The Wind Through the Keyhole

The Wind Through the Keyhole by Stephen King

I was a bit perplexed when I first saw this one and read the tag for this novel.  It was advertised as one of Stephen King’s “Dark Tower” novels.  My first thought was: What?  Didn’t he finally finish that cotton-pickin’ series??  There’s more???

O.K.  For those of you not familiar with The Dark Tower novels, allow me to review:  Stephen King released the first “Dark Tower” novel back in 1988 in what was to be a “series” of books.  At the conclusion of this first volume (titled “The Gunslinger”), the reader was left mightily confused.  You weren’t really sure what you were reading.  In the book’s afterward, King confessed that, well, he didn’t know where he was going with this story either.  He then told his “constant reader” that there would be a whole lot more of these Dark Tower novels in the future.  Well, he was right about that - there were seven in all.  The problem was, it took 15-20 years before they all finally saw the light of day.  Sometime during this tenure, King kind of lost interest and there was quite the lag between some of the books.  Diehards became frustrated.  When he finally did finish the series, overall reviews were mixed.  One thing these books did do, though,  was generate a lot of conversation.

The books were a bit, well, different.  The stories dealt with a “Gunslinger” named Roland who lived (I think) on our planet, but in the distant future.  Not a future with hovercrafts, artificial intelligence or sophisticated mainframes, though.  No, the future here was pretty desolate and the reader felt as though this was a world after some sort of nuclear holocaust or something.  In the words of the characters, the old world had “moved on”.  During the first few novels, Roland is on a quest to reach The Dark Tower (which is never really explained to us).  He is joined in his quest by three people that are somehow transported form our world (let’s see, there was an African-American lady in a wheel chair from the 1960s that suffered from schizophrenia, a lonely 12 year old rich kid from the 1970s, and an annoying two-bit drug dealer from the 1980s - if I recall correctly).  Throughout this journey, these four individuals encounter all sorts of weirdness, and I don’t think anybody, including King, could explain exactly what was going on.

Here lies the fun, though.  King leaves us with just enough hints to encourage discussion.  Remember, when we say “discussion” in the 21st century, we’re talking internet boards, blogs, fan clubs, and even a few concordances were written.  Everyone has their own interpretation.  It only became stranger when characters from some of King’s other novels started showing up as well.  Why?  I’m not sure.  Neither were they.  Neither was King, maybe.  King himself even shows up in the last book.  So, yes, this series was one of a kind.  Despite all the weirdness, most readers of the series agreed that the experience was overall enjoyable.  You may not have understood everything, you may not have found the ending satisfactory, but you did enjoy the ride  (for some reason, the wonderful television series “Lost” comes to mind when thinking of an analogy).

So now I come (finally) to this book.  This is not (thankfully) a continuation of the series that ended, but more of a “story within a story”.  In the fourth book of The Dark Tower series (titled Wizards and Glass), King actually took a break from moving the story forward, and instead told a story of Roland’s past.  Maybe King had writer’s block and didn’t know what to do next, but the idea worked.  If anything, it gave the reader more insight to this strange, bizarre world, and this strange, bizarre Gunslinger.  That’s what King is doing here in this book as well.

He actually goes back about half-way through the lengthy tale and inserts a scene where our four heroes (plus a furry bumbler named “Oy” - don’t ask) are taking shelter for the night in a bad storm.  Roland then tells his companions another story of his youth.  In that story, the younger Roland tells yet another story to one of the characters, which is where the title of this book is derived.  In another words, this is actually “a story within a story within another story”.  

If that sounds confusing, it really is not once you get to turning the pages.  King can be a masterful story teller and he succeeds wonderfully with this one.  Although we’re getting “more” of Roland’s world, I can’t honestly say that there are any more clues as to what is actually going on in this peculiar place and time, but it’s really all about the story, as it should be, and this is a great one.

In the preface to the book, you get the impression that King actually missed these characters that he devoted so much time to, so he decides to revisit them the best way that he can, which is to write a novel exactly how I’ve described.  He also tries to set up this story in the preface to where the reader may not necessarily have read any, or all, of the previous Dark Tower books.  Not really a good idea.  If you’re going to read this one, you really should start (and finish) with the other seven.  I’m guessing that although it will be a long journey, it will be well worth it.

I enjoyed the Dark Tower series, and I enjoyed going back and seeing the characters again.  I would love it if King did a similar thing in the future and revisited these folks in another novel.