The Dark Tower

[jo]

[Stanley Anderson]

[jo]

[Theo]

I haven't read The Dark Tower myself, but there's a fairly extensive summary of it in David Downing's Planets in Peril: a critical study of C. S. Lewis' Ransom trilogy (highly recommended book, by the way). I'm not sure about diabolical (whatever that would mean in this case), but judging from Downing's summary it's very dark and pretty creepy, with a somewhat nightmarish quality. It seems like an interesting, though flawed, story. I'd like to read it if I got the chance.

[AslansGirl]

[Messenger_of_Eden]

I DO believe I did read it once way back in college, I grabbed a copy of "The Dark Tower and other Unfinished Tales" or somthing like that. It has been so long that I don't remember even a litttle about it, though I am sure it would come back to me--I do know that I read it once though....my copy was lost forever when, in storage with other of my favorite books (in SAFE PLASTIC CONTAINERS!!) rats overran the shed and chewed THROUGH the plastic storage bin and reduced ALL of my most cherished books (I had a pretty good collection of Lewis and other favorite writers) to PAPER DUST!! :cuss: Dratted RATS!!!! I lost Dream Thief (an early Stephen Lawhead book) too--but it was not one of his best....so I don't really mourn that one. I lost all of my Roger Elwood books, but I had long since realized that all his plots are the same and his theology is disturbingly skewed. So I did not mourn those either. but I lost all my favorite and cherished College textbooks, and all of my CS Lewis books. Alas.

I SHOULD go hunt down a new copy of DT. It would be worth it. . .what's it about again....? :/

[Pete]

I read it and found it extremely gripping - of course, considering it's not actually finished, it's a bit frustrating. I actually got so interested in it soon after reading it, that I sought on the forums to see if anyone had written a fan-fiction ending to it. I actually recieved a few. I think I've still got them in my yahoo email account - I'll check tomorrow, if you're at all interested in seeing them.

Ohh...I must say, I'm contemplating re-reading the trilogy (as well as DT) once I've finished HP&tSS

[jo]

Yeah I think I will reread THS soon..

[Biff]

[Marcus_P_Hagen]

[Stanley Anderson]

[Steve]

The thing that impressed me about Dark Tower was how the discussion of time being an area rather than just a line, fit right into the discussion of time and eternity that Sheldon Vanauken had with Lewis at the end of Severe Mercy, which has been part of my thinking ever since.

So this impressed me to think the fragment probably was by Lewis, and he never finished it because he ended up writing Perelandra and THS, which no longer left room for Dark Tower to happen in Ransom's life.

I can see some of the imagery can come across a bit creepy or even perverse, but I didn't think thats the only possible interpretation. Maybe another reason why Lewis never finished it, he understood the imagery could be badly interpreted.

[jo]

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

I just finished The Dark Tower and Other Stories by C.S Lewis.
While incomplete I found the title story an excellent read (quite original and very dark and haunting - like Charn in The Magician's Nephew). The other stories ranged from okay to very good. Ministering Angels had potential, but didn't really get anywhere and After Ten Years was okay (but I'm almost sick to death of anything pertaining to the Horse of Troy).
(Oh, and I do believe C.S. Lewis wrote it himself, despite nasty rumours saying otherwise).

Still a very good book. Your views?

[WolfVanZandt]

I can believe that Lewis wrote it (maybe not at his best) and, also, that he couldn't figure out how to end it and let it drop. It looks to me that he "wrote himself into a corner".

The story was a little too claustrophobic for me. It was dark and, after the young guy switched with the Stingerman, it never really went anywhere, and it was too Fruedian. That was actually the feeling I had with the whole collection from the newly seeing man that walked off the cliff, to the ugly women who wanted to give their bodies for the furtherence of science (as good time girls), and Menelaus trapped in his own little corner. It was all rather claustrophobic.