The Long Walk - Stephen King (Written as Richard Bachman.
The long walk is an early story written by Stephen King
under the pseudonym Richard Bachman and is the second story in the collection
titled 'The Bachman books'.
It is a story set in what would seem to be some sort of
totalitarian world where young men volunteer to be a part of the long walk, a yearly
contest where the competitors must outlast all of their rivals to be the last
remaining contestant, in which case they will receive all their worldly desires
from the Major who seems to be the leader of this Dystopian modern day America,
which has an alternative version of history in which we are hinted at when it
mentions the Nazis bombing of the American mainland. . .and another thing I forgot.
Raymond Garranty is the main protagonist in the story who we
meet from the very beginning as the race starts, we begin to be introduced to
the other protagonists early on during the hour in which the contestants wait
to start and then throughout the story itself. He becomes friends with a couple of the
runners as they begin. The story slowly begins to introduce you to the
importance of the race itself without actually telling you anything about it
except that the whole country will be watching, and that it is an honour.
We feel the excitement of the competitors and all are
generally arrogant and confident as they begin, but as they realise how
difficult it is to keep a speed of more than 4 miles an hour until the very
end, regardless of injuries or interferences, then the confidence begins to
abandon them one by one.
I had read nothing about this book prior to reading it, and
was only reading it between books of The Dark Tower series to ensure I won't
get bored of them, so I wasn't too sure what to expect so when the first
competitor gets a 'Charlie horse' (which I guess is a cramp?) and receives
three tickets, one issued every 30 seconds, and falls behind before being shot
in the head with a carbine rifle, it was safe to say I had to reread the last
page just to confirm that it had happened so unexpectedly and heartlessly.
Of course, if people knew anything about the book then it wouldn’t
have come as much surprise, but I didn’t.
The second competitor is killed by the truck of army men
that follow alongside them, because he had blisters and could not continue. At
this point the audience and spectators began to grow, all there in hope to see
some volunteer competitor be gunned down.
I thought it was a rather brutal thing to happen and
reminded me of those prison movies where people race to death to try get out of
prison, all of it seems to be to please and honour the Major.
Then as I continued to read on as the runners dropped off,
some by trying to escape, some due to injuries and exhaustion, I began to see
that maybe there was some sort of satirical logic behind it. Even though it is
not real and is merely a story, I still continued to read because I began to
favour some characters more than others and began to actually want some of them
to be killed off in order for my preferred characters to continue and hopefully
win.
I thought that may be Stephen Kings message in the story?
But I found nothing on the internet regarding this theory, either way I feel
that the story itself had some sort of message despite not being well written
(Wow, I didn't think I'd ever hear myself say a Stephen King book is not well
written). I continued to read because I wanted my guy to win, and the rest to
die, and I guess that's what makes a good book in the end, it makes you want to
keep reading.
My guy didn't win, the seemingly disengaged hometown boy
Garraty won after Stebbins, the runner up, simply collapses dead for a reason
we are not told. It was a very sudden ending as the book finishes about a page
or two after while we read how Garraty finds the energy to just keep on
running.
I didn't want too much more of an ending, but I did want to
have some sort of thin closure, as in, was Garraty stopped and then was simply
held up after giving a brief struggle? cause surely they would have stopped him
running. That's all I needed.
Over all I think it was a good book which to me did hold
some sort of satirical message within, but at the same time I do believe that
it wasn't very well written in some places.
But hey, this is Stephen King and I'm merely a wannabe so
who am I to judge, that's just my opinion, but in my defence the book was
refused by publishing companies and was only released after Stephen King became
THE STEPHEN KING, and it was released under his pseudonym.
Yeah that's it, moral of the story is don't volunteer to an
event with 99 other people where anyone who doesn’t win gets their heads blown
off because you probably won't win.
