u/Anneonymous1126

Having finished my second read-through I’ve been looking around and talking and I see a lot of people have The Gunslinger pretty low on their list of favorite DT books and I can get it. It’s definitely the strangest prose-wise, it’s dreamy, short, uneven, and Roland’s Ka-yet isn’t assembled and Roland alone can be a bit of a pill. He’s a hard protagonist to relate to at first but I think I have a very very special place in my heart for the Gunslinger.

Maybe I like it because it feels so different, it’s so standalone and weird and I have such fond memories of the first copy I read. It’s gonna sound weird but it was a library copy and it was thoroughly read, smelled of cigarette smoke, and I’m no smoker but I actually kinda liked that. Anyone else have that? Fond feelings for a certain smell on books? I should have hated it but it almost gave it this extra level of rugged magic.

I like the set pieces, I like seeing Roland at his peak, I like the set piece in Tull and in the mines, I adore Randall Flagg as a villain so his presence also really boosts this for me.

I also think there’s added depth to it on a second read through when you view this as the one moment where things could have gone well and Roland makes the fateful choices that doom himself and his ka-tet later on.

I’ve gone through the tower twice but I’ve read the Gunslinger 4 times. I had a few aborted trips to the tower and maybe my fondness is in part because of familiarity but it’s just a special book to me and I don’t know if I’m the only one that feels the same fondness for it.

Are you a The Gunslinger lover? Or are you more of a “Just get to the Drawing” type of Gunslinger?

Me when I’m in a Stephen King book and I meet my new coworker “Ronald Fletcher”:

Am I the Only One Who Truly Loves The Gunslinger?

Finished my Second Read-through…