'The Drawing of the Three'

So as you may recall, I was not such a fan of 'Gunslinger' when I reread it, and I was so disappointed that I sought out the old version of it (instead of the revised one) to see if I liked it better.  I was slightly trepidatious that I wouldn't enjoy this book either, even though I remembered it being pretty engaging the first time that I read the Dark Tower series--as you may recall, I was also down for the count with some kind of flu or something, so my judgment may have been skewed.  However, I still enjoyed it.  It was a very quick read, as I started it Friday night and by Sunday morning, I had it done, even though I lost an hour in there to Daylight Savings (during this same weekend, I helped in a rescue effort for two bunnies, attended a very long and not great baseball game, drove around numerous locales in the greater Fort Myers area, and listening to a chunk of Berg's Lulu.  As you do).

I was somewhat surprised as the proportions of this one, as I thought for some reason that Jake showed up again and kept wondering if SK was going to cover that in one paragraph or something.  My bad.  Not this book, the next book.  And while I did enjoy the section where Eddie Dean was brought into Roland's world (it's really great!), knowing the outcome of Odetta/Detta somehow made it slightly less compelling this time around.  That being said, I did enjoy the reread, and I think the book in general makes a lot of sense within SK's works of this time.

First, you have drug addiction, which will be a significant theme in the next two books: Misery and Tommyknockers.  Misery I know well and love; Tommyknockers I vaguely remember not enjoying whatsoever, but I think it's still about addiction from what I recall.  So I guess this is SK's druggie phase, which, if I had to put a limit on it, I would say started around Christine and ends around Tommyknockers.  This seems about right, as it appears that the King family intervention to get SK sober happened right after this novel.

Second, you have SK, known as the master of horror, etc....... branching out to something new with both Eyes of the Dragon and 'The Drawing of the Three.'  Let's bear in mind that 'The Gunslinger' was not a huge success when it was published, so he was leaving horror in pursuing this project.  And 'The Drawing of the Three' is a novel that crams in an awful lot of stuff.  It has fantasy, a mob scene, a heist movie, some kind of psychological thriller, family drama, and maybe even a little bit of horror in the lobstrosities.  I even saw some of Misery being paralleled here with the scenes when Roland is increasingly ill and on his own, having to cope.  But horror by no means drives this novel.

I don't want to give away too much here, since Misery is next on the list, but Misery is, among other things, also a book about writing--or perhaps more specifically, about how sometimes you would literally have to trap an author in a bed by maiming him, then forcing him to write, in order for him to finish a project.  It feels like that sometimes.  And I am wondering if part of this sentiment was brought up by these two books which move away from typical SK and instead feature more fantasy and adventure.  Maybe Misery serves as a transition back to what he was known for doing?  Still, he could have skipped Tommyknockers.  We all would have been okay.

I feel super confident that I will be done with Misery very soon and have a new post very soon.  One of my all-time SK favorites.