| The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger |
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First edition cover |
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| Author(s) | Stephen King |
| Cover artist | Michael Whelan |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | The Dark Tower |
| Genre(s) | Fantasy, Horror, Science fiction, Western |
| Publisher | Grant |
| Publication date | June 10, 1982 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
| Pages | 224 |
| ISBN | 978-0937986509 |
| Followed by | The Drawing of the Three |
The Gunslinger is a novel by American author Stephen King, and is the first volume in the Dark Tower series, which King considers to be his magnum opus.[1] It was first published in 1982. The story centers upon Roland Deschain, the last gunslinger who has been chasing after his adversary, "the man in black", for many years. The novel follows Roland's trek through a vast desert and beyond in search of the man in black. Roland meets several people along his journey, including a boy named Jake Chambers who travels with him part of the way.
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The novel was inspired by the poem "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" by Robert Browning, which King read as a sophomore at the University of Maine. King explains that he "played with the idea of trying a long romantic novel embodying the feel, if not the exact sense, of the Browning poem." King started writing this novel on a ream of bright green paper that he found at the library.[2]
The five parts that constitute the novel were originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction:
It took King twelve and a half years to finish the novel. The finished product was first published by Donald M. Grant, Publisher, Inc. as a limited edition in 1982. In 1988, Plume released it in trade paperback form. Since then, the book has been re-issued in various formats and included in boxed sets with other volumes of the series.
In 2003 the novel was reissued in a revised and expanded version with modified language and added and changed scenes intended to resolve inconsistencies with the later books in the series.
It is dedicated to Ed Ferman, long-time editor of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
It tells the story of the gunslinger, Roland of Gilead, and his quest to catch the man in black, the first of many steps towards his ultimate destination - the Dark Tower.
The main story takes place in a world that is somewhat similar to the Old West but exists in an alternate time frame or parallel universe to ours. Roland exists in a place where "the world has moved on." This world has a few things in common with our own, however, including memories of the song "Hey Jude" and the child's rhyme that begins "Beans, Beans, the Musical Fruit". Vestiges of forgotten or skewed versions of real-world technology also appear, such as a reference to a gas pump that is worshipped as a god named "Amoco", and an abandoned way station with a water pump which is powered by an "atomic slug".
As Roland travels across the desert with his mule in search of the man in black, he encounters Brown, a farmer, and Zoltan, his crow, who graciously offers to put him up for the night. While he is there, we learn of his time spent in Tull through a flashback. Tull was a small town which Roland came to not too long before the start of the novel. The man in black had passed through the town previously; he brought a dead man back to life, and left a trap for Roland: the town itself. After Roland spends some time there, the leader of the local church reveals to him that the man in black has impregnated her, and has turned her against Roland. She turns the entire town on Roland; men, women, and children. In order to escape with his life, Roland is forced to kill every resident of the town, including his lover, Allie. Telling this story seems cathartic for Roland. When he awakes the next day, his mule is dead, forcing him to proceed on foot. Before Roland leaves, Brown asks his permission to eat the mule.
At the way station Roland first encounters Jake Chambers, who died in his own universe when he was pushed in front of a car while walking to school. Roland is nearly dead when he makes it to the way station, and Jake brings him water and jerky while he is recovering. Jake does not know how long he has been at the way station, nor does he know exactly how he got there. He hid when the man in black passed by the way station. Roland hypnotizes him to determine the details of his death, but makes him forget before he awakes (since Jake's death was extremely violent and painful). Before they leave the way station they encounter a demon in the cellar while looking for food. After their palaver, Roland snatches the jawbone from the skeleton in the hole, from which the demon speaks.
After leaving the way station, Jake and Roland eventually make their way out of the desert into more welcoming lands. Roland rescues Jake from an encounter with an oracle, and then couples with the oracle himself in order to learn more about his fate and path to the Dark Tower. Roland gives Jake the jawbone from the way station to focus on while he is gone. After Roland returns, Jake discards the jawbone. As Jake and Roland make their way closer to the mountain, Jake begins to fear what will become of him.
In a flashback, we learn about Roland's chance encounter in a kitchen which leads to the hanging of Hax, the cook. The apprentice gunslingers are allowed to witness the hanging with their fathers' permission. Roland reveals how he was tricked into calling out his teacher Cort early, through the treachery of Marten. He succeeded in defeating Cort in battle through his ingenious weapon selection - his hawk, David.
Jake and Roland make their way into the twisting tunnels below the mountain, propelled along by an ancient mine cart. During the journey, they are attacked by the "Slow Mutants", monstrous subterranean creatures. Roland fights the Slow Mutants off and they proceed. Eventually they find the Man in Black, and as Jake dangles precariously from the tracks, Roland comes to a pivotal choice; save Jake or pursue the Man in Black. Roland chooses to follow the Man in Black and Jake falls to his death. Just before he falls, Jake tells Roland: "Go then, there are other worlds than these."
After sacrificing Jake in the mountain, Roland makes his way down to speak to the man in black. The man in black reads Roland's fate from a pack of cards, including "the sailor" (Jake), "the prisoner" (Eddie Dean) "the lady of shadows" (Odetta Holmes), "death" (but not for Roland), and the Tower itself, as the center of everything. The man in black states that he is merely a pawn of Roland's true enemy, the one who now controls the Dark Tower itself.
The man in black creates a representation of the universe, attempting to frighten Roland by showing him how truly insignificant he is in the grand scheme of things, and asks him to give up his quest. Roland refuses, and is made to fall asleep by the man in black. When he wakes up, ten years have passed and there is a skeleton next to him — what he assumes to be the man in black. Roland then sits on the edge of the Western Sea, contemplating the three people he now is charged with bringing into All-World - the Prisoner, the Lady of Shadows, and the Pusher.
King revised The Gunslinger in 2003. In his introduction to the new edition, King stated that he felt that the original version was 'dry' and difficult for new readers to access. He also made the storytelling more linear as well as making the plot of the book more consistent with the series' ending. Other changes were made in order to resolve continuity errors introduced by later volumes. The added material was over 9000 words (35 pages) in length.[3]
Some changes include:
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