Returning to the Tower III.A: Torn Pages

So I wound up accidentally tearing out two of the last five pages of The Wastelands.

That alone is reason enough that you likely see the need for more than one post about how my journey through book three went. The rest is of course evident to any constant readers who remember the faces of their fathers.

Let's start with that recounting of events I've favoured in these posts, that is to say, the recollection and in particular the holes.

I thought that Jake's drawing had been in Drawing of the Three, and this was hardly my first failure of recollection in what happened exactly where in which book. It's funny because that scene on Dutch Hill was both deeply embedded in my sense memory and also somehow extremely vague. I also had forgotten just how strongly King placed the Rose in Jake's story. I remembered the whole concept of that scene, but because it was out of focus in my memory of the development of the story, I somehow didn't have a sharp picture of Jake in the lot that once might have been Tom and Jerry's Artistic Deli.

I also had repressed the reality of Mordred's conception happening in this book. Believe me, I knew that it happened in this way, but my mind did not want it to be associated with Jake's drawing and so I suppressed that connection. King does these things. It's part of why he is so much more than pulp, and there is plenty of pulp in The Wastelands.

In terms of Jake's entry to the world in general I was solid, but I was a little surprised at how rushed Oy felt. It's easy by the end of the book to forget the extent to which King elides Oy's acceptance of the Ka-tet, but to anyone who has ever had a pet (let alone a tame wild animal) the pacing of Oy's introduction is far more awkward than I remembered it being.

The approach to Lud was a warm embrace even though we are left wondering about what might happen to the people of River Crossing. Blaine assures us that his annihilation of Lud probably won't hurt them, but if we think in terms of days the world is moving on at some kind of accelerating pace. Still, the entire scene is basically King's Rivindell. Eddie keeps talking about the wise old elves, and King telegraphs very clearly that they already met the wise old elves. The city contains only the most corrupt old elves.

My memory of the the bridge over the Send was pretty good but not good enough to remember that Eddie was both scared and had to handle the wheelchair. III.B. is probably going to delve into this more deeply, but honestly, one of the things this book does that I didn't exactly remember is the descent of characters into the gunslinger mindset. This is the thing that I strongly suspect hooks a lot of us constant readers.

As for Jake's seperation from the Ka-tet, Gasher, the Tick-Tock Man, and the rest of the events that happened in Lud before Blaine? Oh, my mind knew that stuff was there and it had buried it. I think at that point I wasn't ready to long term carry that much narrative trauma. At this point? Well...you can draw your own conclusions.

I remembered riddling with Blaine. I didn't remember that it was a cliffhanger and that we wouldn't really get to the riddling until Wizard and Glass.

I also couldn't find my copy of Wizard and Glass. It should be with the rest of the books, but apparently I needed to write this post before going any further.

That's fair.

I still have a lot to say about this book.