Book Review by: Twilight
This month˜s selection is The Dark Tower: The Drawing of the Three by Stephen King
The Drawing of the Three is the second in the Dark Tower Series. When we left Roland, the last Gunslinger, he had made it to western shore and was trying to make sense of what he'd been told by Walter, the man in black. As we meet Roland again in this book, he is on that same beach a few hours later, waking from a dream of the boy Jake, to find the tide coming in and wetting his boots, pants and gun belts, and, he fears, ruining the bullets he has so few of. To further complicate things, he's greeted by large lobsterish monstrosities, one of whom takes a swipe at his right hand and relieves him of a few of his fingers. He scrambles and manages to get clear of these creatures, giving him time to assess his situation, dry his bullets and belongings, and sleep... during this time he dreams of The Prisoner, and the number Three, the number of his fate. He awakens to find himself weakened and feverish, with the signs of infection traveling up his arm, but he presses on, up the beach, coming to a door seemingly from nowhere and leading nowhere. And on the door, are words... The Prisoner. He opens the door to a sight he can't believe... the sky, he seems to be among the clouds. Terrified, he begins to look around and sees other people... slowly he realizes he is seeing through the eyes of another, the eyes of the prisoner. This man makes his way to another part of what Roland comes to call the sky-carriage, and Roland sees the reflection of this man in a mirror as the man shakes and seems quite ill. Roland comes to realize that he is indeed a prisoner, of a thing called Heroin... though Roland does not know what this thing is, he equates it to the devil-grass of his own world, a kind of loco weed, a poison. He realizes that he understands the thoughts of this man, Eddie Dean, and sees his own eyes in Eddie's reflection in the mirror. In Eddie's thoughts, we find that he is not only a junkie, but is smuggling drugs for a powerful man called Balazar. Roland absorbs all this while tending to his own needs... food for now, which he finds he can take back through the doorway with him. Roland withdraws, and Eddie sleeps, but Eddie's problems are far from over as he faces being detained due to the suspicions of a nervous flight attendant... Roland re-enters in time to help Eddie by taking the drugs back through the doorway just as he had the food, though Eddie spends hours being grilled by customs, and feeling totally insane with the new presence in his mind. Roland gets Eddie through it though, and retreats back through the doorway in time for night and another visit from the lobstrosities. When Roland returns to Eddie, he's just in time for Eddie's impromptu meeting with Balazar, the drug lord, who's pretty sure something odd has happened... he's about to find out just how odd, as Roland and Eddie visit Balazar's office in a place called the Tower... where else? It gets more complicated as Eddie discovers that Balazar is holding Eddie's brother, Henry (junkie extraordinaire) hostage until Eddie delivers the goods. The goods that just happen to still be back in Roland's world... things get really odd when Eddie retreats into the bathroom at Balazar's, alone or so it seems, and naked no less... to fetch the heroin. He's followed by one of Balazar's thugs, whom Eddie pulls through the doorway with Roland's help. Just as the thug is about to fire off a shot, Roland fires and the thug is done for, dinner for the hungry lobstrosities. Eddie returns to Balazar's to fetch medicines for Roland's worsening infection, and overhears that his brother is dead... Eddie/Roland lunge from the bathroom and emerge to a messy shootout where they win, barely... but the police have arrived and Eddie has no choice but to return to Roland's world with him again, this time for good. And so arrives the first of the Three on the quest for the Tower... a strung out dry junkie and a sick gunslinger, on their way to find the second door.
Roland and Eddie set off to the north, in search of the second door, with Eddie caring for Roland as well as he can, despite his resentment of this strange place. Roland begins to recover with the help of the medicines pilfered from Balazar's cabinet (gee, lucky a drug lord keeps a supply of antibiotics on hand... nifty plot device). They discover that lobstrosities taste like... well, lobster, and they survive on this as they head further up the beach, Eddie fighting to escape his addiction and the ghost of his brother, and Roland fighting the infection. Soon they reach the second door... The Lady of Shadows. Roland goes through the door to find a different world than Eddie's 1987 America, but only because this is 1963, and the lady is a black civil rights activist... or so it would seem. For the lady, Odetta Holmes, has another side... a woman called Detta Walker, who cares nothing about civil rights and likes to swear and shoplift from fancy stores... they share a body but not a mind, neither knows of the other. Roland's lady of shadows is a multiple personality, and in a wheelchair for having lost her lower legs when she was pushed in front of a train some years ago. As Roland and Eddie battle over the open doorway to Odetta's when (Eddie, it seems, would do just about anything to fix, including try to kill Roland), we find that while Odetta has a driver, and is wealthy and cultured, Detta spent her time at roadhouses, teasing the white boys, who she seems to hate beyond reason. And others have noticed the odd disparity in her as well... the paramedics and doctors who worked to save her after she was pushed in front of the train that took her legs saw it too. Roland makes his way through the doorway and into the woman's mind... to find that this is Detta, in a fancy store with stealing on her mind... and she doesn't welcome the strange new presence, not at all. But Roland takes over, and wheels her into a dressing room, as the store security chases because Detta's actions haven't gone unnoticed... Roland gets her into the dressing room and through the doorway just before security arrives (and manages to bring her wheelchair through just before the doorway closes for good), where they return to find Eddie holding a knife to the throat of the inert Roland, whose body waits for his mind's return. As Eddie begins to explain to her where they are and what's happened (as best he can), Roland realizes that their problems with the lady are far from over, as she is not one person but two, and one of them is dangerous. Eddie continues to draw her out, and in their talking he finds that her split personality came about as a child, when a brick was dropped onto her head from a rooftop. During the night, Detta comes forward and would have killed Eddie, had Roland not expected trouble and been ready. As morning comes, they have to tie and restrain her in her chair to begin their journey to find the third door. Roland begins to think about a way to unite her personalities while they travel, though the key to it hovers just out of his grasp for now. They push on, but have another problem as Roland becomes ill again, the infection returning. Roland and Odetta go ahead to find the door (for she is now Odetta again, and willing to help), leaving Roland behind on the beach, where Eddie will return for him once they've found the door. Eddie and Odetta become very... close during their small journey, and finally they reach the third door, the one that says The Pusher. Neither of them understands what this means. Eddie reluctantly leaves Odetta there and goes back with the wheelchair, to fetch Roland. They return to the stretch of beach where the third door is... but can't find Odetta. Eddie begins to panic, but Roland insists that Eddie come with him through the door this time. They argue, and finally Roland convinces Eddie that if he's going to stay behind, he must be on guard. because the woman is missing, but she isn't gone, and she's probably Detta again and a danger to them both.
Roland goes through the third door, the one marked The Pusher... and into the mind of a man who is intently watching a boy waiting to cross the street... a boy Eddie can see through the door, a boy Roland recognizes. The boy is Jake, the one lost to Roland as they crossed the mountains pursuing the man in black. This man, called Jack Mort (interesting choice of name, no?) intends to push the boy into the street...which would have started a chain of events Roland would recognize all too well. But Roland's entry into the man’s mind breaks his concentration just enough, and the boy lives instead of dying under the wheels of a Cadillac. That this might create a paradox doesn't occur to Roland just yet. Instead, Roland walks through the man's mind, his memories, and sees things... horrible things this man has done... things like dropping a brick from a rooftop onto the head of a little black girl. The wheel of Roland's fate, his ka, continues to turn. As Roland uses Jack to fond what he knows he needs, more antibiotics, Eddie has problems of his own, for Detta has been laying in wait and wants to kill him. She gets the best of the sleeping Eddie, and ties him up in wait for the evening visit from the lobstrosities. In New York once more, Roland is busy using Jack Mort's store of memories to find what he needs... bullets and medicine. Roland is unable to buy the bullets he needs, for he lacks a permit, but he finds a way around this problem. Unfortunately this doesn't go unnoticed by the local police officers. And they know the man in the sporting goods store all too well. Roland sets a trap, using the store clerk and the police... while the police are busy with the clerk, Roland bests them, takes what he needs, and leaves them to clean up the mess. Now Roland has a gun, bullets, and needs only a drugstore. But time runs short as Eddie encounters the lobstrosities and sure death, if Roland doesn't hurry. Roland holds up a pharmacy to get the antibiotics he needs, the police he's just bamboozled right on his tail, while Eddie struggles to stay alive until Roland returns. When the police arrive, the scene in the pharmacy goes crazy, but Roland manages to escape by convincing Jack that he can drive... the police car! Roland/Jack head for the subway, other officers close behind and chasing, where one gets off a shot that connects. Roland/Jack are not killed, but the shot does catch Jack's shirt on fire, an interesting scene as Roland/Jack run through the subway station with a flaming shirt. Roland fishes out the bullets and antibiotics and holds them as they approach a train, and the doorway Roland sees... still in flames, Roland goes through the doorway, but not before one final push... this one for Jack, who will die beneath the oncoming train, a fitting end for the pusher.
Roland returns to the beach to find Eddie nearly done for, and the woman Odetta/Detta locked in a struggle with one another... Roland begins to fight off the creatures that will surely kill Eddie as the woman fights with herself to a sort of death. In the end, the two are joined, just in time to help Roland save Eddie. Later, as Roland begins to recover with the help of the antibiotics, the woman who now calls herself Susannah starts to help, finally, and they resume their journey to find the Tower. And though Roland believes that he now understands the meaning of The Three, there is more in store as they approach the Wastelands, though that is another story.
End Part II