Bookworm finds qualms in reading sagas, series

All Things Literary

One of the books I reviewed for last week's column was "Wolves of the Calla" — the fifth tome in an already-completed, seven-series arc. The series chronicles a fictitious gunslinger's search across a decomposing fantasy landscape for a mysterious dark tower. The author of this series is none other than Stephen King, the writer who, back in middle school, helped usher me back to serious and substantive novels after a foray with comic books.

I've always said that I feel a debt toward King, whose writing in the past few years has not been nearly as captivating as it once was during the era of "Misery," "It" and "The Stand" — those particular King novels that can be both entertaining and effective, not merely genre literature, but, at times, literature with a capital "L." He is a writer whose words I will follow until the last page of his last work. Yet, I always have considered the Dark Tower series to be the least enjoyable of his reads.

This has to do less with my dissatisfaction at the series' story line and more to do with fictional sagas in general. Such sagas are those collected works that take a single resonant plot line, stretch it out through multiple volumes, and are suffused with subplots, characters and a mythological knowledge that seems to build upon itself with every passing chapter.

I don't recall ever completing a single saga in all my reading history and, because of my running debt to King, his horror/science-fiction/fantasy series will be the first and probably the last.

If I could pinpoint my phobia of such grand reading endeavors, it would be the sight of all those rows of paperback science-fiction and fantasy series at the bookstore or the library, each bearing similar cover designs and a number on the spine designating its position within the entire saga. When it comes to literature, I'm a deep-hearted pessimist. Therefore, when confronted by sagas, I don't think of the positive aspect of such reading — returning every year to a familiar landscape populated with familiar characters.

Instead, such reading proposes the chore of having to return loyally to a series over a year or even decades (the Dark Tower series began in the '70s and won't conclude until the fall of 2004). Yet, even if one wanted to stop reading a series, how could one, when the ending remains unknown? When one is already halfway through the saga, how can one simply close the latest chapter without knowing the tale's conclusion?

This is to say nothing of the numerous sequels and prequels that can emerge once the core series has finished its run. Aren't we not then obliged to read these as well?

So, like many others, I will be waiting for this summer when the next volume in the Dark Tower series will appear. Will I enjoy leaving random reading behind to return to a familiar terrain? OK, I guess a secret part of me will. Do I ultimately have a choice? Of course not, but sometimes we have to swallow our medicine if we know what's good for us.