The Dark Tower Wizard in Glass, is the second half better?
I’m reading Stephen Kings The Dark Tower series and I’m on Wizard and Glass, and I absolutely hate it. I’m half way through now and I’m wondering if I should skip the book and read the Wikipedia page because it’s just making me angry.
I like the rest of the series and really want to see where it ends up but this book is awful, it started out good with the riddle contest but the flashback with Susan I hate every single part of and it’s making me shout at the book angry. I’m halfway through now and I can tell there is a lot being set up for a big battle and a crazy ending, but I can’t stand whatever you want to call what’s happening with Susan, her aunt, and the mayor. Should I power through or call it?
EDIT: Just called it, got to Part 3: Chapter 3. Really needed a good editor, if they cut out the sexual stuff, it could’ve been a good book, but I’m getting to physically angry to keep reading this. It’s awful. I’m going to tell myself it has a Girl with the Dragon Tattoo ending where everyone gets tormented.
Well, I'll start by saying I really enjoyed the book, and am nearly done with book 5 myself.
That being said, most of book 4 is that Susan flashback. There is a little more non-Susan plot towards the end, but it's not a ton. Re:Susan, there is action and showdown and etc like you're hoping for, but there is a lot of the intrigue to get through. My suggestion would be check the page # for that Part of the book to be through, and decide if you'd rather have the context or the summary from Wikipedia, and if you skip start up at the end of the Susan section.
I do think 4 was the weakest of the series so far (spending almost an entire book on a flashback felt odd, and the Blaine part at the beginning really should've just been at the end of book 3 instead of that obnoxious cliffhanger ending), so if one got skipped that would've been my vote. I haven't finished the series yet tho so ymmv
The beginning with Blaine should have been the ending of the last book, it would have made the pacing better, but I think he said he was having problems writing it, and I do really respect how Stephen King finishes things, especially compared to George RR Martin. I’d rather have a finished book with odd pacing than it being unfinished in hopes of perfection.
To quote Dune ‘Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife - chopping off what's incomplete and saying: 'Now, it's complete because it's ended here.'’
Off topic, I really need to get around to reading Dune. This is a great quote that shifts my perspective on ending things.
That first book of Dune in particular is chock full of pithy aphorisms like that. One that sticks out to me is: "To know a thing well, know its limits. Only when pushed beyond its tolerances will its true nature be seen." I don't know as I'd take that as a verity, but God damn if it ain't a great epigram.
Dune is one of those books sort of like the Silmarillion that is super dense and packed with unfamiliar names and vocabulary, which turns a lot of people off early on. Most of the weird vocabulary is there for a purpose though, so it's actually well worth wading through the early flood of strangeness.
One thing that the recent movie adaptations...
Oops. Looks like I hit "post" when putting my phone in my pocket.
Anyway, a perspective that the new movies gave me that I had never really thought of before is that Dune is a story about the difference between fate and destiny. Everyone in the story is entrapped by fate, except Paul Muad'Dib (and later, his son Leto II), who is a man of destiny. Fate is ordained for you, whereas destiny is something a person achieves. Paul is the only character who can fully choose his destiny; everyone else in the universe is along for the ride, more or less.
I don't know what it was about the movies that made that so much clearer for me, but I look forward to revisiting the first book with that in mind.
I love Dune, but it’s a weird one. It’s a lot to take in on a first read, but it’s so good on rereads.
There is a really cool part where since Paul can see into the future, he has to remember when the present is, and as a reader you have the same feeling when you pick up the book. Did this happen yet? No, but this did so we are at this part. Just a really neat framing device that I think about a lot.
Ha, funny you mention liking his endings, a running joke with me and my friend who both read a good amount of Stephen King is that he writes a fantastic first 2/3rds of a book, and then seems to kind of flub the ending in weird ways. IT, The Outsider, and Cell all started with strong concepts but the actual endings were so bizarre (well, except for Cell, which was kinda bad the entire time lol) (okay, it had some neat ideas). The Stand had a great end though, and the Shining was good although it felt a little rushed. I've loved the dark tower so far, but I can't quite comment on the ending yet as I haven't gotten there. None of the endings above are bad enough to sully the rest of the book, but IMO King is much better at the creation of the cool monster/concept, rather than the showing it being defeated.
Serious Spoilers for the end of The Outsider
I mean c'mon, the big bad literally gets one-shot by a tube sock full of batteries!
I get King was probably working under publisher deadlines, and in that context I'm glad he took the time to figure out the Blaine resolution rather than poop out something to make it in time for the 3rd book. But if there's ever some kind of remaster of the series I hope that'd get moved over, it's just such weird pacing especially for someone like me who doesn't read the books of a series one after another (coming back from a ~6 month break to resolve it and then immediately moving on was jarring)
I didn’t say I like his endings, I meant that I respect how he finishes his books and gets them out, even if it’s not perfect. Especially compared to George RR Martin, I’d rather have closer and a finished series than something forever unfinished.
Needful things is my prime terrible King ending, so cheesy.
The first time I tried reading wizard and glass, I had the same experience. But when I tried again a few years later, I pushed thru and ended up really enjoying it. I don't remember what happens, but I remember thinking the payoff at the end was worth it.
That being said, I generally have trash taste. So take it with a grain of salt. 🧂
I’m fine with trash as long as it’s enjoyable, I don’t think everything has to be high artistic literature with breathtaking prose, sometimes you just want a fun read about magical gunslingers.
I wouldn’t even say it’s trash, I don’t like all the sexual things going on with Susan. I don’t like romance and I hate realistic sexual assault in horror. I understand ‘the true monster is man’ but I don’t want to read that. I’m okay with things like Alien or Rosemary’s Baby, and I want to see what happens with Detta Susan’s baby, it’s the realistic assaults on past Susan, how it’s happening to get her own stuff, and her idea of ‘honor’ are just making me mad. And to an extent I get it, it’s written to make me feel that way, that’s the point of this kind of horror, but it’s not something I enjoy or want to read.
I keep thinking about The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (or it’s better original name Men Who Hate
Women) and want that kind of revenge on everyone, especially the mayor, aunt, and witch but I doubt it will happen. I have a feeling it’s the ending where the ‘good guy’ looses.
So, I have complicated feelings about this series as a whole. For context, I found and read or listened really via audiobook, the entire series last year.
Having said that, I think if you dislike the Susan plot, you should skip it. As others have mentioned, almost the whole book is that flashback, and I'd argue it doesn't really have relevance to the overarching plot. As you've rightly surmised, King is setting up a big showdown, and that does get concluded in this book.
I don’t necessarily dislike the Susan plot, I hate all the sexual stuff with it. He could’ve explained it in probably a page to three but instead, he decides to spend hundreds and hundreds of pages of beating us over the head with it, and it just makes me mad. An aunt selling her underage niece into sexual slavery for their own stuff, and her being so concerned about ‘honor’ and keeping her word. Makes me sick. At least 2/3 of the book so far feels like it’s just going into as much detail as possible on that. I want rebellion and gunslinging.
I think Wizard and Glass is a love it or hate it kind of book. I love it, especially because you get a good look at young Roland, Cuthbert, and Alain, and the things that happen in this specific story haunt Roland for the rest of his life. There is some metaplot-related stuff in this book, especially toward the end and with Black Thirteen - you might be able to skip to the last 100 pages or so? I personally loved all the lore related to the Wizard's Rainbow, as well as the interactions with the "original" ka-tet, but I respect that it's not for everyone. Depends on how much you value backstory and setting (which for me is a lot, but YMMV).
I think that’s my big problem with it, I’m huge on backstory and setting, I like the lore and I can see a decent story there, but I can’t get past the abuse to Susan, and with a good editor I don’t think it would have been a problem.
It's interesting - I've read a lot of Stephen King, and he writes a lot of weird shit, often involving horrific abuse of people who don't deserve it. I actually do appreciate his less-edited work (like The Stand), because even if some parts of the work get sloggy or seem gratuitous, I usually find the payoff pretty good, and I find that he describes complicated characters really well. I found Under the Dome to be needlessly cruel and awful at times, as well as The Stand and It, but the only time it really was too much for me was Gerald's Game. But I do get it! He is definitely not always at his best.
I wonder how you'll like the rest of the Dark Tower series, if you end up reading it - he took a long hiatus between 4 and 5, and I found the writing and tone to be quite different from 5 onward. I don't remember how I felt about Wizard and Glass immediately after reading it, but I personally view it as a fairly special part of the series now, having finished the original septology. I'm actually surprised how many people in this thread dislike it! I've literally never heard any criticism about it before today. Just needed the right group, I guess!
I like weird shit, and I’m not even saying the abuse goes so far it bothers me, it’s that he drags it out so long and keeps coming back to the same things. I just want to yell ‘I get it, move on!’ I don’t want to read hundreds of pages of it when the idea could have been conveyed in a couple pages.
In between books 4 and 5 is when he got hit with the car right? And after that I heard he made sure he finished The Dark Tower before something else happened.
I stumbled on the series around 1993 when I was a teenager in highschool. I didn't know the series was incomplete and suffered for years waiting for the next book. Eventually, I snuffed out my excitement, certain the next book was never going to happen.
Well, when Wizards and Glass hit bookstore shelves in 1997, you could have knocked me down with a feather. I bought it on the spot, and I was not the 'had money' kind of kid. I started reading it on the way home, sitting in the back of my parents K-car.
I hated it and resented that I spent my money on it. I hated the thinny. I hated that I had invested time in reading a good series for it to be all thrown away. I hated that there would clearly be a next book, and that I would have to wait again, and that I wasn't even sure that I wanted to read it, and that I would probably have to because I'd already gone this far!!
It was the beginning of the end between Steven King and I. I did finish the series, and the other books were better, but I haven't touched much of his other work since then.
Thank you for this post, I see so much of myself in it. It also helps to see someone else not enjoy it because it’s rated over 4 stars, so I was starting to think I was missing something or it had an amazing turn around.
I’ve done the same thing with series where I immediately get the new book and finish it to be unsatisfied and knowing that now there is another multi year wait to get any kind of closure. Nowadays I usually wait until a series is finished or try to leave a book unread so I have something to look forward to.
When I first got into the Dark Tower books, I was an angsty teenager and it was the first half of the aughts. At that point it was still a few years away from Wolves of the Calla being published. Wizard and Glass was my favorite of the first four, but I was deeply in love with my first girlfriend, so that plus my teenage angst may have made the doomed romance plot resonate with me. Don't know how I'd feel about it today.
As others have said and iirc, the story of Wizard and Glass is basically unconnected to the rest of it, if it's making you so mad you should definitely skip past that part and read a synopsis elsewhere.
I still have my teenage angst, but it’s not for love. I get the burning hate of wanting to see the gunslingers replaced by the Glanton Gang from Blood Meridian, then seeing the town get what they deserve.
I started reading this series back in grad school, really enjoyed the first book and found the next two good as well. I have had Wizard and Glass half finished for near a decade at this point. I overall like the story of the series, but this was just such a change in topic vs where the story otherwise left off. You can tell it's building towards something big, but it just felt like a slog to get through, honestly. I admit that I often get distracted and put down books midway through, and end up returning a while later. I'm not sure if I will ever finish this one. I really did want to read the whole series, but not sure if struggling through this book is worth it. I'm glad in a way that others have felt similarly
I’m really glad to know I’m not the only one. I went back-and-forth on making this post because I didn’t want to be negative or ripping on something people like but it’s good to know that this seems to be a common issue.
Same here, reading this post I realize I’ve put the book down halfway through and that was 2 or 3 years ago. I wanted to finish it so badly, but the story was frustrating as hell. Not exactly sure what it was I found frustrating though, it is too long ago and I don’t remember.
It’s a rough one because I feel like with a decent editor there could’ve been a good book in there. But instead, it just keeps going on about the stuff I don’t want to hear.
I love the Dark Tower series and have reread it many times, while unashamedly never reading Wizard and Glass. It's totally skippable and I don't think I've ever read more than a chapter of it.
Thank you, I feel better knowing I’m not the only one.
I enjoyed Wizard and Glass far more when I was older. Especially when I took it slower with Kingslingers. Consider listening to this overview of the entire book
It really emphasized how Gilead was an incredibly patriarchal place...Susan's treatment was not exactly unusual in that sort of society. Also it's a Greek Tragedy, exacerbating the issues. We also have to remember that Roland himself isn't really a great person. This is Tull on steroids.
If there was a single recurring theme in all of King, it's that the smaller evils committed by average people do far more harm than the big supernatural evil that may coexist in the story.
I see you got to Part 3, Chapter 3. You're almost to the end of the 'setting up the dominos' part. IIRC Chapter 5 is where they really start getting knocked down. Part 4 IIRC is completely out of the Susan story, so if you're just done with that, I'd at least suggest wrapping up Part 4. The reveal there is far more consequential to the remainder of the series.
I wish there was more time spent in Gilead or more lore about it. And I understand that this is the society they live in, I just want him to move on and tell the story. He seems more interested in describing every little detail about her situation instead of moving on with the plot. And Susan’s ‘but I gave my word’ makes me so angry to the point I’m like you made your bed, sleep in it. If the path you followed got you here, than what good was the path?
I returned the book to the library already, but I’ll probably listen to the podcast and may borrow it again, but I’ll skip to part 4, I absolutely hate every part of Susan’s aunt and wish someone would do something, so little has happened in this book besides describing Susan’s treatment and a whole lot of waiting around. And a lot of describing sex when I prefer the fade to black. I just looked and it took the Wikipedia page 2 and a half paragraphs to describe the Susan plot up to where I am, and it really didn’t miss much.
I’ll always prefer morally gray to straight good or evil characters, in this thread I mentioned wishing the Glanton Gang from Blood Meridian would roll into town, not that they are morally grey, but I want to see someone do something.