly genie toying with a cocky young magician, or a world where strange and wonderful things happen because of Dust falling from-
Okay, tell you what, Danny Boy: go stand in a corner until you can stop dribbling; we’re trying to have a serious discussion here.
Now.
Fantasy is anything that is strange (or fantastic) without becoming completely unlike the world which we inhabit. You could write about a bunch of semi-developed merpeople flouncing about in the primordial ooze; but it only crosses into the realm of fantasy if they have some quirky mannerisms that we can associate with real people. And Stephen King – a man who has now spent over five decades writing weird and wonderful things (even though he is still mostly associated with horror because that’s where some of his best work has been) – manages to do exactly that with the Gunslinger.
Write a credible fantasy, I mean. Not something about merpeople. That one’s still on the table.
The Gunslinger is the story of Roland Deschain – the eponymous lawbringer in King’s dystopic realm – who also happens to be the last of his kind. He is laconic, single-minded and unimaginative: a plodder and a bludgeoner, as he describes himself. But his skill with his trusty revolvers is unmatched; and his grit and determination make him the only one who can ever hope of reaching the Dark Tower, which happens to be the central theme to the entire saga. The novel (which is actually a collection of five related pieces in chronological order) deals with Roland’s pursuit of the Man in Black, and a few glimpses at his illustrious past. On the way we meet a bevy of believable characters and are offered a glimpse at ourselves through a funhouse mirror – which is the hallmark of a good piece of fantasy writing.
The world of Roland and the Dark Tower is shown to be a dusty, dying place: the once-proud land of the gunslingers has fallen into decay, with sparse settlements in the harsh environments of deserts and mountains. But it is the small touches connecting this world to ours that make the story enthralling and somehow disturbing; for instance, the song Hey, Jude repeats in the background at many crucial junctures in the story, serving to remind us that this unforgiving land might be our own world in the distant future.
Both the back cover of the book and King’s afterword remind us that the current volume is only the first in a much larger work that will follow; so perhaps the world will be fleshed out further as we progress through the story. But the story itself is not the prime concern here. It travels through a fulfilling arc and reaches a satisfactory conclusion (for now), but the focus remains on the characters in general, and the titular gunslinger in particular.
Roland’s character is lovingly crafted into a credible antihero – you may or may not like him, but he does manage to earn your respect by the time the tale (almost, but not quite) ends. There are shades of Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name, and also of the Childe Roland from Robert Browning’s poem (who was the chief inspiration behind his conception). The other characters are also fleshed out well – from the townsfolk of Tull to the two birds who play a vital role in the story (you read right). My favourite aspect of the characterization has to be the interplay between Jake, Roland and the Man In Black: the white, grey and black who both define and challenge the roles they’re meant to embody.
Speaking of Roland, his own back-story is far from complete at this point-we’re only told of how he became an apprentice, not the last gunslinger-but something tells me he will not be touched upon in so much detail in further volumes – he will remain the protagonist, of course, but as King introduces an ever-growing roster of characters (it is like a trademark of his) we will probably be subjected to the occasional flashbacks rather than the full-fledged detours that this volume afforded.
All the more reason to cherish the beginning, I guess.
At the time of writing this review, it has been almost six years since the last volume of the Dark Tower saga came out (the first edition of the Gunslinger was published a decade before I was born) and to be sure, I shall discuss the rest of the books as soon as I get my hands on them. But before I conclude, I would like to admit a small grouse: It seems King recently rewrote the Gunslinger in order to bring the cultural references up-to-date, and also to correct a few inconsistencies with future volumes. But while looking up the differences online (the copy I’ve read is a tattered old first edition) I thought they removed some of the grey aspects of Roland and made him... Well, a whiter character, so to speak. Plus I’m not exactly a fan of rewrites, per se: if the writer found it fit for publication to begin with, he has to respect his own decision.
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