Song of Susannah

Earlier this week I finished Song of Susannah, Stephen King's latest in the wind-up of his Dark Tower epic. Yes, I think winding up is just what King needs to do. Praise where it's due, I liked this volume a whole bunch better than number five, Wolves of the Calla. It had more pace and cleverness and thank f*ck Susannah bitch-slapped herself out of that very dark Claire Huxtable place into which she fell several books ago. I liked her, finally -- she had vulnerabilities and a brain, not just wiser-than-thou comebacks and stubborness for the sake of moving the plot along.

SPOILERS

After complaining before that King has started taking his self-referential side to unacceptable levels, you'll probably be thinking that when the characters go o visit King I must have been turning purple. Actually, I thought that was sort of exciting. I like postmodern fiction, and remember that scene in The Muppet Movie when Kermit and friends check the script to see what happens next? When I was nine years old, I thought that was brilliant and was so disappointed that my Mom found it distracting.

(Side note: My mother can't handle the fourth wall coming down in any form of art. Somewhat similarly, Mike's mother can't handle time travel, which gets hard on her as she is a newly minted ST:TNG fan.)

However, where Song of Susannah went too far was when it let King-the-character talk for too damn long. He started telling us exactly how he used a character from this book for that one, and so on, and he talked a bit about other books he'd written that didn't have any connection to the Dark Tower series, as if to cheaply string everything together.

What was so great about King once upon a time, other than his super use of italics and Shirley Jackson-like levels of sharp perception in the most ordinary of human thoughts, was the way there'd be this one small element in a book that, if you were a loyal reader, you would associate with a the massive plot of one of his other books. You made these connections. It was great.

Then he (King) got all ham-fisted about it. His gently-linked Derry stories started openly elbowing the reader in the ribs. Dreamcatcher was unforgivable in this regard. As already mentioned (in my linked review above), the Dark Tower series went from exciting "did ya notices?" on our part to "hey, look, hey, hey, come here" on King's part.

Disappointing.

So, in this book, when he added a 9/11 angle like the cherry on top, I just knocked the whole sundae over and ordered cheese fries instead.

I still love you, Mr. King. I'm sorry that you have an inoperable brain tumour -- or whatever it is that's making you rush to collide all of these worlds after the fact for the sake of creating your own Tolkienesque realm. There's your stories; I've no right to complain, especially not when I've stopped buying them and started getting them from the library. I really liked those miniature but strong hooks that were connecting everything together. The brute rope wrapped around twelve times and buckled at the corners just doesn't have the same effect.

But I'll be okay. You know how I get through times like this? I tell myself it's just fan fiction. Like that horrible Gone with the Wind sequel. Just fan fiction. Only King's greatest fan would throw everything into one sack, dropping it still squirming into the river.

Oh, I'll read the last one. I don't really care what happens to the characters; I just want to see if Roland wakes up from a bad dream, one brought on by his dropping Jake just moments before. Let the man in black forever race across the desert, let us forever follow.

Comments

[Ivori]

I must say that Stephen King is the best writter I have encountered. I do not like any other book he has written exxcept for The Dark Tower series. I would like to write that I loose myself in this fantansy. Mr. King is wonderful.