Stephen King – The Dark Tower

The round squat turret, blind as the fool’s heart,

Built of brown stone, without a counterpart

In the whole world. The tempest’s mocking elf

Points to the shipman thus the unseen shelf

He strikes on, only when the timbers start.

XXXII

Not see? because of night perhaps?—why day

Came back again for that! before it left

The dying sunset kindled through a cleft:

The hills, like giants at a hunting, lay,

Chin upon hand, to see the game at bay,—

‘Now stab and end the creature—to the heft!’

XXXIII

Not hear? When noise was everywhere! it tolled

Increasing like a bell. Names in my ears

Of all the lost adventurers, my peers—

How such a one was strong, and such was bold,

And such was fortunate, yet each of old

Lost, lost! one moment knelled the woe of years.

XXXIV

There they stood, ranged along the hillsides, met

To view the last of me, a living frame

For one more picture! In a sheet of flame

I saw them and I knew them all. And yet

Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,

And blew. ‘Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came.’

Author’s Note

Sometimes I think I have written more about the Dark Towerbooks than I have written

about the Dark Tower itself. These related writings include the ever-growing synopsis

(known by the quaint old wordArgument ) at the beginning of each of the first five volumes,

and afterwords (most totally unnecessary and some actually embarrassing in retrospect) at

the end of all the volumes. Michael Whelan, the extraordinary artist who illustrated both

the first volume and this last, proved himself to be no slouch as a literary critic as well

when, after reading a draft of Volume Seven, he suggested—in refreshingly blunt

terms—that the rather lighthearted afterword I’d put at the end was jarring and out of place.

I took another look at it and realized he was right.

The first half of that well-meant but off-key essay can now be found as an introduction to

the first four volumes of the series; it’s called “On Being Nineteen.” I thought of leaving

Volume Seven without any afterword at all; of letting Roland’s discovery at the top of his

Tower be my last word on the matter. Then I realized that I had one more thing to say, a

thing that actuallyneeded to be said. It has to do with my presence in my own book.

There’s a smarmy academic term for this—“metafiction.” I hate it. I hate the

pretentiousness of it. I’m in the story only because I’ve known for some time now

(consciously since writingInsomnia in 1995, unconsciously since temporarily losing track

of Father Donald Callahan near the end of’Salem’s Lot ) that many of my fictions refer

back to Roland’s world and Roland’s story. Since I was the one who wrote them, it seemed

logical that I was part of the gunslinger’s ka. My idea was to use theDark Tower stories as

a kind of summation, a way of unifying as many of my previous stories as possible beneath

the arch of someüber- tale. I never meant that to be pretentious (and I hope it isn’t), but only as a way of showing how life influences art (and vice-versa). I think that, if you have read

these last threeDark Tower volumes, you’ll see that my talk of retirement makes more

sense in this context. In a sense, there’s nothing left to say now that Roland has reached his

goal…and I hope the reader will see that by discovering the Horn of Eld, the gunslinger

may finally be on the way to his own resolution. Possibly even to redemption. It wasall

about reaching the Tower, you see—mine as well as Roland’s—and that has finally been

accomplished. You may not like what Roland found at the top, but that’s a different matter

entirely. And don’t write me any angry letters about it, either, because I won’t answer them.

There’s nothing left to say on the subject. I wasn’t exactly crazy about the ending, either, if you want to know the truth, but it’s theright ending. Theonly ending, in fact. You have to

remember that I don’t make these things up, not exactly; I only write down what I see.

Readers will speculate on how “real” the Stephen King is who appears in these pages. The

answer is “not very,” although the one Roland and Eddie meet in Bridgton (Song of

Susannah) is very close to the Stephen King I remember being at that time. As for the

Stephen King who shows up in this final volume…well, let’s put it this way: my wife asked

me if I would kindly not give fans of the series very precise directions to where we live or

who we really are. I agreed to do that. Not because I wanted to, exactly—part of what

makes this story go, I think, is the sense of the fictional world bursting through into the real one—but because this happens to be my wife’s life as well as mine, and she should not be

penalized for either loving me or living with me. So I have fictionalized the geography of

western Maine to a great extent, trusting readers to grasp the intent of the fiction and to

understand why I treated my own part in it as I did. And if you feel a need to drop in and say hello, please think again. My family and I have a good deal less privacy than we used to,

and I have no wish to give up any more, may it do ya fine. My books are my way of

knowing you. Let them be your way of knowing me, as well. It’s enough. And on behalf of

Roland and all his ka-tet—now scattered, say sorry—I thank you for coming along, and

sharing this adventure with me. I never worked harder on a project in my life, and I

know—none better, alas—that it has not been entirely successful. What work of

make-believe ever is? And yet for all of that, I would not give back a single minute of the

time that I have lived in Roland’s where and when. Those days in Mid-World and

End-World were quite extraordinary. Those were days when my imagination was so clear I

could smell the dust and hear the creak of leather.

Stephen King

August 21, 2003