{"id":1838,"date":"2018-03-27T20:22:49","date_gmt":"2018-03-28T00:22:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/?p=1838"},"modified":"2018-03-27T20:23:54","modified_gmt":"2018-03-28T00:23:54","slug":"the-drawing-of-the-three","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/the-drawing-of-the-three\/","title":{"rendered":"The Drawing of the Three"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Drawing of the Three<\/em><\/a>\u00a0by Stephen King is the second volume in\u00a0The Dark Tower<\/em>, his epic, cross-genre novel series. I enjoyed the first novel,\u00a0The Gunslinger<\/em><\/a>, but for me, this is where\u00a0The Dark Tower<\/em>\u00a0really starts to get interesting.<\/p>\n

One of the aspects of\u00a0<\/em>the novel\u00a0that I found particularly interesting\u00a0was King\u2019s narrative technique of having Roland (the main protagonist) enter into the minds of the other characters he is \u201cdrawing\u201d to Mid-World, his own land: Eddie the heroin addict, Odetta\/Detta the dissociative identity sufferer, and Jack Mort the serial killer.<\/p>\n

Roland finds portals to the other characters\u2019 minds along a desolate stretch of beach along the Western Ocean; the doors will only open for him. As he steps into each portal, he initially views what the other characters view through their eyes as if he\u2019s looking at a movie screen in a darkened theatre. But he can step further into the characters, controlling them directly and experiencing events and sensations as if their bodies were his own.<\/p>\n

More important, he uses the portals to gain access to their thoughts, knowledge, and histories. Through his possession, Roland learns about these strangers he is bringing to Mid-World to serve as his at-first-unwilling compatriots before he pulls them through. This is information that the reader could gain in other narrative ways \u2013 King has used multiple viewpoint characters from the first book in\u00a0The Dark Tower<\/em>\u00a0series \u2013 but there\u2019s no other way that these characters could convey their back stories to Roland in a manner that the suspicious gunslinger would fully believe. They cannot lie to the frightening stranger inside their heads, and he knows that. So the portals force a kind of intimacy and truthfulness that the characters could not quickly gain in any other way.<\/p>\n

The reader mostly gets these scenes from Roland\u2019s perspective. But we do get some scenes from Eddie, Detta, and Jack\u2019s perspectives that reveal what it\u2019s like to be possessed by Roland: sometimes he\u2019s a physical itch, but sometimes he\u2019s a frightening, disorienting force.<\/p>\n

Nothing that King does here struck me as particularly novel or groundbreaking per se, but it all works. The movie analogy is intuitive, and how else to best explain what Roland experiences when he is inhabiting others\u2019 minds but not fully possessing them? It conveys this potentially complex experience fully to the reader in an easily understandable way that doesn\u2019t bog down the narrative flow. There\u2019s a good lesson in narrative simplicity there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Drawing of the Three\u00a0by Stephen King is the second volume in\u00a0The Dark Tower, his epic, cross-genre novel series. I enjoyed the first novel,\u00a0The Gunslinger, […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1840,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[31],"tags":[108],"class_list":["post-1838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-review","tag-stephen-king"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/the-dark-tower-ii-the-drawing-of-the-three-2-e1522196624333.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8qT6f-tE","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1834,"url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/the-gunslinger\/","url_meta":{"origin":1838,"position":0},"title":"The Gunslinger","author":"Lucy A. Snyder","date":"March 27, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"The Gunslinger\u00a0is the first novel in\u00a0The Dark Tower, Stephen King\u2019s classic, epic cross-genre series. It introduces the reader to the last gunslinger, Roland of Gilead, as he pursues The Man in Black across a vast land\u00a0laid to waste. The setting\u00a0is part Wild West, part medieval fantasy, and part far-future dystopia.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "book review"","block_context":{"text":"book review","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/category\/book-review\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/gunslinger.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/gunslinger.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/gunslinger.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/gunslinger.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/gunslinger.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/gunslinger.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1498,"url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/the-braided-novel\/","url_meta":{"origin":1838,"position":1},"title":"The Braided Novel","author":"Lucy A. Snyder","date":"July 26, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"It's pretty easy to confuse a braided novel with a fix-up novel. What\u2019s the difference? A braided novel follows multiple viewpoint characters, each of whom has his or her own story, and the stories interweave and converge at or near the climax of the book. If the individual stories are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "novel"","block_context":{"text":"novel","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/category\/novel\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/thestand.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/thestand.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/thestand.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/thestand.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/thestand.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/thestand.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":645,"url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/book-review-devils-tower-by-mark-sumner\/","url_meta":{"origin":1838,"position":2},"title":"Book Review: Devil’s Tower by Mark Sumner","author":"Lucy A. Snyder","date":"August 3, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"A Review of Mark Sumner's novel Devil's Tower (Del Rey, 1996) Devil's Tower is a sprawling, entertaining novel that blurs the boundaries between fantasy, western and horror. Set in an alternate Wild West ruled by hexes and conjurations, it tells the tale of Jake Bird, a reluctant hero who begins\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "book review"","block_context":{"text":"book review","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/category\/book-review\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1827,"url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/on-being-nineteen\/","url_meta":{"origin":1838,"position":3},"title":"On Being Nineteen","author":"Lucy A. Snyder","date":"March 20, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"When I started reading Stephen King\u2019s\u00a0Dark Tower\u00a0novels, one of the things that resonated with me is his introduction, \u201cOn Being Nineteen\u201d, which is included in each book in the series (at least the editions I\u2019ve been reading). In his essay, King covers his motivations for starting\u00a0The Gunslinger\u00a0way back when he\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "dark fantasy"","block_context":{"text":"dark fantasy","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/category\/dark-fantasy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Stephen_King_-_2011-e1521558863827.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Stephen_King_-_2011-e1521558863827.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Stephen_King_-_2011-e1521558863827.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Stephen_King_-_2011-e1521558863827.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Stephen_King_-_2011-e1521558863827.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Stephen_King_-_2011-e1521558863827.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1844,"url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/the-waste-lands\/","url_meta":{"origin":1838,"position":4},"title":"The Waste Lands","author":"Lucy A. Snyder","date":"March 29, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Early on\u00a0The Waste Lands\u00a0(the third book in The Dark Tower series by Stephen King), protagonists Roland, Eddie, and Susannah encounter Shardik, a gigantic bear who is at first portrayed as a kind of ancient wilderness deity: Once, the Old People had lived in the West Woods (it was their leavings\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "book review"","block_context":{"text":"book review","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/category\/book-review\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/the-dark-tower-iii-the-waste-lands-2-e1522344356246.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/the-dark-tower-iii-the-waste-lands-2-e1522344356246.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/the-dark-tower-iii-the-waste-lands-2-e1522344356246.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/the-dark-tower-iii-the-waste-lands-2-e1522344356246.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/the-dark-tower-iii-the-waste-lands-2-e1522344356246.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1463,"url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/classic-horror-novels\/","url_meta":{"origin":1838,"position":5},"title":"An Overview of Classic Horror Novels Written by Women","author":"Lucy A. Snyder","date":"July 19, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"How does a horror novel become a classic? First of all, it has to be good, or at least unusually compelling. But quality alone doesn\u2019t ensure that a book will become a classic: it also has to be read, admired, and spread widely enough to inspire other creators. There are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "gender"","block_context":{"text":"gender","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/category\/gender\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/shelley-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/shelley-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/shelley-1.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/shelley-1.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/shelley-1.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/shelley-1.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1838"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1841,"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1838\/revisions\/1841"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}