Wizard and Glass (The Dark Tower, Book 4) | Stephen King | A surprisingly strong entry in the series

Wizard and Glass (The Dark Tower, Book 4) | Stephen King | Incredible.

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Wizard and Glass (...

	Wizard and Glass (The Dark Tower, Book 4) Stephen King Signet, 2003 - 752 pages average customer review:based on 672 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A surprisingly strong entry in the series

When I first finished The Waste Lands and picked up Wizard and Glass, I was ultra-excited to continue on with the series. Then I read that Wizard and Glass was basically one huge flashback about Roland's life before the Dark Tower became his sole motivation. When I read that, I almost considered skipping the book entirely, and just reading a summary in the argument in the next book, but now I am really glad I didn't do that.

Wizard and Glass starts out immediately following where The Waste Lands left off. Roland, Eddie, Susannah, and Jake are aboard Blaine the mono, and they are about to engage in a riddling battle to the death. Blaine the mono is a really cool character, and I was a little sad to see his story cut short. Once Blaine has been dealt with, the ka-tet arrives in a version of Topeka, Kansas that has been ravaged by the Superflu. The ka-tet moves through the abandoned town and eventually starts to catch glimpses of a huge green palace in the distance. But before they get there, the group palavers one night, and Roland tells them his story.

Roland's story is largely a romance between he and a girl he meets when he and his two friends (Cuthbert and Alain) are sent out west by Roland's father. Roland and Susan fall in love with each other, but their love is forbidden, of course, and meanwhile, Roland is losing focus on what is really important in the Barony of Mejis. There are a group of men trying to use the town's resources for John Farson, the Good Man, to wage war on the rest of the world.

Wizard and Glass is a very long, very in-depth love story at its heart. Sure, it's got action and suspense and gore, but the meat of the novel is devoted to fleshing out Susan Delgado and the love she shares with Roland. Obviously, she weighs on Roland's heart all the time, and King wants the reader to understand why. In my opinion, the reason that the novel is so well done is because of King's patient writing style, and his ability to demand patience from his readers. The whole book is basically a build-up to about 50 pages worth of climax, but still, once you get there, the previuos 400 pages are all worth it.

This novel, I can tell, is where the series might start to go off the deep end. But that's ok. The weird situation at the end is still exciting, and it makes you want more. So as long as there are answers at the end of this, I'm loving the ride.

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Incredible.

This book supercedes books 1, 2 and 3.

The story of Roland's past. The story of his love, Susan. The story of his friends and fellow gunslingers, Cuthbert and Alain. The story of his mother and his father.

The book is incredible. The love between Roland and Susan is real. The conflict between Roland's (former) ka-tet and the Blue Coffin Hunters in Mejis is matchless storytelling.

King is, in this book more than ever, an inimitable wordslinger. I fell in love with this book. Why? Because it felt so damn real.

After reading this book I feel like I'm a freakin part of Roland's ka-tet.
Therefore I am bound to the tower.

And you will be too if you read this.

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More Layers to the Rose that is Roland

Wizard and Glass begins with the ka-tet out-stupiding Blaine and ending up in some kind of alternate Topeka, Kansas where a plague has pretty much obliterated the entire human population. They make their way down the freeway on a path to the Emerald City. Yes, that Emerald City.

But before they get there, Roland tells the rest his tale of beautiful Susan Delgado. Right after his Gunslinger initiation, he is sent to the outer baronies along with Cuthbert and Alain by his father and theirs. They are not meant to do any real Gunslinging, but ka has other plans.

Before Roland even gets to town his path crosses with Mejis's resident hottie, Miss Susan Delgado. She puts him off, both because he is a couple of years younger than her and because she has promised herself to the tubby, old Mayor in return for the land she believes should be hers anyway. (That was only because her Aunt coerced her into it.) Sparks fly between the two. When the boys do get to town, they make a generally positive impression on the townsfolk. They all think the boys are young, sweet and a little bit dumb. All a ruse, dear readers. They may look like ordinary young boys, but they are finely tuned killing machines. The false stupidity works to the advantage of the kids, who see far more than they let on.

The major conflict is between Roland's boys and the Big Coffin Hunters, mercenaries of the Good Man, and that climax is satisfyingly good. The one I found most interesting, though, was the conflict amongst the boys themselves. Bert and Alain feel like Roland is so wrapped up in sneaking off with Susan that he is shirking his duties. To the contrary, lads! Okay, maybe he's kind of distracted sometimes, but his instincts are still crazy sharp. Not as bang-up a climax to this one, but the boys quickly realize even a lesser Roland is far superior to anything the other side has.

This was the first installment of the Dark Tower that made me cry. I sat on the bus the other day, sniffling as Roland beheld in the wizard's glass the fate of his loyal love and their unborn child, she wishing him nothing but good to the bitter end. How cruel, that she be sacrificed by the unwitting dupes she once called friends.

Roland finishes the tale, and the ka-tet continue on to see the Wizard of Oz, each of them, including Oy, in personalized ruby slippers. That was kind of weird, that they were in Roland's world, yet the wizard used the imagery of the others' world in his fantastic lair. Tick-Tock man randomly makes a final appearance before being shot to death for real, the wizard amiably threatens the group to renounce the tower, and, of course, the ka-tet moves it on down the road, back on the path of the beam.

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Not One of King's Better Novels

This novel is not one of his better ones, certainly sub-par compared to the rest of the novels in the Gunslinger series. It was disappointed to read this mammoth book, only to get a very-long drawn out history. The books ends only a few days past book 3, and I don't feel that the drawn-out history really added much of anything to the series. In the afterward, Steven King said he had a hard time getting started on this book, and the feeling is evident throughout--it's like he was trying to force a story out just to get the next book in the series out, even though his heart wasn't in it. I won't get into the ending, but suffice it to say it was pretty ridiculous compared to what I would expect from Steven King. But not surprising, since the entire novel seemed forced, the ending was also forced.
If this book was a stand-alone book, I'd recommend skipping it. But since it is part of a (so-far) 7 book series, it is worth at least glossing through (and there are be many drawn-out parts where you will be easily be able to gloss through), if one intends to read the entire series. And there are some mildly entertaining parts of the book--Steven King writes of such caliber that even his below-par books are not without merit.

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