Since the Gunslinger was my favorite book from Stephen King's Dark Tower series, and one of my favorite King books in general, I ordered the revised version a while back. For those not in the know, since the Gunslinger was written long before any of the other books, and over a span of some twelve years, it kind of sticks out in language and style when compared to its successors. Plus, there's several plot mistakes for later on. After finishing the entire Dark Tower series (the last books will be published later this month, in the summer of 2004 and November 2004), King re-wrote the Gunslinger, the story being the same but sentences altered and some pieces rewritten alltogether.
I was curious as to what was changed, and knew for myself that a lot of things didn't fit in with the rest of the series, but it became a bit of a mess.
In the Gunslinger, Farson is mentioned as a town that is to be poisoned per order of the Good Man, the leader of the rebellion. In later books this Good Man becomes known as John Farson, so that was changed. The town is now called Farson. However, King now seems to suggest that John Farson is Marten, who is also Walter AND the Man in Black.
The language of the original book was very alienating and out there, and a lot of that has been fixed so the reader can understand better what's going on. But it's like no notes were kept at all. For instance, here's a passage from the original:
Quote:
The man in black smiled. "Shall we tell the truth then, you and I? No more lies? No more glammer?"
Roland: "Glammer? What does that mean?"
(...)
Roland: "Then we'll speak the truth." He had never spoken less on this night. "Start by telling me what glammer is."
|
And revised:
Quote:
The man in black smiled. "Shall we tell the truth then, you and I? No more lies?"
Roland: "I thought we had been."
(...)
Roland: "Well, I wouldn't want to tire you, so let us speak the truth." He had never spoken less on this night. "Start by telling me what exactly you mean by glammer."
|
It's nitpicking, but I'm mainly using it as an example. The man in black never mentions glammer, and Roland asks him what it is.
Other than that, there's a great deal more mentioning of names of characters from the following books. Roland also recognizes Sheb the piano player from his vision in the pink ball. The death of Allie, the bartender from Tull, is largely re-written, seemingly to soften the circumstances in which Roland kills her; in the end she actually begs for him to shoot her.
The speech of the characters is changed to align more with the half-made up country dialect that you hear mostly in the Waste Lands, which makes some sense, since Roland started out using a lot more contemporary speech ("How they hanging?" "You dudes live in town?"), but it's a bit exaggerated. Even when beyond Tull and alone with Jake, Roland speaks an overly gruff dialect with lots of "Yar" thrown in. Jake, in turn, picks up a lot of his expressions, but that seems mainly to illustrate that he's rapidly forgetting his own world and adjusting to the Gunslinger's.
It's hard to form an opinion on it when you know it's meant to be read mainly by people who are new to it, but I felt it might've been changed a bit too drastically in places. Still looking forward to the next book though, mainly because I'm curious to hear more about Roland's past.
There's something else that's kind of funny and kind of disturbing about this book - there's full-color illustrations added in this versions, and in a scene that depicts a young Roland and Cuthbert at the hanging of Hax, Roland's face is clearly that of Stephen King. If I get a chance I'll scan it and you can decide if I'm crazy or not.
Linear Mode
