The Tower (Stephen King)
The Tower (original title: The Dark Tower VII - The Tower) is the title of a novel by the writer Stephen King published in 2004 and forms the chronological conclusion of what is currently an eight-volume, dark fantasy saga known as The Dark Tower . The background to this novel cycle is presented in detail in the article there.
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In the final, seventh volume of the saga, the threads of Roland's past and the past of the midworld knit together with the adversaries of the tower ever closer to each other. After Mordred was born, Roland and his companions from different times find each other again. Pere Callahan is killed in the restaurant The Dixie Pig . Mordred, the son of Roland and the scarlet king, driven by thoughts of murdering his father, pursues him and his friends at a proper distance, always ready to attack from ambush.
Before Roland and his friends can finally take the last step towards the dark tower, it is necessary to free the breakers of the last two beams in the Land of Thunderstorm. During the decisive battle, Eddie is fatally injured in the head. The Ka-Tet broke. Susannah stays in Thunderclap to bury Eddie, while Roland, Jake and Oy travel back to 1999 to save the writer Stephen King from a fatal car accident while on a road trip. At the last second, Stephen King can be saved by Jake, who is run over by the car and dies a little later. Roland and Oy go back to Fedic together, where Susannah is already waiting for the two remaining, she too had felt Jake's death.
Susannah and Roland now take the last route to Discordia Castle, the castle of the scarlet king, which is located directly on the way to the tower itself, Mordred keeps shortening the distance between himself and Roland, who then decides not to enter Discordia Castle and go straight to the dark tower. About a hundred miles from the dark tower, Roland, Susannah and Oy enter Tower Road, a street that leads directly to the tower. They are invited to rest in his house by a mysterious stranger. Stephen King once again intervenes directly in the plot and passes a letter to Susannah. The stranger turns out to be Dandelo, a kind of vampire who lives on emotions . Susannah can only save Roland from suffocation and kill the vampire with great difficulty . In the cellar of the house the friends find Patrick Danville, a gifted painter whom Dandelo had kept for food.
The young Patrick Danville is blessed with a special gift , he can make things real with his pencil. Susannah then decides to leave Endworld and return to - her faith - Eddie and Jake. Patrick creates a door a few miles in front of the tower, like the one Roland had already found at the western sea. Roland tries to convince Susannah to spend the last few miles with him, but Susannah refuses and goes into a non-fundamental world where Eddie and Jake are brothers. Here, King loses sight of Susannah.
Roland, however, is on his last night before he finally reaches the dark tower after many thousands of years. Since he is very exhausted, sleep overcomes the gunslinger and Mordred attacks from an ambush. Oy throws himself in Mordred's way and saves Roland's life, not without sacrificing his own. Mordred dies from Roland's revolver.
The next evening, Roland and Patrick reach the dark tower together. The scarlet king, trapped on a balcony of the tower, immediately throws a multitude of snouts (see Joanne K. Rowling's Harry Potter or terms of the Harry Potter novels , especially the section on Quidditch ) at the travelers. Patrick succeeds through a drawing that he completes with Roland's blood (the blood of one of the descendants of Artur Eld) to erase the scarlet king from life. Without hesitation, Roland finally goes the last few meters to the tower, the gunslinger shouts the names of his friends and companions towards the tower. The roses that surround the tower clear a path for Roland to the entrance gate of the tower. To welcome the gunslinger, the roses themselves blow out a deafening horn sound that was actually reserved for Roland and the Eld's horn. At the gate, Roland puts down the last remaining revolver with the sandalwood handle and a crucifix. He enters the tower and the entrance gate slams loudly. Roland finds rooms in the tower that depict his life. After about 200 rooms, Roland finally reaches the top floor of the tower, on the door of which there is only one word: Roland .
He opens the door and the blazing sun hits him. The truth suddenly becomes clear to Roland. He no longer knows how many times he had come to the top floor of the tower. Horrified, Roland exclaims: “Oh no ... Please not again! Have mercy! Mercy! ” The hands of the tower mercilessly pull the gunslinger through the door. Then Roland finds himself in the Mohaine desert, the desert in which his journey began in the first volume, Black , he can no longer remember the tower. One fundamental change, however, has taken place, the horn of the Eld is on Roland's belt. Finally, King ends the novel with the words with which he opened the first volume, Schwarz :
"The man in black fled through the desert and the gunslinger followed him."
literature
- Stephen King: The tower. Roman ( The Dark Tower ; Vol. 7). Heyne, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-453-00096-X .