Re-Reading the Dark Tower Series - The Wind Through the Keyhole
When I decided to re-read the Dark Tower books, one of the biggest reasons was to read it with Wind Through the Keyhole in the correct place in the story. While this novel was released after King had finished the Dark Tower Series, the book actually fits between book four and book five in the story. When this novel first came out I finished reading it and immediately said to myself that if I ever re-read the series, I would do so with this book in the middle to get a slightly different experience than I had the first time.
The Wind Through the Keyhole is a flashback story which made me a little apprehensive about reading it directly after Wizard and Glass which is also a flashback story. In the case of Keyhole though it is actually a story, within a story, so while part of the book is a flashback looking at Roland’s life as a gunslinger not too long after the event we saw unfold in Mejis during Wizard and Glass, the middle portion of the book is a brand new story that adds to the overall Dark Tower myth because the story is told by Roland and represents something he would have heard growing up.
The story starts not long after Roland finishes telling his Ka-tet about the events in Mejis when he was younger. As they continue along the path of the beam, they hear of an approaching storm called a starkblast that is headed in their direction. We don’t learn a lot about this storm at first other than that the group needs to get inside. Once inside and safe from the storm, Roland begins to tell his tale and we switch into the second part of the story.
Roland’s story is another flashback to his younger days. I enjoy these flashbacks because we as readers get to see what everyday life was like for a gunslinger. Once Roland finds himself on his quest for the Dark Tower, his life changes from what it was before then. We hear about the gunslingers from Roland and we know that they are well regarded from his meetings with others along the way, but we don’t know exactly what they did that made them so well respected throughout midworld. Roland’s story helps fill in some of those gaps, which is in my opinion why King wrote this novel in the first place, to give a little more background information about gunslingers.
The story Roland tells is of his search for “The Skin-man” who is a shapeshifter and has been on a rampage in a small town. One young boy named Bill survived an attack by the Skin-man and got a glimpse of him but only of his feet. Roland sets up a chance for the boy to look at a line up of sorts of all of the potential suspects in town. While the suspects are being rounded up, young Roland waits with Bill and tells him the story of “The Wind Through the Keyhole,” this setting up our story within a story.
This story that young Roland tells Bill is about a boy named Tim who lives with his mother in a village. His father was recently killed by a dragon while at work and Tim’s mother married her dead husbands best friend, a man named Bern Kells. Kells became abusive toward both Tim and his mother and drinks too much. Tim is at a loss for what what to do. One day the Covenant Man who is like a tax collector comes to the Billings. While he is there he tells Tim he has a secret and to meet him later in the woods. When Tim Meets him, he learns that his father was not killed by a dragon but that his best friend Bern Kells killed him. Tim goes on a journey to try to help his mother get out of her situation and ends up saving her and giving her the chance to kill Bern Kells.
The story returns to young Roland and Bill after this and Bill is able to identify the Skin-Man who turns into a snake and kills two people. Roland however is able to kill the snake and dispense with the Skin-Man.
Following the end of this story, we return to Roland and his ka-tet and the Starkblast has passed. The group continues on the boats of the beam and we pick up their story in the fifth book Wolves of the Calla.
The book is billed as a novel and it is as everything is tied together, but the stories are all nestled within each other and all very separate and distinct in both their voice and content.
After the seventh and final book in the series was released, King talked a lot about possibly revisiting the Dark Tower stories and this is one way he was able to do that, by fitting this story in between the other already established books. Because so little of this book actually deals with Roland, Eddie, Susannah and Jake, it didn’t change the story that came after it, but it did give us that extra added bit of information about Roland’s world and his life.
I’m glad I got the chance to reread the series with the book stuck in the middle it gave the series a different feel this time around.
Until next time, long days pleasant nights.
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