The Dark Tower: The Wind Through the Keyhole

I love Stephen King. Anyone who read my review of Under the Dome (his best novel in nearly twenty years) knows just how much I’m willing to defend Stephen King’s legacy as one of America’s most prolific and (yes) talented authors. His Dark Tower saga is one of my three favorite book series of all time (the other two are A Song of Ice and Fire and Neil Gaiman’s Sandman graphic novels). So, when Stephen King announced a while back that he was working on another Dark Tower novel, I was filled with a layer of excitement and trepidation. I knew it wasn’t supposed to be a sequel but instead it was going to fit in between Wizard and Glass (my favorite of the Dark Tower novels) and Wolves of the Calla which was good because there was no way that a sequel to the final book’s controversial ending was going to please anyone. However, it’s been so long since Stephen King had written any Dark Tower material that I wasn’t sure he was going to be able to get back into the flow of the novels. Since the vast majority of The Wind Through the Keyhole doesn’t even feature everyone’s favorite ka-tet of Roland, Jake, Eddie, Susannah, and (of course) Oy, it was a moot concern. The Wind Through the Keyhole is a return to the world that has moved on  known as Mid-World, but it functions more as an opportunity for Stephen King to craft an excellent modern fairy tale (in a way only he could accomplish) than as a chance to see more of our favorite heroes. So, if you’re expecting more gunslinger adventures, you’ll be disappointed but if you allow yourself to be taken on Stephen King’s fairy tale journey, you’ll find it to be a highly enjoyable and fun read.

After escaping the machinations of Randall Flagg in Emerald City at the end of Wizard and Glass (which marked the formal beginning of the invasion of modern pop culture into Roland’s world that became the driving force of Wolves of the Calla), Roland and his ka-tet make their journey to Call Bryn Sturges along the Path of the Beam on their ultimate quest to find the Dark Tower. However, the bumbler Oy begins to suffer from strange symptoms and while Roland at first thinks it means they’re being followed, he quickly remembers (with the help of a ferryman) that Oy is trying to warn the ka-tet that a massive (and fatal) snow storm/tornado called a “starkblast” is making a beeline in their general direction. The ka-tet takes up shelter in a church in an abandoned ghost town to survive the storm and Roland decides to pass the time by telling his companions a story from his youth after he had murdered his mother thanks to the sorcery of Marten Broadcloak (also known as Randall Flagg also known as Walter o’Din). He is sent by his father to the town of Debaria to investigate reports of a “skin-changer” (a werebeast variant) who is massacring farmers. Roland arrives (with his fellow gunslinger Jamie) to find a farm with nearly 30 people slaughtered and the only survivor is a young boy. As Roland waits with the young boy in a jail house to protect the child, he tells the boy a fairy tale from his youth of a young lad named Tim Stoutheart who goes on a fantastic quest to find the wizard Maerlyn to save his mother’s sight and to avenge the murder of his father by his newly adopted stepfather.

The last book I reviewed for this blog was V. by Thomas Pynchon. Going from the post-modern insanity of Pynchon’s masterful prose to the relative simplicity of King’s every man language was a surreal and at first confusing switch. I’d almost forgotten what it was like to not have to guess what the hell an author was talking about (seriously Pynchon’s V. bordered on being incomprehensible at times. actually it played hopscotch with the incomprehensibility line). It was pretty refreshing although at the same time, I have to admit that King is not the best prose man out there. There isn’t a lot of poetry to his writing. That’s okay though because his storytelling skills are second to none (and he doesn’t have half the prose problems that say Suzanne Collins has). He can occasionally imbue a very dark sense of humor into his writing that won’t come through unless you’re really paying attention. However, credit must be given to King for being able to write a novel in three distinct styles. You have the traditional “King” style when he’s telling the story from the point of view of the entire ka-tet. Then, he writes a story the way that Roland would speak when Roland is telling his story to the ka-tet. And then he switches it up one more time (for the style that the majority of the book is told in) when he writes the way that a Mid-World fairy tale would be written. Since Wizard and Glass is my favorite entry in the series, it should be no shock that my favorite passages from the novel are the ones where we see young Roland. I like the combination of science fiction, westerns, and high fantasy that is melded so perfectly there.

The novel is only around 300 pages long, so unlike The Stand or Under the Dome this isn’t some sprawling epic. There isn’t a huge ensemble cast of characters and there isn’t a grand social message hinted at in the novel through extensive use of allegory. No, it’s simply a (disturbing) fairy tale which Stephen King uses as a chance to show the important of storytelling and the blurring between fiction and reality in the Dark Tower universe. So, this can be a pretty short review. For Stephen King fans and especially for Dark Tower fans, it’s a must read. You don’t see much of the ka-tet but it expands on the Dark Tower universe and I’ll never pass up an opportunity like that (I’m also a fan [though not as much as the real novels] of the Marvel graphic novel series that expands on Roland’s backstory). Also, for fans of writers like Neil Gaiman (especially Stardust), you’ll likely appreciate the grown-up fairy tale that King crafts with the story of Tim Stoutheart. All in all though, it’s not one of King’s best novels, but it’s far from one of his worst, and I enjoyed all of the time I spent returning to Mid-World.

Final Score: B

The Shining (1980)

As an avid reader that is an equally avid cinephile, it is not uncommon for me to watch movie adaptations of books I simply adore. While I’m not one of those literary snobs who can’t get past differences between books and movies (thankfully because I understand the different needs of the two genres), there are still times when I’m incredibly disappointed with one director’s interpretation of a beloved work (I can count on one hand the number of movies that I actually prefer to the book: Lord of the Rings, The Road, The Mist, and The Shawshank Redemption). Stephen King’s novels are especially prone to terrible adaptations (Thinner, Needful Things, Pet Sematary) as his in-depth characterization is often ignored solely for the horror element even though the neuroses and psychological flaws of his heroes is often more important to his actual texts. The original 1980 film version of The Shining (as opposed to the made for TV movie from the 90’s with Stephen Weber and Rebecca De Mornay) is the rare film adaptation that completely eschews all but the barest semblance to the source material but still manages to maintain an intriguing and ambitious artistic voice. I may prefer Stephen King’s original novel, but there is no denying the artistic tour-de-force that is Stanley Kubrick’s bold re-imagining of the original text.

Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) is a former schoolteacher and a recovering alcoholic. Currently unemployed (for vague reasons not clearly stated in the movie) and hoping to write a novel, Jack takes a job at the scenic Overlook Hotel in Colorado as the winter caretaker. Along for the ride are his meek wife Wendy (Shelley DuVall) and his psychic son Danny. As explained by the cook Dick Halloran (Scatman Crothers) before the rest of the staff leaves for winter, Danny has what is known as “the shining,” a psychic ability to hold mental conversations with other psychics as well as some slight precognition. As winter marches forward, Jack slowly starts to succumb to cabin fever, and minor aggravations with his family begin to mutate into psychopathic, murderous rage as the supernatural elements of the Hotel begin to work their voodoo into Jack.

Just as a heads up, this is going to be a fairly meaty review because the things I like about this film (Jack Nicholson’s performance, Kubrick’s direction, the stellar camerawork, the musical score) are just as noticeable as they things I loathe (the shallow characterization, Shelley Duvall, poorly paced plotting). First and foremost, it’s hard to say who sells this film more: Kubrick’s cinematic wizardry or Jack Nicholson’s bravado performance. Every single second that Jack Nicholson is on screen you have this inescapable sense of dread and foreboding. He is a man who has made a career off of frenetic energy and startling intensity, but Jack Nicholson has potentially never been more intense than he has in this film. While I really do not enjoy this particular characterization of Jack Torrance, that is the screenplay’s fault and not Jack Nicholson who consistently takes Torrance’s crazy factorto new and new heights. This is the psycho performance to top all psycho performances.

I am not always a huge Stanley Kubrick fan. I adore A Clockwork Orange, Dr. Strangelove, and (the first half of) Full Metal Jacket, but by that same token, I think 2001: A Space Odyssey is among the most over-rated films of all time and that last half of Full Metal Jacket is a mess (and don’t get me started on Eyes Wide Shut). However, during this particular viewing of The Shining (the first time I had watched it since high school), I was stunned by all of the little touches either in set direction, lighting, coloring, and general composition of shots. All of the long, abandoned corridors helped to contribute to the sense of isolation and dread and the recurring technique of framing a shot through a doorway was very interesting. During scenes where Jack was starting to lose his grip on sanity, there would be a very subtle but noticeable “heartbeat” effect in the color of the scene and it helped add to the disorientation. This was one of the pioneering films in the use of a “steadicam” for the tricycle scenes. At times, you could notice how the images were warped at the edges to further disturb audiences who could just notice something was not right even if they couldn’t say what it was. All in all, this film was always an absolute treat to look at (even when the story faltered as I’ll get to in a moment).

The film’s most unforgivable flaw is its treatment of Jack Torrance’s character. Jack Torrance remains one of my favorite Stephen King heroes (even though he ends up a bad guy, he is still the main protagonist of the tale alongside his son Danny) because he was a heavily autobiographical creation of King’s own battles with alcoholism and violence. Jack was complex and watching his gradual transformation to madness (and ultimate redemption through his son) was very rewarding and terrifying. Jack seems to already be a deeply troubled person when he gets to the Overlook in the film, and there is very little reason given for his seemingly instantaneous transformation into an ax-murderer. In the book, the Overlook was able to draw on the boiling tensions of this alcoholic who was otherwise a good man and use it to tempt him to the dark side because it fed off of the darkness in his heart. In the film, Jack seems to get one fake bourbon from a ghost who may or may not have been real in the first place and that shoots him off to crazyville. It all just seemed to heavy-handed for my tastes and while subtlety isn’t usually Stephen King’s forte, he is far more subtle about a journey into madness than Kubrick came close to achieving with this film.

This is a horror classic. There is simply no debate there. Stanley Kubrick laid the groundwork for so much of the slasher and serial killer stories to follow in how he crafted this film, and perhaps, if you take this film out of the context of its source material, then it would simply be amazing. However, I would hope that even without King’s original tale, the simple lack of context for much of Jack’s actions in the film and the rushed nature of its climax would leave me a little cold. With the exceptions of A Clockwork Orange and Dr. Strangelove though, perhaps that is Kubrick’s thing. He makes gorgeous films  that are perhaps more fun to look at than actually parse for plot and characters. I would never deny that 2001: A Space Odyssey isn’t a stunningly beautiful film, but by that same token, I also think it’s a pretentious and bloated beast that is more fun for stoners than for people who want any deeper meaning. All horror fans should watch The Shining, but then you need to read Stephen King’s book and see how a real horror master does it.

Final Score: A-