Breakaway Books

Authored by Stephen King; Published 1982; Fantasy

⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 🏖️🏖️🏖️

I am told that The Gunslinger is not representative of the Dark Tower series that it inaugurates. While this novel is well-written and builds a moderate amount of suspense, I can only hope the series has more to offer in terms of cohesion, both in its world-building and its narratives.

In The Gunslinger, the titular character, Roland, is in pursuit of “the man in black” across the deserts of his land. During the pursuit, we hear about the deeds of this man, some of which Roland hears secondhand, others he witnesses and tries to undo. Obstacles are set in Roland’s path, including a town turned against him and a boy, Jake, to whom Roland becomes quite attached but cannot protect. Roland suspects that all of these obstacles come from the hand of the man in black and that it is part of his inherited destiny to confront him. 

To understand The Gunslinger, it helps to know that it was originally published as five short stories, and the novel is a combination of the five into one narrative. To me, the disjointedness is obvious, and I found it a little confusing to follow via audiobook. The narrative is somewhat recursive, with Roland telling a story from his past, in which a person is also recounting an event from their past, etc. This method of storytelling only added to the confusion for me. Add in the disorientation of a brand new world with little explanation of how it came to be or how it relates to the world as we know it, and I closed the book with more questions than answers. This can be a good thing and a bad thing of course: I am interested in the answers, but I am definitely not satisfied. 

A strange and grotesque version of Christianity appears in this novel, where demons are real and present figures, and pastors have a nearly hypnotic effect on their parishioners. The man in black seems to abuse the power of religion, but I can’t say that Roland comes across as an angel in comparison. Anti-heroes are all the rage now, and I wonder if Roland would be a popular figure in the modern era–he certainly embodies the dangerous moral ambiguity that is featured in so many comic book-type movies. It doesn’t make him an easy hero to get behind unless, of course, antiheroes are your thing. Unfortunately, the way that Roland relates to women is distinctly dated, with the hint of sex always lurking in their interactions. 

The Gunslinger is the entryway into a strange and sometimes unfriendly world, without much in the way of cohesive narrative to recommend it. It is, also however, an introduction to a new antihero, and if you like him, there’s much more where he came from. Try it out if that’s your thing!