The Wind Through the Keyhole

7 Punkte

Not totally necessary to the larger story, but severely charming.

I decided to read this “interquel” in its chronological placement in The Dark Tower, after book 4, Wizard and Glass. That book was my favorite so far in the series, precisely for the reason many people think it’s a slog to get through; it told a story-within-a-story from the main character Roland’s past, a self-contained flashback. I liked that story even better than I like the serial narrative of the main story. It was a bit more cohesive. (If I hadn’t liked it as much, I probably would have skipped this book and saved it for last, as many Constant Readers suggest, as a nostalgia trip.) The same holds true for this book, in which Roland first tells another story from his youth, but then his younger self tells another story within that story again. This tale is even more self-contained: It’s a fairy tale of sorts from the land of Mid-World. My favorite aspect of this series is the world-building and the lore we learn over time, and there’s plenty of it here. The veracity of this fairy tale is uncertain, but it contains several plot points that fit well with the rest of the myths and facts of the world. Unlike Wizard and Glass, though, this tale is more thrilling and fast-paced, and is much better for it. It’s just simply a great story. However, the “middle” story of the young Roland telling the main tale is more or less superfluous. It adds little to the series, but is also shorter and less importance is put on it anyway. These two books have been a great little detour from The Path of the Beam, but I’m excited to be back on it now. All things serve it, you know.

“The stories we hear in childhood are the ones we remember all our lives.” The Wind Through the Keyhole is a story within a story within yet another story. It’s a Russian nesting doll of a book of the highest class. No, the highest caliber is a more fitting description, I suppose, for this gunslinger’s fairytale. I loved it in the same way I loved The Eyes of the Dragon , but perhaps even more fervently. Actually, I did something I don’t recall ever doing before; I left a bookmark right at the beginning of the fairytale portion when I re-shelved the book, so I could flip it open and read just that section whenever I choose. “Sometimes I feel the world has come loose of its moorings.” “It has,” I said. “But what comes loose can be tied tight again…” The Wind Through the Keyhole is the last Dark Tower story King wrote and added to the main series, but it takes place chronologically between books 4 and 5, Wizard and Glass and Wolves of the Calla. So that’s where I decided to read it. This story picks up immediately where Wizard and Glass left off, with Roland and his ka-tet leaving Lud. As they shelter from a terrifying storm called a starkblast, Roland tells the ka-tet an account from his youth, within which is embedded a gunslinger’s fable, The Wind Through the Keyhole, that his mother read to him when he was little. It’s this most internal story, this eponymous fable, that stole my heart in this book. I enjoyed both framework tales quite a bit, but something about The Wind Through the Keyhole struck me as special, even more magical than this series that has so captured my imagination over the past few years. This fable is the story of Tim, a boy of eleven who has a wonderful life on the edge of a deadly forest until the day it takes his father from him and Nell, Tim’s mother. Life after that is hard, and grows harder, until Tim embarks on a quest, an adventure the likes of which his world had never seen. King did a brilliant job balancing the stark and deadly against the dreamlike and beautiful. I was completely captivated. “Time is a keyhole, he thought as he looked up at the stars. Yes, I think so. We sometimes bend and peer through it. And the wind we feel on our cheeks when we do—the wind that blows through that keyhole—is the breath of all the living universe.” While the fable portion was one of my favorite things ever, I really loved the rest of the book, as well. The series as a whole is this wonderful blend of fantasy, horror, and western genres that work together weirdly well, and there’s something about that mix in King’s hands that pulls me in immediately. The setting is unlike anything else I’ve ever read, and I love it. I would hate to be sucked into it, obviously; it’s one of the deadliest settings I’ve come across, as well. But I love the visits I can make safely from my couch as I read the books. “A person’s never to old for stories, Bill. Man and boy, girl and woman, never too old. We live for them.” Then there are the characters. Roland is just a wonderful character who has developed so much over the course of this series. And I’ve loved the building of his ka-tet, and the characters who make that up. These other four characters are all delightful in their own ways, though I won’t discuss them by name here for fear of spoiling previous books. But suffice it to say that this core group, this ka-tet that Roland has accidentally accrued over the course of the series is diverse, well-rounded, and bursting with charm and heart. Every chance I get to spend time with them feels special. There was also an appearance by the Covenant Man within Roland’s story-within-a-story, a man who is known by so many other names in King’s worlds, which always gives me a thrill. “He’s made of lies from boots to crown, and his gospels bring nothing but tears.” I’m going to share something random that isn’t going to make a lot of sense if you have no exposure to this series, but it made my little nerd heart grow three sizes. I don’t think it could be considered a spoiler, but I apologize if I’m wrong. There are twelve Guardians of the Beam, huge sentient creatures who protect the Tower and hold creation together. The Guardian most often referenced in King’s work is the Turtle, Maturin. In this book the name of the Lion guardian is revealed to be Aslan, which just made my Narnia-loving self explode with happiness. It’s the small things in life, right? And this was one of my small things. "In the end, the wind takes everything, doesn’t it? And why not? Why other? If the sweetness of our lives did not depart, there would be no sweetness at all.” I have to confess that I had a few sharp moments of sadness not having Frank Muller read this installment to me. I opted to read this book with my eyeballs only, instead of mixing my mediums as I did with the second, third, and fourth books. King reads this one himself and, while I’ve muscled my way through a handful of his self-narrated works, I knew I wouldn’t be able to help but compare his voice to Muller’s reading of this ka-tet I’ve so grown to love. And, somehow, I could hear Muller’s cadence in my mind as I read, which made me happier than I can express. “The two most beautiful words in any language are: I forgive.” I adored The Wind Through the Keyhole with every fiber of my being. I hugged it when I finished reading it. Was it perfect? Of course not. I’m sure I could find things to critique. But I didn’t even really look, if I’m being honest. I simply let myself love the experience of reading it. It’s one of those rare books that I can see myself revisiting on a bad day, not to read it from cover to cover but to just open it to the section I love the most and let myself sink into the fable at its heart. I still have three books to go, so I can’t say with any kind of certainty what kind of impact this book had on the story when it was published after the series was considered completed. And maybe the series could stand without it perfectly well. But I’m so glad that it doesn’t have to. I’m glad that King decided to revisit the Tower and brought readers back this fairytale of a gift. You can find this review and more at Novel Notions.

Jumping back into Roland and his ka-tet's world is always welcome and much like Wizard and Glass this is more of another glimpse into Roland's past. The Wind Through the Keyhole is set between Wizard and Glass and The Wolves of the Calla in the Dark Tower series. The ka-tet are hunkered down to wait out a storm and Roland tells them a story to pass the time and in that story is another story about a boy, Tim Ross and a wonderful adventure he has. Though it doesn't add very much to the Dark Tower mythos this is a wonderful story more in the tradition of a fairy tale than anything else and is well worth the read.

Whilst I was initially annoyed that the novel was not going to explore Roland’s past in a significant way, what I ended up getting was one of the most beautiful and elegiac of any of the Dark Tower novels. This might be my favourite of them all, just behind Wizard and Glass. King’s nesting doll structure of a novel works wonders - we essentially get two novellas and a short story. And the whole thing works as a beautiful and tragic exploration of Roland’s tortured relationship with his mother. As the Guardian has said, the novel is enchanting - and I was enchanted.

It was a good story, but I'm really not a huge fan of the whole, story within a story within a story.

It was so nice being back in the world of Gunslingers, billy bumblers and Roland's ka-tet! This story is really a story within a story (within a story?) which might be obnoxious written by most authors, but if you've read the rest of the Dark Tower, you know Stephen King does whatever the hell he feels like and you're just along for the ride. In his capable hands, you somehow care about each nested story more than the last. Pieces of the stories overlap in a organic way so that it doesn't seem forced or like a prescribed writing exercise. I'll say a little bit about each story here: Story 1: Starkblast The beginning of this book starts just after the events in Wizard and Glass (book 4 of the Dark Tower series), which is probably my favorite of the 7 book series. Like The Wind Through the Keyhole, most of Wizard and Glass is Roland telling his ka-tet about something that happened to him when he was a young gunslinger. It took me a few pages to remember where the ka-tet was in the overall story, since each character has their own character development arc over the series, but for the most part you don't have to reread Wizard and Glass to understand or remember where the characters are in that arc. The portion of The Wind through the Keyhole that actually takes place during the "present" between book 4 and 5, is very minimal. King only keeps the reader there long enough to see that a storm causes the ka-tet to pause in their travels along the path of the Beam, where Roland begins to tell them a story. Story 2: The Skin-man The first nested story is that of a much younger Roland and another Gunslinger in training (Jaime) going on a mission to find a supernatural murderer amongst a small town. This story unfolds pretty much exactly like a Supernatural episode, which I loved. The town has had a gruesome string of deaths and their only lead is a enormous bear that the locals suspect is a skin-walker. So Roland and Jaime must figure out who in the town is the culprit, with the help of a terrified boy who saw the murders happen. My only criticism of this section was I wanted it to be longer. I love learning more about Rolland as a young Gunslinger (why Wizard and Glass is my favorite!), and this section is peppered with delicious foreshadow for the rest of the series, which just reminded me how much I love Roland and his story. While a trap is being set for the murderer, Roland tries to calm the boy who witnessed the murders with a story, bringing us to the next nested story. Story 3: The Wind through the Keyhole The Wind through the Keyhole is told in a fable/bedtime story style, with a very natural rhythm and cadence. This story actually takes up the majority of the book, which I suppose makes sense since it shares the title of the book, but unfortunately, Rolland is NOT in it so it wasn't my favorite of the three (duh lol). What happens in the story does get tied in with the other two stories though so it make sense in the end why it's being told, but a lot of it still felt a little like filler when looking at the Dark Tower series as a whole, hence the 4 stars instead of 5. In the end, although I found the third story compelling and interesting as a stand alone, it didn't have quite enough tie-ins to the actual Dark Tower series for me to be totally captivated. Especially in the middle of the story where there is a lull that I found myself skim reading through and looking ahead to see how far I had to go before the end. I did love how the Tiger on the cover gets woven into the story, and it is just as magical and beautiful a turn as I would expect from Stephen King. Mostly, I would be happy to read anything set in this universe so it was a pretty low bar for me rating wise haha Just hearing all our favorite phrases again (I say thankya, ka is a wheel, you kennit?) warmed my heart and made me want to dive into this series all over again!