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So, here I am again. Non-spoiler comments, and then some further rambling beneath cut. (Note to Sean: there are no spoilers here to compare with those in my comments about The Gunslinger.)

I have had an awkward relationship with this book, and one that I'm glad is now settled by this re-reading. It came out in the period when I was in a not-yet-diagnosed autoimmune slump, the one that ended with my college career crashed and burned. I read it at the time, but as with so much from that year, can't remember any details from that reading. Over the decades I've re-read most of the books that happened to, but hadn't with this one. Now I have, and that's one more bit of old business laid to rest, and I am glad.

The ending of the book includes an early version of what I think of as the practical/compassionate style that King's been deepening for a while. It takes the sentiment that's implicit in what the characters say at the end of The Stand about humanity's prospects and fleshes it out some, and because I like it very much, I'm going to quote it and then dive beneath the cut tag.

Did they all live happily ever after?

They did not. No one ever does, in spite of what the stories may say. They had their good days, as you do, and they had their bad days, and you know about those. They had their victories, as you do, and they had their defeats, and you know about those, too. There were times when they felt ashamed of themselves, knowing they had not done their best, and there were times when they knew they had stood where their God meant them to stand. All I'm trying to say is that they lived as well as they could, each and every one of them; some lived longer than others, but all lived well, and bravely, and I loved them all, and am not ashamed of my love.

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Next up, The Drawing of the Three in parallel with The Stand and maybe The Regulators or Desperation.

Following others' discussion of relationships between the Dark Tower series and other books by King, I went from The Gunslinger to Bag of Bones. Spoilers may apply, so there's a cut tag.

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So! I finished up The Gunslinger and am about halfway through Bag of Bones, which I've never actually read before. There are going to be spoilers here, not for content (I don't think) but for structure. As a courtesy, there's a cut tag here, and you read on at your own risk, right?

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