The Dark Tower

I'm still plugging my way through the seventh book. June 19th features heavily in the narrative, and so today felt kind of like Halloween or something.

No, but seriously. Reading the series has really done a lot to make me become aware of a lot of my perceptions and assumptions about life, and people. One of my favorite characters just died - well, two of them, actually. At first their deaths seemed grossly unfair, but as I thought about it I found ways to trace their demise back to their own choices and attitudes. I don't mean to say that I felt that the characters "deserved" to die, just that they undertook a certain path with the full knowledge that they might not make it to the end, and that was nobody's choice save their own. Nor was there very much dramatic heroism - heroism, certainly, but nothing showy.

At this point (without having reached the climax, or the end yet) I feel like I could sum up the theme of the series just by saying: things happen. What makes these characters so lovable is not that they are perfect, but that they are genuine. The fact that they have a goal that they're so wholeheartedly devoted to doesn't compensate for their flaws, but it gives their struggles real meaning and context. I think many of us would be happier having that sort of purpose - it's okay to fall down if you're going to the one place you want to go more than anything. Maybe it's even okay to die before making it there (again, incomplete book knowledge here) because maybe the point isn't so much that one purpose is more worthy than another, but just having a purpose makes all of the difference.

Why is it so hard, then? I absolutely love that King brings his own struggles as a writer into the story, because it's such a powerful reminder that all the inspiring philosophy in the world isn't much to stand up against laziness or fear.

Hypochondriac

I think when we're in the middle of a really good book, or movie, or tv show, or whatever - one that's really compelling - it's really easy to want to try and pull a bit of that universe into our own.

I've been reading my way through the Dark Tower series, and am almost done with the fifth book so I went out to get the sixth and seventh today. I looked all over Borders and couldn't find Stephen King books in any of the usual places, so I asked someone. It was good I did, because (aside from finding out where the King repository is) he showed me their "bargain hardcover" rack where they were selling books six and seven (only those) dirt cheap, for less money than I had in my wallet. I wouldn't have ever checked there on my own. It was pretty cool.

Also, I'm going to be pretty useless until I finish the series. I'm getting really attached to some of the characters, and have sinking feeling about where things are going, and what the books are going to end up saying about human nature.

Last Lecture

I started reading Randy Pausch's "Last Lecture" book this morning, and didn't make it very far in. I got through the introduction and the first chapter, and then I just put it down.

It upset me for reasons that probably aren't obvious - unfortunately, they aren't too closely related to the fact that he is very sick and dying. Don't get me wrong - that inherently is deeply upsetting, and cause for quite a bit of somberness. However, there were a couple other things that really stood out to me in his opening, and I'd like to grok them better.

Has anyone else read it, or started to read it? I would very much like to discuss, preferably with both CMU as well as non-CMU folk, because I think there are a lot of unique CMU attitudes in the book, but I'm curious about how much they stand out to others.