In the beginning of Wizard and Glass, the fourth novel in Stephen King's Dark Tower series, Roland's Ka-Tet (A band of destiny) finds itself on Blain the suicidal mono train. Blain plans to derail itself with them onboard unless they ask it a riddle it cannot solve. Roland rises to the challenge and tries to find a tough riddle for Blain but Blain solves them all one by one.
Roland gives up as his riddles run out and it is clear that Blain knows them all, yet Eddie comes up with the solution: Blain's weakness is questions of stupid nature such as why did the Chicken cross the street?
Blain's logical mind cannot stand such riddles and his circuits snap. It cannot solve the questions and it comes to a screeching stop at the end of the rail.
The Ka-Tet finds itself in another version of Topeka but this one has been struck by a plague. No one is left alive. This is reminiscent of Stephen King's The Stand, one of his monumental early novels.
In Topeka they stumble upon a thinny, which is an area in which reality has grown thin, another symptom of the Tower's weakening. The thinny is hungry for life and can cast a spell at those who come near it and swallow them whole. The Ka-Tet inquires as to how Roland knows about the thinny and indeed regarding his entire past, and Roland tells them the story of his adolescence.
Roland passed his manhood trial at fourteen the younger ever in Gilead, his home barony. After his trial, his father sends him and two of his friends to the barony of Mejis. This is done for fear that Marten, the man in black who has become Roland's mother's lover will kill him.
The Barony of Mejis is far barony in which no trouble is expected to befall Roland and his friends, Cuthbert and Alain. But trouble is there and in abundance, for Mejis has a lot of oil, and John Farson, Gilead's nemesis has discovered how to use it to fuel the ancient weapons of the Old People (Tanks of sorts). He had also sent for safe keeping one of the wizard's glasses: orbs of immense magical power. Mejis also has a thinny.
When Roland comes into Mejis he runs into Susan Delgado, a beautiful girl. The two fall intensely in love, yet she has been promised to be the mayor of Mejis's second wife.
The two meet continually in secret and Roland loves for the first and last time.
In Mejis agents of Farson who are in charge of the Wizard's Glass and the oil plot seize Roland and his friends and jail them. They intend to burn them alive in an ancient festival which is held in Mejis as they blame them as traitors who are working for Farson. Yet Susan aided by a retarded boy named Sheemie help them to escape and they set a trap for Farson's men, killing many and stealing the Wizard's Glass and drawing many more into the thinny which engulfs them. They also set fire to the oil field in Mejis, thus securing that Farson will not be able to tap into it again.
But Susan is killed. The town people catch her and she is burned alive. What is most troubling is that Roland sees his destiny within the Glass and knows that he must desert Susan for the Tower.
He heads back to Gilead with his friends.
When the story finishes, Roland and his Ka-Tet come upon a glass palace which is reminiscent of the wizard of Oz's. In it they come upon the man in black, Walter (also Marten) and nearly kill him. There another one of Roland's crimes is revealed: when he returned from Mejis, he was induced by magic to shoot his own mother. He is a matricide. The lengths to which Roland's quest has taken him, the deaths of his loved ones, is the series' underlying tragedy.
In my view this is the finest novel of the dark tower among the seven. It is beautifully written, suspenseful and touching. A must read.
Roland gives up as his riddles run out and it is clear that Blain knows them all, yet Eddie comes up with the solution: Blain's weakness is questions of stupid nature such as why did the Chicken cross the street?
Blain's logical mind cannot stand such riddles and his circuits snap. It cannot solve the questions and it comes to a screeching stop at the end of the rail.
The Ka-Tet finds itself in another version of Topeka but this one has been struck by a plague. No one is left alive. This is reminiscent of Stephen King's The Stand, one of his monumental early novels.
In Topeka they stumble upon a thinny, which is an area in which reality has grown thin, another symptom of the Tower's weakening. The thinny is hungry for life and can cast a spell at those who come near it and swallow them whole. The Ka-Tet inquires as to how Roland knows about the thinny and indeed regarding his entire past, and Roland tells them the story of his adolescence.
Roland passed his manhood trial at fourteen the younger ever in Gilead, his home barony. After his trial, his father sends him and two of his friends to the barony of Mejis. This is done for fear that Marten, the man in black who has become Roland's mother's lover will kill him.
The Barony of Mejis is far barony in which no trouble is expected to befall Roland and his friends, Cuthbert and Alain. But trouble is there and in abundance, for Mejis has a lot of oil, and John Farson, Gilead's nemesis has discovered how to use it to fuel the ancient weapons of the Old People (Tanks of sorts). He had also sent for safe keeping one of the wizard's glasses: orbs of immense magical power. Mejis also has a thinny.
When Roland comes into Mejis he runs into Susan Delgado, a beautiful girl. The two fall intensely in love, yet she has been promised to be the mayor of Mejis's second wife.
The two meet continually in secret and Roland loves for the first and last time.
In Mejis agents of Farson who are in charge of the Wizard's Glass and the oil plot seize Roland and his friends and jail them. They intend to burn them alive in an ancient festival which is held in Mejis as they blame them as traitors who are working for Farson. Yet Susan aided by a retarded boy named Sheemie help them to escape and they set a trap for Farson's men, killing many and stealing the Wizard's Glass and drawing many more into the thinny which engulfs them. They also set fire to the oil field in Mejis, thus securing that Farson will not be able to tap into it again.
But Susan is killed. The town people catch her and she is burned alive. What is most troubling is that Roland sees his destiny within the Glass and knows that he must desert Susan for the Tower.
He heads back to Gilead with his friends.
When the story finishes, Roland and his Ka-Tet come upon a glass palace which is reminiscent of the wizard of Oz's. In it they come upon the man in black, Walter (also Marten) and nearly kill him. There another one of Roland's crimes is revealed: when he returned from Mejis, he was induced by magic to shoot his own mother. He is a matricide. The lengths to which Roland's quest has taken him, the deaths of his loved ones, is the series' underlying tragedy.
In my view this is the finest novel of the dark tower among the seven. It is beautifully written, suspenseful and touching. A must read.
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