Not too much to say here. We get to see Gilead before it's fall. Constant Readers know about some of the events if you have read the other Dark Tower books. We have Roland reeling from killing his mother and Cort on his deathbed. 

Oh Roland. He is really a tragic figure. I know that King took inspiration from the Tales of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table when writing the Dark Tower. You just see more similarities in the comics than the books when you read about Maerlyn, and Stephen Deschain and his wife, Gabrielle Deschain. I am starting to see Roland a more of a Galahad at times with him and his quest for the Dark Tower. 

We get Roland, Cuthbert, and Alain still doing what they can to stand by Roland and Gilead. We also have the character of Aileen Ritter who would be a gunslinger except for her being born a girl and not a boy. And we follow along with Sheemie too. 

I don't have much to say besides I really enjoyed this installment. We know what what the Gunslingers are going to go and though you wish it could be different, it is not meant to be. We also get some backstory on the Man in Black and I maybe get the skin crawls. Reading this on my Kindle was fine. I was able to zoom in on panels. I just wish that Amazon had set it like it did the one shot comics I was reading where the panels zoom in automatically for you and then zoom out when you get to the last one on the page. 

The illustrations are a bit darker in this one I have to say. It was hard to read people's faces here and there.

The comic flow was a bit haphazard at times before we get to the endpoint. 

Looking to read "Battle of Jericho Hill" next. 

In my efforts to read more classics/prizewinners in the last year, there have been some real clinkers, so I wasn't sure about this one. I'm an agnostic col-lapsed Catholic with a half-Jewish family who took a tour through every single major religion before I realized I have a tough time with organized religions. I did like the basically agnostic Universal Unitarians, but I have never liked getting dressed on Sunday mornings, so I wasn't entirely sure I'd like a book about a dying minister writing a letter to his young son.

Turns out a book full of religious stuff was, in a word, awesome. When I just clicked five stars, I realized I need to go back and redo all of my other stars. (In truth, I've read a handful of books that actually should count for five, but I seem to be way too generous with the 3-4 range, which makes 5 less special. Someday soon, I need to go over my ratings, create a system & fix them before I have too many books to do so here.) Anyway, this is one of those books that just killed me. It was about as bad as a talking pet that dies book in terms of how wrecked I was when I finished it. If the next book to start hadn't been also part of the trilogy, I'd not have started the next book. I would be crying in the dark with crumpled tissues all round. Instead I am crying in the light with the tissues mostly in the wastebasket.

Reverend John Ames, a third-generation Congregationalist minister living in the tiny fictional town of Gilead, Iowa is dying, and the whole book is his letter to his very young son who will not grow up knowing his father. Despite being about an old preacher who married a young woman in a small town in Ohio, emotionally this book hit me in a very personal way. I'm a non-believing biracial woman from the urban east coast. How does this book feel so much like it was written for me? As therapists love to say, it's the emotions that matter. The neighbor's son, Jack, also felt very familiar to me.

Robinson quietly hits on huge soaring themes with a gentle touch that never ever turns maudlin or flowery. In telling the story of his three generations of ministers in Iowa, there are some very funny stories and some very sad, deeply painful moments all combined with sweetness that is never sugary. (As children they baptise kittens and worry about the fact that the cats keep jumping around. Pagan cats, it turns out, are as good as Christian ones.)

It feels almost sacrilegious to just cite the hilarious stories but I must tell you about  the abolitionists who get a bit too tunnel-happy, causing a stranger's horse to sink through the road. These highly religious people get the horse drunk (problematic for the teetotalling stranger), tell preposterous lies to get rid of the stranger, then they have to get the horse out of the hole in the middle of town. All of this happens with an escaped slave desperately trying not "escape" from their help too "I think I'm better off doing this on my own." The whole town ends up moving a few miles away to get away from their tunnel. That story made me cry tears from laughing.

But what's so affecting is the warmth and decency and reasonable attitude from the highly religious Congregationalist minister John Ames, whether it's regarding his young wife and son, his years of being alone after losing his first wife and daughter, or dealing with Jack Boughton - his namesake, godson and the bane of his existence. This book is a healing book, full of reserve hiding reservoirs overflowing with humanity and most of all, loving kindness.

I'm pretty sure I will still feel this is an excellent book at the end of the year and next year, but if I had to defend it, I'd be at a loss. It got me in such a way that I seriously considered writing a thank you letter to Marilynne Robinson. It just is one of the most affecting books I've read lately. I'm still sort of surprised I love this book so much. It's a deceptively simple book. But man, it really packed a punch.

"these people who can see right through you never quite do you justice, because they never give you credit for the effort you're making to be better than you actually are, which is difficult and well meant and deserving of some little notice."

So despite my initial qualms about religion, it was in no way patronizing, irritating,  hypocritical or any number of other things I've run into with books based on religious characters. Ames is one of the most Christlike fictional characters I've run across: a very decent man doing a very decent thing in a town full of decent, multifaceted and religious people. 

When I read The Gunslinger, I was not impress. I was not really sure where this book was going until towards the end, turns out to be a quest book. Then, I have my doubts. But what I started from the first book, I had to move on to the second book and it took me a while to finished it. Yes, I took my time to read it and in the end, that long time... was worth it. I read slowly and absorb the words, the intentions and the purpose. In the end, it is once again a quest book with more questions but I am surprise how good The Drawing of the Three turn out to be.

From where it was left off, Roland of Gilead now has a goal. In order seek The Dark Tower, he has to recruit others from other worlds to join him on his quest - Eddie Dean, a drug junkie who loves his brother Henry more than anything else, Odetta Susannah Holmes, a girl that may seem nice but other wise, deadly and a third that I would not spoil it here. What caught my attention was what does drawing of the three means and its said inside pretty much clearly. Still, the entire book is all about how Roland, almost to his dying breath after been attacked by sea creatures like lobsters, with grit, goes through all hell to get these people from another Earth-like dimension (which is our own). For the first time, and even though Stephen King, in his style of writing long narrations of background history so that we get to know the characters involved for the readers, he managed to draw my attention in a way that is suspenseful and it is good. I truly enjoy my reading and that is why I took my time to finish it. Towards the end, even though there are more questions involve, I am looking forward to read The Wasteland soon. If you have read The Gunslinger and you have your doubts, trust me, The Drawing of the Three is worth continuing.

Twenty-four years after her first novel, Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson returns with an intimate tale of three generations from the Civil War to the twentieth century: a story about fathers and sons and the spiritual battles that still rage at America's heart. Writing in the tradition of Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman, Marilynne Robinson's beautiful, spare, and spiritual prose allows "even the faithless reader to feel the possibility of transcendent order" (Slate). In the luminous and unforgettable voice of Congregationalist minister John Ames, Gilead reveals the human condition and the often unbearable beauty of an ordinary life.

Goodreads.com

In the town of Gilead, Iowa, 76 year old Congregationalist minister John Ames senses he is nearing death and is trying to prepare his family for his imminent passing. Author Marilynne Robinson lays out the entire novel in the form of one long letter Ames is writing to his nearly 7 year old son (obviously a son he fathered late in life). This letter is largely full of Ames' musings on his long life, seasoned with long stories,  meaningful anecdotes, lessons learned, etc..."As I write I am aware that my memory has made much of very little."

He also tries to impart final lessons to his son on the value in being financially humble yet rich in familial bonds, and the hardships & merits that come from living a life of service.

 

"I can't believe we will forget our sorrows altogether. That would mean forgetting that we have lived, humanly speaking. Sorrow seems to me to be a great part of the substance of human life. For example, at this very moment I feel a kind of loving grief for you as you read this, because I do not know you, and because you have grown up fatherless, you poor child, lying on your belly now in the sun with Soapy asleep on the small of your back. You are drawing those terrible pictures that you will bring me to admire, and which I will admire because I have not the heart to say one word that you might remember against me....I'll pray that you grow up a brave man in a brave country. I will pray you find a way to be useful."

 

I was moved at Ames' protective thoughts regarding one Jack Boughton, a man Ames fears may pose a threat to his family after Ames' death. Minster or no, you gotta respect that father gene kicking in:

"How should I deal with these fears I have, that Jack Boughton will do you and your mother harm, just because he can, just for the sly, unanswerable meanness of it? You have already asked after him twice this morning. Harm to you is not harm to me in the strict sense, and that is a great part of the problem. He could knock me down the stairs and I would have worked out the theology for forgiving him before I reached the bottom. But if he harmed you in the slightest way, I'm afraid theology would fail me."

It may come as no surprise to some but I'll go ahead and let the general reader know that this one turns pretty heavily religious. Our main character is a minister so it naturally comes with the territory, but even with that in mind it still felt like overkill at times. Long, looong bits on preaching, a lot of actual Scripture woven into the novel's text.  Also, Ames swings his thoughts back to the topic of his grandfather SO MUCH, to the point of distraction for me.

With the narrator coming from a long line of preachers, there's a healthy amount of biblical overtones & parallels. Some of the sermons were totally lost on me, but I did enjoy the theme of creating a life of love and strong family bonds. Ames' description of his relationship with his second wife (the mother of the son he is writing to) has its memorably heartwarming bits. Together a relatively brief time, only 10 years married by the start of the novel (he 67, she in her mid-30s at their wedding) , Ames shares with his son that he takes comfort in leaving the world knowing he was able to provide his wife the stable life she craved, though he hints that she "settled". The way the proposal went down was pretty cute, the deadpan way she just says "You should marry me", his equally straight-faced "You're right, I think I shall", her "Well then, I'll see you tomorrow." and Ames admitting to his son that it was the most exciting thing that had ever happened in his life LOL

If you're the kind of reader who heavily relies on plot, you'll likely be disappointed with this one. In that respect, this novel is pretty dull. Its strength mainly lies in the thought-provoking subjects Ames presents in his letter. For that, it may make for a good book club pick. Mostly my take away was the warmth and love Ames tries to imprint upon his son and wife through his final words. 

Tak, jestem fanem Kinga. jego twórczość co jedno z najlepszych rzeczy jakie mnie spotkało w czytelniczym życiu. Problem jest taki, że z czasem zapoznałem się ze wszystkimi jego dziełami. Może więc wyjść poza ramy czytelnicze i rzucić okiem na powieści graficzne, czyli komiksy. Potencjał jest ogromny. Dzisiaj na rozkład trafia pięć pierwszych tomów. 

Postanowiłem ocenić wszystkie tomy zbiorczo, ponieważ historia w nich zawarta to jeden ciąg zdarzeń i trudno oraz nienaturalnie było by to rozdzielać. Jedynym wyjątkiem może być pierwsza część, a więc "Narodziny rewolwerowca". Skąd ten wyjatek? Otóż w pierwszym tomie otrzymuje historię, którą już znamy. Tzn znamy, jeżeli czytaliśmy "Czarnoksiężnik i kryształ", a więc czwartą część cyklu Mroczna Wieża. Jest to swoiste wprowadzenie w świat oraz historię Rolanda. Lecz nawet znając tą historię z chęcią przerzucałem kolejne strony. Odświeżyłem swoją pamięć i mogłem ze spokojem sięgnąć po kolejne części. A o czym opowiadają? Zastanawiam się jak to opowiedzieć, aby nie zdradzić zbyt wiele. Powiedzmy, że są to losy Rolanda, młodego rewolwerowca od momentu zdobycia prawa do noszenia broni, do chwili gdy poznajemy go na łamach cyklu literackiego. Takie jest założenie, ale jak się to rozwinie nie jestem w stanie przewidzieć.

Oceniając samą fabułę jest niesamowicie. Powrót do Świata Pośredniego po kilku latach nadal wywołuje u mnie masę emocji. Dialogi są cudowne a narrator w bardzo udany sposób oddaje charakterystyczny styl Kinga. Poznajemy perypetie młodego Rolanda, gdy jeszcze jest beztroskim młodzieńcem ,a później stopniowo popada w rozpacz i uczucie bezsilności spowodowane kolejnymi wydarzeniami. Jest to świetna szansa na powolną analizę przypadku głównego bohatera. oraz lepsze zrozumienie motywów jego postępowania. Dodatkowo możemy zagłębić się w ten świat nie tylko za sprawą naszej wyobraźni, ale i świetnych rysunków. No w końcu to komiks! Lecz ten, kto spodziewa się kreski znanej z kaczora Donalda niech od razu stąd wyjdzie. Rysunki są dojrzałe i zdecydowanie dal pełnoletnich czytelników. Co najważniejsze jednak odpowiadają moim wyobrażeniom, które miałem podczas wcześniejszej lektury "Mrocznej wieży". Chyba nic więcej nie trzeba

"Cykl Mroczna wieża" w wydaniu komiksowym to punkt obowiązkowy dla każdego fana cyklu oraz Kinga. Może być też doskonałym wstępem dla nowych czytelników, jednak z zastrzeżeniem, że pierwszy zeszyt będzie zdradzał praktycznie całą fabułę 4 tomu powieści, więc trzeba się z tym liczyć. Tak czy siak polecam serdecznie i ide szukać kolejnych części :)