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King, redux
I finished (again) The Dark Tower: Wizard and Glass last week, or possibly early this week (I didn't keep track). This is definitely the book where the foreshadowing gets irritating, and perhaps not coincidentally this is the book that more-or-less spans King's career. In the author's note he says that a particular section of the book was a mere sixteen-hour interval, where in real life it was, I dunno, 26 years or some such gap.
The irritating part of the foreshadowing mostly occurs towards the end, where there may as well have been a Greek Chorus following Susan around chanting, "She's Dead, She's Dead, She's Dead". We're told that Roland will only ever see her trapped in the Wizard's Glass, that Sheemie will never see her again, etc. I don't know if this habit pervades the rest of King's writing around this time, as I pretty much stopped reading his output before this was published and haven't been inclined to catch up.
There's a few other bits of foreshadowing; the particular one I recall is Oy's death, but it's so far in the future of the books that I'd forgotten about it by the time I got there.
This is also, I think, the first book of the series where there's an overt connection to the rest of King's work. It's nicely done; a whole hookup to Kansas circa The Stand, with references pulled directly from that book such as the notes left to direct people to Abigail. Randal Flagg also shows up, and I think the eye sigul was in The Stand, but I'm not sure.
The Dark Tower is still but a shadow in this book - it doesn't really become the all-consuming goal until further on.
On the whole, the book's a pretty good read, being largely the Susan Delgado backstory with just a little of the "present-day" stuff; and a nod to various other parts of Roland's life. Roll on Book V...
The irritating part of the foreshadowing mostly occurs towards the end, where there may as well have been a Greek Chorus following Susan around chanting, "She's Dead, She's Dead, She's Dead". We're told that Roland will only ever see her trapped in the Wizard's Glass, that Sheemie will never see her again, etc. I don't know if this habit pervades the rest of King's writing around this time, as I pretty much stopped reading his output before this was published and haven't been inclined to catch up.
There's a few other bits of foreshadowing; the particular one I recall is Oy's death, but it's so far in the future of the books that I'd forgotten about it by the time I got there.
This is also, I think, the first book of the series where there's an overt connection to the rest of King's work. It's nicely done; a whole hookup to Kansas circa The Stand, with references pulled directly from that book such as the notes left to direct people to Abigail. Randal Flagg also shows up, and I think the eye sigul was in The Stand, but I'm not sure.
The Dark Tower is still but a shadow in this book - it doesn't really become the all-consuming goal until further on.
On the whole, the book's a pretty good read, being largely the Susan Delgado backstory with just a little of the "present-day" stuff; and a nod to various other parts of Roland's life. Roll on Book V...