Book Club discussion

I liked this book more than I liked "The Gunslinger." I wasn't a huge fan of the first book and this book starts, chronologically, right after the events of the first book, but the whole story takes on a completely different voice.

Roland, as a character, I still don't quite get. Or at least I'm not sure that he's a guy I'm ready to cheer for 100%. Especially with the weird relationship he has with Susannah and Eddie where, like with Jake he's probably going to have some big confrontation with them. Or at least choose between love or the tower.

Also, speaking of Jake. Does this book imply that Roland saved Jake's life creating some sort of time travel paradox that isn't really resolved? The book got more exciting near the end. I think part of the appeal is that the stuff going on is so weird that it's just so hard to predict what's going to happen next. I thought "the pusher" was Balthazar, a drug pusher. Was not expecting him to be a literal pusher. Lobstrocities are a pretty funny name.

Grant wrote: "I liked this book more than I liked "The Gunslinger." I wasn't a huge fan of the first book and this book starts, chronologically, right after the events of the first book, but the whole story take..."

To answer your question, as someone who's already a decent way into the next book: yes, he does create a time travel paradox. And it gets good.

I thought this book was way better than the first, due largely to the tone shifts as we jumped from Eddie to Detta to Odetta to Roland. King is actually really good at changing the narration based on whose eyes we're looking through, something that was sorely lacking the in the super bleak Part I. The Gunslinger was way to morose and brooding whereas in this one we get all kinds of variation in mood and tone and that made the whole thing a lot more bearable to read.

The Drawing also had a much more defined narrative structure, which I preferred. Gunslinger had this weirdly long flashback at the beginning then had a shit load of inexplicable garbage (the siren or whatever where Roland took mescaline? Cool as hell but what the fuck was that all about?). The Drawing was a lot more predictable (in a good way) as far as how I expected the story's structure to play out. It felt a lot less "all over the place."

The Jack Mort (oh god that name) part, I agree, was a bit like what the hell is going on here but, having started the next book, that weirdness sort of plays out in an interesting way. The literal "pusher" thing was also an eyeroll but it stopped bugging me after a while. Roland in New York was also pretty funny and good.

I kind of take issue with the lobstrocities (not the name, although the name IS crazy). I felt like they were introduced totally randomly and felt almost like a super forced way of explaining why Roland had to rely on Eddie and Susannah for stuff. By the end, though, Roland is just as badass as before, which is hard to believe considering he can't use one of his hands to shoot with. I feel like King could have just made Roland ill from his fight with Walter and eventually get over it with the help of Eddie and Detta. The lobstrocities were literally not a threat after like the first chapter. Not a fan.

Anyways, this series keeps on getting better and I've officially picked up the rest of them from the thrift store. Hopefully I'll get through all of them this year and then be inevitably disappointed by the movie when it comes out. Yay, books.