Ana V.

It's always weird, coming back to a series of which you haven't read in a long time. I read the first four books of the Dark Tower series when I was sixteen, and the story seemed to remain burned in my brain. I needed only to read the little resumee at the beginning of Wolves of Calla and everything sprang back up to life.

"The Wind Through the Keyhole" isn't exactly "part" of the story of Roland, Eddie, Susannah and Jake. It's more of a pause in the music of this work. As Stephen King himself says in the introduction to it, we can all call it the 4.5 book in the series, even though it was written after the others were. The next one, in logical order, would be Wolves of Calla.

Because this is not an important part in the story of Roland's search for the Dark Tower, you have to have patience with the story, because it ads nothing new to that segment. On the other hand, if you are a big enough fan of this world itself, you will devour it just because of its setting, language and style.

King has an amazing feel for characters. Creating and presenting them in the right light seems to be a piece of cake for him. Killing them off, just the same. Rarely have I seen better dynamics from the character's point of view, other than in his books.

"The Wind Through the Keyhole" is written as a story inside of another story - sort of like a russian doll. It starts out with the four we were already accustomed with, being in danger because of a "starkblast" - an ice storm of such power that everything it touches freezes in an instant and dies. Roland, Eddie, Susannah, Jake, and his billybumbler Oy search for shelter, and when they find it, it unquestionably becomes the time for stories. Roland, gunslinger of Gilead, reminisces of his mother and the story she used to tell him: The Wind Through the Keyhole. So he starts to tell them this story, about a boy of eleven, Tim, his father, Big Ross, his mother, Nell.. dragons, wizards, the Path.. and RF, the misterious Dark Man (The Walking Dude of "The Stand", for the ones who know King's work in its entirety), the one with many names and many faces.. Known to some as Randal Flagg, to others as Marten Broadcloack, and his plan of destroying the world with the help of the Dark Tower.

Everpresent through this book is King's flawless style, a libertine type of writing, complex and yet simple language and dark humor all over.

I just got started on the fifth book, because I got these two and the last two of the series for my 18th birthday and I am hooked again into it.

Dark Tower, I will find out what's it that Roland sees in you, I promise.

Thankee-sai.