Recommended Reading: The Dark Tower Series

 

Topic: Recommended Reading: The Dark Tower Series

Now that we have gone over the Eight Virtues and the Core Tenets and explored those ideas in depth, next we are going to be talking about the books that are recommended reading for followers of the Path. Because some of you may not have read the books, I will be offering summaries of their stories and important details about the primary characters. We will begin with the Dark Tower series.

The Dark Tower is an eight-book series by Stephen King, chronicling the epic saga of the last Gunslinger, Roland Deschain, and his quest toward the titular Tower. It is a powerful retelling of the Hero’s Journey, as so many good stories are, and you find yourself compelled to urge Roland on, to see this Dark Tower that very well may be the nexus of all the worlds in the multi-verse. Despite the many who fall beneath the Gunslinger’s skilled and lethal hands, he becomes a sympathetic and relatable character, with endearing human flaws of his own. He even dances for an audience in Book Five: Wolves of the Calla.

The most important concept we get from The Dark Tower is of course that of Ka, of which we have already spoken at length. But there are other ideas presented in the books that heavily influenced or otherwise exemplify the teachings of the Path: The Gunslinger’s Lesson is an exercise in Self-Control, Integrity, and Mindfulness. Roland himself, with his training and discipline, displays all of the Eight Virtues during the course of his long journey. In the books, the Gunslinger is portrayed as sort of a combination ambassador, marshal, and diplomat. He is an agent of the Light, which is used as shorthand for all that is good and right and civilized in the Universe, and he is therefore canonized as a Patron Saint of the Path.

Aside from the story of Roland, who ends up becoming a victim of his own Ka in a darkly humorous twist ending, there are two other character-redemption story arcs within the series. Eddie Dean, whom Roland draws from another world through a magical doorway, starts out as a scrawny, shivering heroin junkie and evolves into a gunslinger with special powers of his own. Susannah Dean, Eddie’s wife, has her own demons to reckon with before she, too, becomes a gunslinger. (Of all the endings in the story, Susannah’s is my favorite.) These two characters find love and a kind of security that cannot be bought with guns, which is a lesson that even Roland learns before the end of the series.

The other members of Roland’s Ka-tet (A word meaning a group of people bound together by Ka.) are Jake, a boy who is rescued in a sense by being drawn violently from his own world into Roland’s, and Oy, a creature described as a kind of cross between a dog and a badger that can mimic human speech. Jake, like his Ka-mates, grows into a gunslinger under Roland’s tutelage. Oy starts out as a kind of mascot, but turns out to be useful and earns his place within the Ka-tet.

The world that Eddie, Susannah, and Jake are drawn from is much like our own, which makes their characters more relatable and gives us familiar voices with which King can describe Roland’s world, which is an alien, broken-down place. These three characters also demonstrate an inspiring level of adaptability. None of them had ever fired a gun in their lives when they were drawn, and not one of them was what you would call a survivor type, except maybe for Jake. But the three fledgling gunslingers put in the Effort to grow accustomed to the new world and its dangers. Although it is unlikely that any of us will ever be dragged into another universe, the lesson here is that the world around us may change, and we must be willing to change to adapt to it.

This series is also, in part, the reason that red roses are sacred to the Path. Images of the Rose are everywhere in the books. The Tower itself is surrounded with a field of red roses called the Can'-Ka No Rey, and in one of the main worlds described in the series, there is a red rose in a vacant lot that is a parallel or twin to the Dark Tower.

As with any good series, each time you read through The Dark Tower, you take away a new lesson or a new viewpoint. You notice phrases and passages you never noticed before, and the book takes on a new richness. To gain a true understanding of all the reasons these books are recommended reading for followers of the Path, you will have to read them, but I guarantee it will be worth the time and effort. The only caveat I must offer is that King- and therefore a lot of his characters- swears like a sailor.

Have you already read the series? If not, are you interested in reading it now? If you have, did this sermon give you a new perspective on the story?