For those keeping score: I’ve continued my return pilgrimage to The Dark Tower, recently completing the third novel in this epic tale. The Waste Lands brings Roland further along the path of the Beam toward his ultimate destination. This time, there are a few more members in the ka-tet, and the devastation of a world that has “moved on” becomes clearer.
Throughout this third novel, Jake is welcomed back into Roland’s world and is officially part of the gang. Even more delightfully, Oy the billy-bumbler joins Roland’s quest too. Oy is perhaps my favourite character in any literature. Billy bumblers are described as small, intelligent, raccoon-like animals native to Roland’s world. They have long bodies, striped fur, bright inquisitive eyes, a long tongue, and a ringed tail. They can mimic human speech in short, simple phrases, often sounding almost like a talking dog. They are loyal, social creatures, and some form deep bonds with humans.
As you read that description, another creature may come to mind: the humble corgi. As my profile picture can attest, I am a certified Corgi Enthusiast, and in my mind’s eye Oy is an evolved form of the humble Pembroke. My head-canon is that King was of the same mind, as he too is a corgi person, having his own corgi, Molly.
Anyway, back to the story.
As Roland, Eddie and Susannah continue their journey beyond the beaches with the doors to New York and make their way inland, Roland begins to lose his grip on reality. His mind is divided by false memories, and it’s tearing his soul apart. You see, in the first book of the Dark Tower series, Roland lets Jake Chambers fall to his death in his single-minded pursuit of the Tower. Yet back in New York, Jake continues to live. There’s been timey-wimey fuckery, and Roland’s mind is splitting under the weight. Similarly, Jake lives on in New York, steadily losing his own grip on reality. He knows he died. He knows when it happened. And yet the time comes and passes, and he lives on. It becomes clear that Jake must join the ka-tet in order for fractured realities—and fractured minds—to heal.
As with The Drawing of the Three, it seems my memory of this story was way off base. I thought The Waste Lands was mainly about Blaine (the Pain), the insane monorail with whom the ka-tet must riddle in order to reach their destination alive… But Blaine only enters this novel in the final chapters and the riddling journey awaits in the next novel. Instead, we meet other memorable characters in The Waste Lands: a haunted house that tries to eat a child, an old group of farmers clinging to life through sheer grit, and a clock-obsessed Nazi. If that sounds mad, it’s because it is. But it’s also engaging, affecting, and has absolutely hooked me (again).
This series hits all the right notes for me, and I cannot wait to jump into Wizard and Glass and listen is as I sweat my way through a southern-hemisphere summer of runs.
Five tracking bumblers out of five.