I was reading Stephen King's The Dark Tower wrong for years until book 7 hit me

Everybody raves about that ending but I finally realized around page 600 that King was actually telling a meta story about writing itself, not the gunslinger. The way he put himself into the plot as a character tipped me off, but I had to finish to get it. Has anyone else had a book train you to read it differently by the end?

2 comments

2 Comments

sean_martin447d ago

Wait, did you catch how he straight up warns you in the last book that he's gonna mess with the ending?

evan_harris146d ago

Damn, that's exactly it. King basically tells you straight out about the ending a hundred pages before it happens. He says something like "this is where you stop if you want a happy ending" and that whole speech trains you to read the rest like a confession, not a story. By the time the loop happens, you're not even surprised because he already showed you the trick.