Sunday, April 29, 2012

The Wind Through The Keyhole by Stephen King

The two most beautiful words in any language are: I forgive

This Dark Tower book is labeled as #4.5, it should fall between Wizard and Glass and Wolves of the Calla but, as King lets you know in the forward, you can read this as a stand alone book if you've never ventured into the Dark Tower series. So, non-DT fans, feel safe to grab this excellent story-within-a-story-within-a-story novel.

I really love how this book is set up. We start off with Roland and his ka-tet of Eddie, Jake, Susannah and the billy-bumbler, Oy. They are still traveling to the Dark Tower but they all notice Oy acting peculiarly. Roland is sure he knows why but can't grasp the thought (he's been through quite a lot by this point). An old man named Bix is the one to inform them that billy-bumblers detect Starkblasts, terrible freezing storms that appear out of nowhere, unless you have a billy-bumbler to detect them. Our crew hurries to the nearest stone building to take shelter from the starkblast.

Which leads us to the new story.....

To while away the night and storm, Roland tells the story of his young self and fellow gunslinger, Jaime, who are sent to a small town in search of a skin-man. A skin-man might be described as a were in modern times,  a human that changes shape into an animal. Except the skin-man can become any animal and can rip the arms from people and beat them to death with their own arms (the story gets a bit gruesome - a la King).

Which leads us to the new story......

While trying to calm a young survivor of the latest skin-man attack, young Roland tells the story of Tim Stoutheart, a young boy who is very brave (and foolish) and goes on a quest to help his mother. He encounters dragons, plantpeople, mages, and many more scary and fascinating creatures.

Which winds us back to....

The young gunslingers and the skin-man

Which winds us back to....

The ka-tet finishing out the Starkblast on their way to the Dark Tower.

This was a book to take to your recliner with your cup of tea and a blanket. While the storms rage around you, you have a good place to go...with Roland the Gunslinger and his stories.

1 comment:

Eesti said...

I cannot praise this book any higher than to state that it reminded me why I loved the Dark Tower series. The Gunslinger was the first book by King I read... and yes, it was in the days before he revised it. I was caught up in the quest for the Tower and found it a fascinating story. The final book in the series is one of the few books I have ever cried while reading. When King announced recently that there would be one more, I'll admit it, I was excited, but also concerned. How would a story taking place in the middle of the series add anything? Obviously as the story was already over, we wouldn't see much progress towards the Tower itself. For good or ill, we have already seen the Tower.

What King gave us instead is a fairy tale, and a good one at that. Yes, I was slightly disappointed that we only spent about 40 pages with Eddie, Jake and Susanna, and only about 100 more with Roland, but the story King tells us here about a young boy named Tim more than makes up for it. I dare say this is one of the best books in the series.