Read Stephen King's the Dark Tower: The Complete Concordance Revised and Updated Online
Authors: Robin Furth
Stephen King's the Dark Tower: The Complete Concordance Revised and Updated (102 page)
Like the edible witch’s cottage in
Hansel and Gretel,
Sheemie’s Gingerbread House is made entirely of sweets. The walls are of green, yellow, and red candy. The stairs are chocolate; the banister is a candy cane. VII:266–302
(Ted Brautigan tells his story here)
TWIZZLER AVENUE:
Although it is impossible to step outside the Gingerbread House and onto this licorice-like street, you can see it from the Gingerbread House window. The cars that drive along Twizzler Avenue look suspiciously like bonbons. VII:267
GLASS PALACE
See
GREEN PALACE
GOLGOTHA, THE
Roland and the MAN IN BLACK (WALTER) hold palaver here in this ancient killing ground located on the western slopes of the CYCLOPEAN MOUNTAINS. To Roland, the golgotha is “the place of the skull.” Its floor is dusty with bonemeal and contains the skeletal remains of many small animals. It is here that Walter tells Roland’s fortune, and it is here that Roland experiences a ten-year-long night as well as a tremendous vision of the multiverse.
I:197–216, II:20, III:47
(indirect),
III:48, V:314, VI:284, VII:176–77
(indirect)
GREEN PALACE (GLASS PALACE)
This palace, which FANNIN/FLAGG maintains is in OZ, is actually located along the I-70 THINNY in the ALTERNATIVE TOPEKA, which Roland’s
ka-tet
travels through at the end of
Wizard and Glass.
R.F. probably created it as a kind of practical joke. Like the buildings of Oz’s Emerald City, it is entirely green.
The Green Palace’s gate is made of twelve colored bars (six on each gate wing). They represent the twelve bends of MAERLYN’S RAINBOW. The central bar (which is broad instead of flat and round) is dead black. All of the bars contain strange little life-forms. The Green Palace hums like a thinny, but the sound isn’t as unpleasant.
While here, our
tet
travels through MAERLYN’S GRAPEFRUIT back to GILEAD, where they witness Roland’s matricide. At the beginning of
Wolves of the Calla,
we find out that just before our
tet
arrived in the BORDERLANDS, a green palace appeared and then disappeared near the western branch of the RIVER WHYE. The novel
The Wind Through the Keyhole
begins just after Roland’s
tet
leaves the Green Palace.
IV:97
(in distance),
IV:103–5, IV:626, IV:632–51
(632 hums),
IV:659, IV:660, IV:662, IV:666, V:18, V:36, V:121, V:166, VI:290, VII:173
(Castle of Oz),
W:3, W:12, W:31
GREY HAVENS
In Tolkien’s
Lord of the Rings,
the Grey Havens was an Elvish port. According to STEPHEN KING, tired characters go to the Grey Havens to rest.
VII:817
HALL OF RESUMPTION
See
DARK TOWER
HAUNTED MANSION
HEAD, THE
See
DOGAN
: FEDIC DOGAN: CONTROL CENTER
HEARTBREAK HOUSE
See
DEVAR-TOI
HELL OF DARKNESS
This is where bad TAHEEN go after death, especially ones who have had their tails docked.
VII:224
HENRY GRAHAM’S DRUG STORE AND SODA FOUNTAIN
See
DEVAR-TOI
: PLEASANTVILLE
HIDDEN HIGHWAYS (HIGHWAYS IN HIDING, TODASH TURNPIKES, SECRET HIGHWAYS, DARKSIDE ROADS)
Although the DARK TOWER contains only one KEYSTONE EARTH and that Keystone Earth contains only one North America and one United States, other levels of the Tower also contain ALTERNATIVE AMERICAS, or alternative versions of North America and of the United States. These Alternative Americas are linked by hidden highways. Often, the hidden highways lead us to our destinies. JAKE CHAMBERS followed one of these from his apartment door to CO-OP CITY in BROOKLYN and then to the haunted DUTCH HILL MANSION. Each BEAM is also a kind of hidden highway.
The hidden highways are not just bridges between worlds. They are darkside roads where people can lose themselves, their memories, and their identities. To ordinary people, these roads are
dim,
or almost invisible, but to those in need of their slightly poisonous freedom, they are an escape route. After the death of his dear friend LUPE DELGADO in NEW YORK CITY, PERE CALLAHAN traveled these highways for five years. In
The Stand,
we find out that RANDALL FLAGG follows America’s hidden highways as well.
III:83, III:122, III:158, V:260, V:263–64, V:289, V:292–93, V:299
(and multiple Americas),
V:300–310
(302 and Rose),
V:444, V:461, V:543
HIGHWAYS IN HIDING
HOGAN HOUSE
See
DEVAR-TOI
JAKE’S DOOR
JAKE’S MIND-DOGAN
See
DOGAN
JERUSALEM’S LOT
See
MAINE (STATE OF)
: ALTERNATIVE AMERICAS AND THE STATE OF MAINE,
in
OUR WORLD PLACES
KANSAS
See
KANSAS (STATE OF)
,
in
OUR WORLD PLACES
KEYSTONE EARTH
KEYSTONE WORLDS
KEY WORLD, KEYSTONE EARTH, REAL WORLD:
The Keystone World is the version of Earth that STEPHEN KING inhabits and is the one in which he writes his books. (I assume it is also the world in which you and I read them.) Keystone Earth has many twinners—EDDIE DEAN and TED BRAUTIGAN both come from such parallel realities—but Keystone World is the only true version of Earth. On Keystone, time flows in one direction only, and what is done there can’t be undone. In other words (to quote Dorrance Marstellar, one of my favorite characters from the novel
Insomnia
), on Keystone, what’s “done-bun can’t be undone.”
Keystone Earth is the true twin of Roland’s world, which is also known as TOWER KEYSTONE. The
ka
of Keystone Earth is NINETEEN. VI:200, VI:270
(no do-overs),
VI:271
(only world that matters),
VII:121
(twin of Roland’s world),
VII:174
(indirect),
VII:242
(Keystone Earth),
VII:280
(Keystone Earth),
VII:300
(Real World),
VII:302–3, VII:304, VII:304, VII:307,
VII:339, VII:400
(Real World),
VII:405, VII:416, VII:488, VII:493, VII:511, VII:528, VII:627
(Stephen King’s world),
VII:728, VII:773, VII:807
TOWER KEYSTONE:
Tower Keystone is Roland’s world (MID-WORLD). It is the true twin of KEYSTONE EARTH. Tower Keystone takes its name from the DARK TOWER, which exists here in its true form, not disguised as a ROSE, as it is on Keystone Earth. The
ka
of Tower Keystone is NINETY-NINE. VII:121
(called key world),
VII:609, VII:773
KING’S CHILDHOOD BARN
The first time STEPHEN KING saw the CRIMSON KING, he was seven years old and sawing wood in his uncle and aunt’s barn. (He and his brother were on punishment duty because they had tried to run away.) This barn was also the site of our author’s first meeting with CUTHBERT ALLGOOD and EDDIE DEAN.
VI:292–93, VI:389
KING’S HOUSE IN LOVELL
See
DOORWAYS BETWEEN WORLDS
: CARA LAUGHS
KING’S WAY
See
DISCORDIA
KRA KAMMEN
See
DOORWAY CAVE
LAND OF DARKNESS
See
THUNDERCLAP
**LAND OF DEATH (LAND OF NINETEEN)
This is the place that the weed-eater NORT of TULL journeyed to. Unlike most people, he came back again. After the sorcerer WALTER raised Nort from the dead, he sealed Nort’s memories of the Land of Death behind an imaginary door, or blockade. This door could only be opened—and Nort’s memories released—by uttering the word NINETEEN. ALICE of TULL is the unlucky person who does so. What she learns drives her mad. The Land of NINETEEN is also the land of bizarre coincidences. Sometimes it seems to be the land of failed plans as well.
See
NINETEEN
,
in
CHARACTERS
V:169, VII:36
LAND OF THE DRUMS
The PUBES of LUD believe that they must sacrifice one of their own each time they hear the god-drums pounding out over the city’s loudspeakers. If they don’t give a life, the GHOSTS IN THE MACHINES will animate the city’s many corpses and rise up to eat the living. It is thought that once a Pube is sacrificed,
he or she journeys to the Land of the Drums. We can assume that the Land of the Drums isn’t a very nice place, since the Ghosts must be there, hungrily beating their instruments.
Although the Pubes don’t know it, the god-drums are actually no more than the backbeat of the ZZ Top song “Velcro Fly.” They are operated by the city’s rival gang, the GRAYS, with a little help from BLAINE the insane computer brain.
III:317
LAND OF UNDERTABLE
A strange kingdom of wet mud and scampering feet. It exists below the feast-laden table of MIA’s BANQUETING HALL. (Although Mia dreams she is in CASTLE DISCORDIA, in actuality Mia’s Banqueting Hall is nothing but a BOG.)
V:74
LE CASSE ROI RUSSE
LICORICE AVENUE
LITTLE SISTERS’ HOSPITAL
When Roland awakes in the Little Sisters’ Hospital he believes he is in a vast and airy pavilion of white silk, one hung with tiny silver bells. However, like the beauty of the LITTLE SISTERS OF ELURIA, the pavilion’s loveliness is no more than a
glammer.
In reality it is an old, fraying canvas tent so thin and worn in places that it lets in the light of the Kissing Moon.
E:158–99, E:200–201
LOS ZAPATOS
See
MEXICO
,
in
OUR WORLD PLACES
LOT, THE (VACANT LOT)
“The Lot” refers to the magical Vacant Lot, located on the corner of FORTY-SIXTH STREET and SECOND AVENUE in NEW YORK CITY. The Lot contains the magical singing ROSE, which is our world’s version of the DARK TOWER. It was also once the home of TOM AND JERRY’S ARTISTIC DELI. The Lot (also known as LOT #298, BLOCK #19, in MANHATTAN) is owned by CALVIN TOWER (also known as Calvin TOREN).
In 1977, SOMBRA REAL ESTATE (secret servants of the CRIMSON KING) approached Calvin Tower about buying the Lot. In fact, they paid him $100,000 for first right of sale. Luckily, their plans to buy the Lot and bulldoze the Rose are foiled by EDDIE DEAN, our
ka-mai,
whose brilliant flash of intuition leads him to spontaneously create the TET CORPORATION while palavering with Calvin Tower in the back room of his bookshop.
By 1999, the Lot is no longer vacant, but the site of 2 HAMMARSKJÖLD PLAZA, headquarters of Eddie’s spontaneously incorporated corporation. Tet,
whose major purpose is to protect the Rose, has done its job well. This most important flower still grows, and sings, in its original locale. The only difference is that the Rose now grows in an indoor garden called the GARDEN OF THE BEAM.
III:121–29, III:264, IV:83
(Jake’s vision of empty lot),
IV:100–101
(Eddie’s dream),
V:51, V:58
(Second Avenue and Forty-sixth),
V:66–67, V:68
(Lot #289, Block #19),
V:69
(indirect),
V:95, V:96, V:98, V:174, V:177, V:181, V:182–97, V:312, V:316, V:431, V:432
(hears Rose),
V:502, V:503, V:504, V:507, V:517, V:522, V:527, V:528, V:530, V:531, V:538–42
(Eddie and Tower discuss selling),
V:544–45, V:584, V:594, V:706, VI:35, VI:47, VI:56, VI:147, VI:171, VI:187, VI:189, VI:195–216
(and bill of sale),
VI:267, VI:270, VI:297, VII:26, VII:33, VII:36, VII:37, VII:122, VII:143, VII:487, VII:492, VII:495, VII:526, VII:756, VII:757
HAMMARSKJÖLD PLAZA (2 HAMMARSKJÖLD PLAZA, THE BLACK TOWER, HOUSE OF THE ROSE):
This tall black building was erected by the TET CORPORATION on what was once the Vacant Lot. It serves as Tet’s headquarters and is the home of the ROSE. VI:47, VI:50, VI:51, VI:53, VI:54–56, VI:89, VI:91–92, VI:257, VI:308, VI:315, VI:318, VII:487, VII:488, VII:489, VII:490–520
GARDEN OF THE BEAM:
When he visits 1999 NEW YORK, near the end of
The Dark Tower,
Roland sees this small garden shrine on the ground-floor lobby of 2 HAMMARSKJÖLD PLAZA. The Garden of the Beam is surrounded by ropes of wine-dark velvet. At its center, separate from the dwarf palm trees and Spathiphyllum plants which surround it, is the ROSE. In front of this garden is a small brass sign bearing the following dedication: “Given by the Tet Corporation, in honor of Edward Cantor Dean and John ‘Jake’ Chambers. Cam-a-cam-mal, Pria-toi, Gan delah” (“White over Red, thus Gan wills ever” or “God over evil, this is the will of God”). Before Eddie and Jake died, the plaque read, “Given by the Tet Corporation, in honor of the Beam family, and in memory of Gilead.” Like the Rose, this sign is magical. No matter what language a person speaks, the plaque translates itself so that its message can be understood. VII:491–95, VII:503–5, VII:520
TOM AND JERRY’S ARTISTIC DELI:
Before the Vacant Lot became vacant, it was the home of this deli. In JAKE’s
when,
Tom and Jerry’s has already been demolished. However, the magical ROSE grows in the Vacant Lot left behind. Tom and Jerry’s was run by TOMMY GRAHAM, though the ground landlord was CALVIN TOWER. III:52, III:77–78, III:79, III:119–20, III:123, III:177, III:262, III:264, IV:83
(Jake’s vision),
IV:100–101
(Eddie’s dream),
V:51, V:61
(deli),
V:99, V:266, VI:47, VI:297, VI:318
(indirect)