by Robin Furth
12. In the final two books of the Dark Tower series, King enters the tale directly. In fact, at one point King calls himself the deus ex machina, or the “god out of a machine.” What is your reaction to King’s appearance in the Dark Tower series? What place does the fictional Stephen King have in the Dark Tower universe? What about the real Stephen King?
13. According to the people of the Tet Corporation, there is a direct link between the Dark Tower series and King’s other fiction. What is it? Do you view King’s various novels as pieces of a giant jigsaw puzzle, with the Dark Tower novels at the center? Why or why not? If you don’t see King’s fiction in this way (or if you haven’t read many of King’s other books), think about any King films you’ve seen, or any episodes of his various TV series. Are there any themes that seem to repeat?
14. What are the can-toi? What are the taheen? How are they the same and how are they different? King compares the taheen to the monstrous figures found in Hieronymus Bosch’s famous triptych, The Garden of Earthly Delights, painted circa AD 1500. Take a look at this painting. (It’s fairly easy to find. Just type Hieronymus Bosch, and Garden of Earthly Delights, into your search engine.) As you will see, when the triptych is closed, its outer shutters depict the creation of the world. When the triptych is open, the left panel depicts Adam and Eve and the earthly paradise, the center panel illustrates the world engaged in sinful pleasures, and the right panel (where our taheen-like creatures appear) represents Hell. How are King’s creations similar to these painted figures? By drawing this comparison, what other, unspoken comments is King making about End-World, the Devar-Toi, and the Crimson King?
15. At the beginning of The Dark Tower, Jake reflects upon one of Roland’s sayings. According to our gunslinger, “You needn’t die happy when your day comes, but you must die satisfied, for you have lived your life from beginning to end and ka is always served.” What does this statement mean? Do you agree or disagree with the philosophy it expresses? Take a look at each member of Roland’s ka-tet: Eddie, Susannah, Jake, Oy, Callahan, and even Roland himself. Do any or all of them remain true to this vision?
16. At the beginning of Wolves of the Calla, Stephen King includes a section entitled “The Final Argument.” According to this introductory piece, each of the seven novels of the Dark Tower series has a subtitle. Moving, in order, from The Gunslinger to Song of Susannah, these subtitles are “Resumption,” “Renewal,” “Redemption,” “Regard,” “Resistance,” and “Reproduction.” In terms of Roland’s quest, what is the meaning of each of these subtitles?
17. Although each of the first six novels of the Dark Tower series has a single-word subtitle, The Dark Tower (the final book of the series) has a four-word subtitle. It is “Reproduction, Revelation, Redemption, Resumption.” How does this subtitle reflect the action of the novel? How does it interact with the subtitles of the previous novels? If you sit and contemplate the meaning of each of the words in The Dark Tower’s subtitle, does it affect your interpretation of the novel’s ending? How does it affect your interpretation of Roland’s quest?
APPENDIX IX VERSIONS OF THE COMMALA SONG
The Commala Song is probably one of the most important songs found in Mid-World. It is sung in the Calla, but it was also sung in In-World during Roland’s youth. The version which the Calla folken sing during their welcoming fiesta (and to which Roland dances at the beginning of Wolves of the Calla) is listed below. Following it you will find some of the Commala’s variants, found throughout the rest of the series.
COMMALA
(THE RICE SONG)
CALLA BRYN STURGIS VERSION
Song and Dance in Honor of Lady Oriza, Lady of the Rice.
SINGER/DANCER: Do I not give you joy from my joy, and the water I carried with the strength of my arm and my heart?
CHORUS: Give you to eat of the green-crop.
SINGER/DANCER: Give you joy of the rice.
CHORUS: Come! . . . Come! . . . Come!
Come-come-commala
Rice come a-falla
I-sisser ’ay-a-bralla
Dey come a-folla
Down come-a rivva
Or-i-za we kivva
Rice be a green-o
See what we seen-o
Seen-o the green-o
Come-come-commala!
Come-come-commala
Rice come a-falla
Deep inna walla
Grass come-commala
Under the sky-o
Grass green n high-o
Girl n her fella
Lie down togetha
They slippy ’ay slide-o
Under ‘ay sky-o
Come-come-commala
Rice come a-falla!
CHORUS: COMMALA!
CALLA CHILDREN’S VERSION
ROLAND’S TET OVERHEARS THE CALLA’S PREPUBESCENT TWINS SINGING THIS VERSION WHILE THEY MARCH BEHIND ANDY THE MESSENGER ROBOT. (V:587–88)
Commala-come-one!
Mamma had a son!
Dass-a time ’ at Daddy
Had d’mos’ fun!
Commala-come-come!
Daddy had one!
Dass-a time ’ at Mommy
Had d’mos’ fun!
Commala-come-two!
You know what to do!
Plant the rice commala,
Don’t ye be . . . no . . . foo’!
Commala-come-two!
Daddy no foo’!
Mommy plant commala
cause she know jus’ what to do!
Commala-come-t’ree!
You know what t’be
Plant d’rice commala
and d’rice’ll make ya free!
Commala-come-t’ree!
Rice’ll make ya free!
When ya plant the rice commala
You know jus’ what to be!
EAST ROAD BATTLE VERSION
The people of the Calla add this verse to the Commala Song after the battle of the East Road. It honors Lady Oriza for hiding the Calla’s children in her rice. (v:689)
Come-come-commala
Rice come a-falla
I-sissa ’ay a-bralla
Dey come a-folla
We went to a-rivva
’Riza did us kivva.
SONG OF SUSANNAH VERSION
One stave and response from this version of the Commala Song can be found at the end of each Stanza section in Song of Susannah. (VI:18, VI:43–44, VI:58, VI:75, VI:98, VI:154, VI:173, VI:216, VI:261, VI:303, VI:344, VI:384–85, VI:411)
STAVE
Commala-come-come
There’s a young man with a gun.
Young man lost his honey
When she took it on the run.
RESPONSE
Commala-come-come!
She took it on the run!
Left her baby lonely but
Her baby ain’t done.
STAVE
Commala-come-coo
The wind’ll blow ya through.
Ya gotta go where ka’s wind blows ya
Cause there’s nothing else to do.
RESPONSE
Commala-come-two!
Nothin’ else to do!
Gotta go where ka’s wind blows ya
Cause there’s nothing else to do.
STAVE
Commala-come-key
Can ya tell me what ya see?
Is it ghosts or just the mirror
That makes ya want to flee?
RESPONSE
Commala-come-three!
I beg ya, tell me!
Is it ghosts or just your darker self
That makes ya want to flee?
STAVE
Commala-come-ko
Whatcha doin at my do’?
If you doan tell me now, my friend,
I’ll lay ya on de flo’.
RESPONSE
Commala-come-fo’!
I can lay ya low!
The things I done to such as you
You never want to know.
STAVE
Ain’t it grand to be alive?
To look out on Discordia
When the Demon Moon arrives.
RESPONSE
Commala-come-five!
Even when the shadows rise!
To see the world and walk the world
Makes ya glad to be alive.
STAVE
Commala-mox-nix!
You’re in a nasty fix!
To take the hand in a traitor’s glove
Is to grasp a sheaf of sticks!
RESPONSE
Commala-come-six!
Nothing there but thorns and sticks!
When you find your hand in a traitor’s glove
You’re in a nasty fix.
STAVE
Commala-loaf-leaven!
They go to Hell or up to Heaven!
When the guns are shot and the fire’s hot,
You got to poke em in the oven.
RESPONSE
Commala-come-seven!
Salt and yow’ for leaven!
Heat em up and knock em down
And poke em in the oven.
STAVE
Commala-ka-kate.
You’re in the hands of fate.
No matter if you’re real or not,
The hour groweth late.
RESPONSE
Commala-come-eight!
The hour groweth late!
No matter what the shade ya cast
You’re in the hands of fate.
STAVE
Commala-me-mine
You have to walk the line.
When you finally get the thing you need
It makes you feel so fine.
RESPONSE
Commala-come-nine!
It makes ya feel fine!
But if you’d have the thing you need
You have to walk the line.
STAVE
Commala-come-ken
It’s the other one again.
You may know her name and face
But that don’t make her your friend.
RESPONSE
Commala-come-ten!
She is not your friend!
If you let her get too close
She’ll cut you up again.
STAVE
Commala-come-call
We hail the One who made us all,
Who made the men and made the maids,
Who made the great and small.
RESPONSE
Commala-come-call!
He made the great and small!
And yet how great the hand of fate
That rules us one and all.
STAVE
Commala-come-ki,
There’s a time to live and one to die.
With your back against the final wall
Ya gotta let the bullets fly.
RESPONSE
Commala-come-ki!
Let the bullets fly!
Don’t ’ee mourn for me, my lads
When it comes my day to die.
STAVE
Sing your song, O sing it well,
The child has come to pass.
RESPONSE
Commala-come-kass,
The worst has come to pass.
The Tower trembles on its ground;
The child has come at last.
FINAL VERSE
Commala-come-come,
The battle’s now begun!
And all the foes of men and rose
Rise with the setting sun.
SUSANNAH’S DREAM VERSION
Susannah Dean hears this version of the Commala Song in her dream version of Central Park. (vii:724)
Rice be a green-o,
Seen what we seen-o,
Seen-o the green-o,
Come-come-commala!
Robin Furth was born and raised in Philadelphia and attended the University of Pennsylvania. While enrolled in the Ph.D. program at the University of Maine, she was introduced to Stephen King, who needed a research assistant. Her work with King as he completed the Dark Tower series produced the Dark Tower Concordance. Furth has since written the story lines for Marvel’s bestselling comic book spin-off series The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born. She divides her time between Maine, the south of England, and Mid-World.
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1. This was a demand of the story, but I’d be less than honest if I didn’t add that it also helps to foil the often troubling questions of copy editors such as those asked by Teddy Rosenbaum, who worked on the later volumes of the cycle.
2. The stories that made up the volume were issued in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, then edited by Ed Ferman.
3. Believe it or not, the copy of ’Salem’s Lot that I had as a teenager actually mentioned Thunderclap. I spent years wondering where that place was—it didn’t sound like any city in our world. I read the book several times as an adult and never saw this reference again. Recently I asked Steve whether he had deleted Thunderclap from later editions and he told me it was never there in the first place. But it should have been. How can I explain this weird occurrence? I can’t.
4. I:200
5. As Steve mentioned when he read this essay, he first began to articulate this idea in The Stand.
6. E:147
7. IV:302
8. For an explanation, see my timeline, listed in Appendix II.
9. The three companions are Eddie, Susannah, and Jake. Roland’s fourth companion is the billy-bumbler Oy. Although Oy doesn’t train to be a gunslinger, he is an important member of Roland’s ka-tet.
10. As Constant Readers will remember, in The Gunslinger, Roland allowed Jake to tumble into the abyss below the Cyclopean Mountains so that he could pursue the Man in Black. However, by the time he reaches the city of Lud in The Waste Lands, Roland puts his own life in danger to save Jake from the child-hungry gang of Grays.
11. The High Speech word khef means many different things, including water, birth, and life force. It implies all that is essential to existence. Khef is both individual and collective; it is the web that binds a ka-tet. Those who share khef share thoughts. Their destinies are linked, as are their life forces. Behind the multiple meanings of this term lies a philosophy of interconnectedness, a sense that all individuals, all events, are part of a greater pattern or plan. Our fates, for good or dis, are a result of both our own and our shared khef.
12. The Wolves steal one of every pair of prepubescent twins born in the Callas so that their masters in Thunderclap can extract the chemical that causes twin-telepathy. This chemical is then fed—in pill form—to the Breakers. (It increases their psychic abilities.) Unfortunately, once this chemical is removed from a child’s brain, the child is roont, or ruined.
13. As Constant Readers all know, on Keystone Earth, the Dark Tower takes the form of a magical wild rose.
14. Ka-shume is the price one pays for altering ka, or the course of destiny.
15. Unfortunately, many of the Breakers don’t appreciate this newfound freedom.
16. 1+3+9+6=19. Are you surprised?
17. As all CONSTANT READERS know, the Dark Tower books contain many references to political and cultural figures from our world. Unless these figures play a central part in the narrative, they have been relegated to Appendix VI.
* This line comes from the 1982 version of The Gunslinger. It was cut from the revised 2003 edition.
18. Ed Deepneau thinks that he is destroying the “baby-killing” pro-c
hoicers. However, he has been duped by the Crimson King into causing utter mayhem so that one four-year-old child will cease breathing.
19. In the novel Insomnia, two forces battle over the fate of the macroverse. These forces are the Random and the Purpose. Generally speaking, the Crimson King is aligned with the chaotic Random, while the White is aligned with the Purpose.
20. In some variations of the legend, Gan was said to rise from either the void or the sea.
21. Interestingly, in the novel It, the Turtle claims that he created the universe on a day he had a bellyache. Hence, all of the evils we experience are the result of trapped wind.
22. In The Gunslinger, Stephen King hints that the Good Man may be just another of Walter’s aliases. However, by the time we reach The Dark Tower, Walter tells us that this bit of information was a red herring. John Farson and Walter are separate beings. Farson was one of Walter’s many pawns.
23. NOTE ON MID-WORLD DIRECTIONS: In the original version of The Gunslinger, Roland follows WALTER (the MAN IN BLACK) due south through the MOHAINE DESERT and the CYCLOPEAN MOUNTAINS. In the 2003 edition of the book, Roland follows Walter southeast, both of them drawn toward the force of the BEAR-TURTLE BEAM. For a detailed account of how this alters MID-WORLD’s geography, see MID-WORLD MAPS located in Appendix VII of this Concordance.
* This line comes from the 1982 version of The Gunslinger. It was cut from the revised 2003 edition.
24. For The Drawing of the Three I only listed direct references to the Cyclopean Mountains. However, whenever action takes place on LOBSTROSITY BEACH, which borders the WESTERN SEA, these mountains are on the horizon.
25. For definitions of the terms Multiple Americas and Alternative Americas, see APPENDIX I, MID-WORLD DIALECTS. Also see the entry MULTIPLE AMERICAS, in this section of the Concordance.
26. Oxford English Reference Dictionary, 2nd ed., rev. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).
27. In the novel Desperation, Diablo Mining has its headquarters in a Quonset hut in the Nevada desert. The military experiment stations, where the superflu virus was developed in The Stand, were Quonset huts.
28. As readers of the Dark Tower series know, Mid-World was originally the name of an ancient kingdom, one that tried to preserve culture and knowledge during a great age of darkness. However, throughout the series Stephen King also uses Mid-World as a general term for Roland Deschain’s level of the Tower. I have followed this practice.