Media Mourning

Thursday night I finished the final book of Stephen King's The Dark Tower...saga, although that word is overwrought. Series? Well, I guess that comes pretty close. Seven books and upwards of 5,000 pages total written over some 20 years with characters and events that tie in to virtually one's entire oeuvre should have its own special word. Or at least that's what I think.

Anywho, I find myself in some way in mourning because I have no more Dark Tower books to read. Not that this is a shock, Gentle Reader. But I started reading these books back when I was in the sixth or seventh grade (the first book, The Gunslinger, while first published in a limited run in 1982, received a much wider release with a trade paperback edition 20 years ago this month). I remember seeing an interview with King on Good Morning America (back when Joan Lunden battled Jane Pauley for the queendom of morning news programs, and before Charles Gibson turned into an evil troll) in which he talked about The Gunslinger, and that sparked my interest. I might still have the mass paperback copy I received for Christmas 1989 from an uncle (one of Dad's many brothers) because that year all the aunts and uncles and cousins had drawn names to reduce the cost of exchanging gifts.

I faithfully read the second and third installments when I could get my hands on them (trade paperback editions from Sam's Club, I believe), but I petered out with the fourth installment. Wizard and Glass came out while I was a senior in college and preparing to get married (11/97), and so much time had passed between it and the prior installment that I just couldn't get through more than the first...gads, 50 pages or so. I remember my copy of Wizard and Glass sat on the toilet tank lid in our first apartment in Austin for the longest time until I...well, I think it might have been in our first-ever batch of sell-backs to Half-Price Books.

Funny that all but one of the copies of the series I now have came from Half-Price.

Anywho, so here I am, some 20 years after reading the first book, now finished with them. King has said he'll never really be finished with Roland and his ka-tet because The Dark Tower is sort of a Rosetta Stone for all his stuff and that he'll probably keep revising it until he finally croaks. He's also been working with Marvel (boo! hiss!) to adapt and expand the world of Dark Tower in comics (er, graphic novels if you must, but I suspect King's fine with calling 'em comics). I enjoyed The Gunslinger Born and can't wait to get my hands on all of The Long Road Home.

But comics can't really replace the weight of a mass paperback book in your hands. They really can't replace the desire to curl up in your favorite chair (the one you recently denuded of all the cat hair) and sit for hours on end reading about these people you've known but hardly known for so long, to find out how their story.... I hesitate to say ends, but it does end. It has to, otherwise it doesn't really have any impact.

And that's why I'm mourning. Reaching the end of the story had a definite impact on me. Even though I have several books waiting for my attention--and even plowed through Murakami's most excellent What I Talk About When I Talk About Running on Friday, which had me pondering the possibility of one day running a marathon, as laughable as that is--I feel sort of bereft, almost abandoned. The people I'd gotten to know for several thousand pages have no more to tell me and have gone away, and that makes me sad.

I'm sure you've felt this way too, Gentle Reader. I remember feeling this way when Deep Space Nine ended. That show's ending left a big hole in me for some time simple because the show itself had played such a sizable role in my life during those years. I probably felt a little that way when I read the last Little House book. Hell, I still get a little verklempt when I catch the final bathotic episode of the show on late afternoon TV.

Yes, I know, I'm being overly maudlin. Eventually I'll find another book and move on. And life will move on to. But for now, I'll mourn.