“The Wind Through the Keyhole” Offers Seductive Déjà Vu of King’s Mid-World

“There’s nothing like stories on a windy night when folks have found a warm place in a cold world.”

“We are ka-tet. We are one from many. Be grateful for warmth, shelter, and companionship against the storm. Others may not be so lucky.”

“ ... the sound of the wind has always made me think of good times and far places.”

If you’re a Stephen King of any degree or ilk, you likely grew an Oy-sized tail at the news that King was rolling out another “Dark Tower” book. And while “The Wind Through the Keyhole” was a novella-length Dark Tower 4.5 that went by way too fast, it still opened up a lot of possibilities as to how King could bundle similar side-adventure-style stories within the epic series.

While “The Wind Through the Keyhole” managed well on its own merits, functioning on the story-within-a-story-within-a-story approach, it resonated most as an emotional reunion with old friends to faithful Dark Tower readers.

Some quick observations:

• Is the Covenant Man Randall Flagg (“‘Do you know his name?’“‘Nay, nor need to, for I know what he is—pestilence with a heartbeat.’”)?
• “Unspeakable Merriment” would be a great band name.
• Even as a notoriously slow/contemplative reader, I burned through this one in a little over a week.
• “‘What’s America?’ “‘A kingdom filled with toy-loving idiots.’”
• Mid-World is comprised of two sometimes-overlapping universes—much like “Fringe” in that respect.
• I assumed that spotting his father dead in the water was going to turn out to be just another mirage.
• “‘Look not long at what’s offered, for every precious thing has wings and may fly away.’”
• The theme of forgiveness resonating at the end could have led some to view “The Wind Through the Keyhole” as a bit of a morality tale, but I could argue that much of the series could be read that way.
• “It was not fair, it was not fair, it was not fair. So cried his child’s heart, and then his child’s heart died a little. For that is also the way of the world.”
• I don’t recall so many elements of Spanish being part of the low speech.
• Couldn’t help but think of Yann Martel’s “Life of Pi” when the issue of befriending a tiger arose.
• That wasn’t exactly what I thought Everlynne intended to “give” to Roland.
• I tried hard not to laugh when the ka-tet was holed up in Gook village. I’m not sure I succeeded.

Even after some 4,000 pages of the Dark Tower series, even this small morsel had me yearning for more. Will King yield to the masses and rattle off a handful of similar side tales to appease Faithful Reader? Time will tell, and as in King’s own words, “Time was a face on the water, and like the great river before them, it did nothing but flow.”

“At some point he slipped down their covering enough to see a trillion stars sprawled across the dome of the sky, more than he had ever seen in his life. It was as if the storm had blown tiny holes in the world about the world, and turned it into a sieve.”

“Time is a keyhole, he thought as he looked up at the stars. Yes, I think so. We sometimes bend and peer through it. And the wind we feel on our cheeks when we do—the wind that blows through the keyhole—is the breath of all the living universe.”

“In the end, the wind takes everything, doesn’t it? And why not? Why other? If the sweetness of our lives did not depart, there would be no sweetness at all.”